Fixed-Parameter Algorithms and Complexity (186.855)

This is a new course that is planned to be held blocked in January 2016 (12.1.-28.1.),

Course Topic

Fixed-parameter algorithms provide a powerful approach for efficiently solving many NP-hard problems by exploiting structural aspects of problem instances in terms of a problem parameter. This course provides an overview of the main techniques for developing fixed-parameter algorithms (including bounded search trees, kernelization, color coding, modulators) as well as the fundamentals of parameterized complexity theory (such as the Weft-hierarchy, XP and para-NP-hardness, kernelization lower bounds) which allows to provide strong evidence that certain problems cannot be solved by a fixed-parameter algorithm.

Prerequisites

This course assumes prior knowledge from the following courses:
Algorithmen und Datenstrukturen 1
Algorithmen und Datenstrukturen 2
Algorithmics

Lecturers

Prof. Stefan Szeider and Dr. Robert Ganian