Abstract. Kernelization is a strong and widely-applied technique in parameterized complexity. In a nutshell, a kernelization algorithm, or simply a kernel, is a polynomial-time transformation that transforms any given parameterized instance to an equivalent instance of the same problem, with size and parameter bounded by a function of the parameter in the input. A kernel is polynomial if the size and parameter of the output are polynomially-bounded by the parameter of the input. In this paper we develop a framework which allows showing that a wide range of FPT problems do not have polynomial kernels. Our evidence relies on hypothesis made in the classical world (i.e. nonparametric complexity), and evolves around a new type of algorithm for classical decision problems, called a distillation algorithm, which might be of independent interest. Using the notion of distillation algorithms, we develop a generic lower-bound engine which allows us to show that a variety of FPT problems, fulfilling certain criteria, cannot have polynomial kernels unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses. These problems include k-Path, k-Cycle, k-Exact Cycle, k-Short Cheap Tour, k-Graph Minor Order Test, k-Cutwidth, k-Search Number, k-Pathwidth, k-Treewidth, k-Branchwidth, and several optimization problems parameterized by treewidth or cliquewidth. 1

We introduce a new framework for designing fixed-parameter algorithms with subexponential running time---2 . Our results apply to a broad family of graph problems, called bidimensional problems, which includes many domination and covering problems such as vertex cover, feedback vertex set, minimum maximal matching, dominating set, edge dominating set, clique-transversal set, and many others restricted to bounded genus graphs. Furthermore, it is fairly straightforward to prove that a problem is bidimensional. In particular, our framework includes as special cases all previously known problems to have such subexponential algorithms. Previously, these algorithms applied to planar graphs, single-crossing-minor-free graphs, and/or map graphs; we extend these results to apply to bounded-genus graphs as well. In a parallel development of combinatorial results, we establish an upper bound on the treewidth (or branchwidth) of a bounded-genus graph that excludes some planar graph H as a minor. This bound depends linearly on the size (H)| of the excluded graph H and the genus g(G) of the graph G, and applies and extends the graph-minors work of Robertson and Seymour. Building on these results...

We introduce the concept of locally excluded minors. Graph classes locally excluding a minor generalise the concept of excluded minor classes but also of graph classes with bounded local tree-width and graph classes with bounded expansion. We show that first-order model-checking is fixed-parameter tractable on any class of graphs locally excluding a minor. This strictly generalises analogous results by Flum and Grohe on excluded minor classes and Frick and Grohe on classes with bounded local tree-width. As an important consequence of the proof we obtain fixed-parameter algorithms for problems such as dominating or independent set on graph classes excluding a minor, where now the parameter is the size of the dominating set and the excluded minor. We also study graph classes with excluded minors, where the minor may grow slowly with the size of the graphs and show that again, firstorder model-checking is fixed-parameter tractable on any such class of graphs.

Abstract. Consistent Query Answering (CQA) is the problem of computing from a database the answers to a query that are consistent with respect to certain integrity constraints that the database, as a whole, may fail to satisfy. Consistent answers have been characterized as those that are invariant under certain minimal forms of restoration of the database consistency. In this paper we investigate algorithmic and complexity theoretic issues of CQA under database repairs that minimally depart-wrt the cardinality of the symmetric difference- from the original database. Research on this kind of repairs has been suggested in the literature, but no systematic study had been done. Here we obtain first tight complexity bounds. We also address, considering for the first time a dynamic scenario for CQA, the problem of incremental complexity of CQA, that naturally occurs when an originally consistent database becomes inconsistent after the execution of a sequence of update operations. Tight bounds on incremental complexity are provided for various semantics under denial constraints, e.g. (a) minimum tuple-based repairs wrt cardinality, (b) minimal tuple-based repairs wrt set inclusion, and (c) minimum numerical aggregation of attribute-based repairs. Fixed parameter tractability is also investigated in this dynamic context, where the size of the update sequence becomes the relevant parameter. 1

The OR-SAT problem asks, given Boolean formulae φ1,..., φm each of size at most n, whether at least one of the φi’s is satisfiable. We show that there is no reduction from OR-SAT to any set A where the length of the output is bounded by a polynomial in n, unless NP ⊆ coNP/poly, and the Polynomial-Time Hierarchy collapses. This result settles an open problem proposed by Bodlaender et. al. [4] and Harnik and Naor [15] and has a number of implications. • A number of parametric NP problems, including Satisfiability, Clique, Dominating Set and Integer Programming, are not instance compressible or polynomially kernelizable unless NP ⊆ coNP/poly. • Satisfiability does not have PCPs of size polynomial in the number of variables unless NP ⊆ coNP/poly. • An approach of Harnik and Naor to constructing collisionresistant hash functions from one-way functions is unlikely to be viable in its present form. • (Buhrman-Hitchcock) There are no subexponential-size hard sets for NP unless NP is in co-NP/poly. We also study probabilistic variants of compression, and show various results about and connections between these variants. To this end, we introduce a new strong derandomization hypothesis, the Oracle Derandomization Hypothesis, and discuss how it relates to traditional derandomization assumptions. Categories and Subject Descriptors

The fixed-parameter approach is an algorithm design technique for solving combinatorially hard (mostly NP-hard) problems. For some of these problems, it can lead to algorithms that are both efficient and yet at the same time guaranteed to find optimal solutions. Focusing on their application to solving NP-hard problems in practice, we survey three main techniques to develop fixed-parameter algorithms, namely: kernelization (data reduction with provable performance guarantee), depth-bounded search trees and a new technique called iterative compression. Our discussion is circumstantiated by several concrete case studies and provides pointers to various current challenges in the field.

We initiate the first systematic study of the NP-hard Cluster Vertex Deletion (CVD) problem (unweighted and weighted) in terms of fixed-parameter algorithmics. In the unweighted case, one searches for a minimum number of vertex deletions to transform a graph into a collection of disjoint cliques. The parameter is the number of vertex deletions. We present efficient fixed-parameter algorithms for CVD applying the fairly new iterative compression technique. Moreover, we study the variant of CVD where the maximum number of cliques to be generated is prespecified. Here, we exploit connections to fixed-parameter algorithms for (weighted) Vertex Cover.

We prove that given an undirected graph G on n vertices and an integer k, one can compute in polynomial time in n a graph G ′ with at most 5k 2 +k vertices and an integer k ′ such that G has a feedback vertex set of size at most k iff G ′ has a feedback vertex set of size at most k ′. This result improves a previous O(k 11) kernel of Burrage et al. [6], and a more recent cubic kernel of Bodlaender [3]. This problem was communicated by Fellows in [5]. 1

In parameterized complexity each problem instance comes with a parameter k and the parameterized problem is said to admit a polynomial kernel if there are polynomial time preprocessing rules that reduce the input instance down to an instance with size polynomial in k. Many problems have been shown to admit polynomial kernels, but it is only recently that a framework for showing the non-existence of polynomial kernels for specific problems has been developed by Bodlaender et al. [6] and Fortnow and Santhanam [15]. With few exceptions, all known kernelization lower bounds result have been obtained by directly applying this framework. In this paper we show how to combine these results with combinatorial reductions which use colors and IDs in order to prove kernelization lower bounds for a variety of basic problems. Below we give a summary of our main results. All our results are under the assumption that the polynomial hierarchy does not collapse to the third level. • We show that the Steiner Tree problem parameterized by the number of terminals and solution size, and the Connected Vertex Cover and Capacitated Vertex Cover problems do not admit a polynomial kernel. The two latter results are surprising because the closely related Vertex Cover problem admits a kernel of size 2k.

Besides the very successful concept of tree-width (see [Bodlaender, H. and Koster, A. (2007) Combinatorial optimisation on graphs of bounded treewidth. These are special issues on Parameterized Complexity]), many concepts and parameters measuring the similarity or dissimilarity of structures compared to trees have been born and studied over the past years. These concepts and parameters have proved to be useful tools in many applications, especially in the design of efficient algorithms. Our presented novel look at the contemporary developments of these ‘width ’ parameters in combinatorial structures delivers—besides traditional tree-width and derived dynamic programming schemes—also a number of other useful parameters like branch-width, rank-width (clique-width) or hypertree-width. In this contribution, we demonstrate how ‘width ’ parameters of graphs and generalized structures (such as matroids or hypergraphs), can be used to improve the design of parameterized algorithms and the structural analysis in other applications on an abstract level.