Traveling Salesman Problem

1. A salesman wishes to start at one city, visit a number of other

cities, and end up back where he started. The cost of travel
between each pair of cities is given, and the task is to find the
cheapest route which visits all cities.
2. The brute force approach to solving this problem requires
checking 1×2×3×4×...×(n - 1) routes, where n is the number of
cities.
o Actually, this number could be cut in half by observing that each route has
the same length as its reverse, so we would need to check only one
direction around each route.
o The quantity 1×2×3×4×...×n is called "n factorial," and are denoted n!
o Question 1: Is it true that 6!×7! = 10!?
o The factorial numbers grow very fast. 1! = 1, 2! = 2, 5! = 120, 10! =
3628800, 20! = 2432902008176640000. This is why the brute force
approach is completely hopeless for more than 20 cities.
o Question 2: What is the number of routes that would need to be
checked by brute force on a map with 13 cities?
3. So we have some heuristic algorithms for solving this problem. These heuristic
methods run very fast (by computer...) on even several million cities, but they are
not guaranteed to give the optimal solution
o The "nearest neighbor" algorithm has you start at some city, and then at
each step go to the nearest city which has not yet been selected. When all
cities have been visited, return home.
o The "repeated nearest neighbor" algorithm has you run the nearest
neighbor algorithm from each possible starting point and then selecting the
cheapest one you find
o The "cheapest link" algorithm has you select at each step the cheapest
edge (connection) available, subject to the conditions of not creating a
vertex with 3 edges coming out of it, and not creating a premature cycle
(that is, a cycle which does not contain all the cities that need to be
visited).
o Question 3: Run the nearest neighbor algorithm on the graph shown
to the right, starting at vertex A
o Question 4: Run the cheapest link algorithm on the graph shown to
the right.
o Question 5: Can you find a shorter path than either of these two
algorithms give?
NP-Complete Problems

1. The traveling salesman problem is an example of an NP-complete problem

2. A problem is called NP-complete if:
o It is a yes/no question.
 So one typically rephrases the Traveling Salesman Problem in the
form: "Does this graph have a circuit of length less than 100?
o It is possible to quickly verify a given solution
o Any solution to the problem yields a quick solution to all problems which
have solutions that can be quickly verified
o We didn't talk about any of this in class, so I won't be testing you on
anything from item 2. here.
3. Other NP-Complete problems include:
o Can the vertices of a given graph be colored with 3 colors so that vertices
which are connected by an edge get different colors?
o Given a knapsack which can hold 100 ounces of loot and a list of items
with known weights and values, can a thief fit $1,000,000 worth of loot
into the knapsack?
o Minesweeper
4. NP-Complete problems have the following two characteristics:
o They are hard! All currently-known solutions to these problems are not a
lot better than the brute force method of trying all possibilities
o If you find a solution to one NP-complete problem, then you have a
solution to all other NP-complete problems as well.

Question 6: What is the least number of Question 7: What is the least number of colors required
colors required to color the vertices in the to color the vertices in the graph below, so that vertices
graph below, so that vertices which are which are connected by an edge get different colors?
connected by an edge get different colors?

o Question 8: What are two important ideas related to NP-complete

problems?
o Question 9: What is the Traveling Salesman Problem?
Greedy Algorithms

1. The Nearest Neighbor and Cheapest Link algorithms given above are examples of
greedy algorithms
2. A greedy algorithm is one which makes all decisions based on what sems best at
the time, without worrying about the future consequences of that choice.
3. Greedy algorithms tend to be fast
4. But greedy algorithms do not always find the best solution to a given problem
o For example, the nearest neighbor algorithm selects at each step the
cheapest available edge, but usually the route it gives is not the shortest
possible route.
5. One problem that greedy algorithms do solve optimally is the problem of finding
a minimum weight spanning tree in a graph, also called a cheapest connecting
network for that graph.
o That is, given a graph with costs on the edges of that graph, you want to
find the cheapest set of edges which connects all the vertices (nodes, sites)
in that graph.
o The greedy algorithm for this problem says to select at each step the
cheapest edge available such that you don't create a cycle within the edges
you have chosen.
o Question 10: Use the greedy algorithm described above to find a
minimum weight spanning tree in the graph shown above. Indicate
the order in which your algorithm selected the edges to put into your
minimum weight spanning tree.

Deterministic Finite Automata (DFA's)

1. Also called "Finite State Machines."

2. A DFA consists of:
o Some collection of states
 A state is drawn as a circle in our diagrams
 There must be one start state, indicated in the diagram with an
arrow into it coming from nowhere
 And there can be any number of accept states, indicated by a
double-circle
o Transitions between those states
 A transition is drawn as an arrow from one state to another.
 There must be exactly two transitions out of each state (including
the start and accept states), a transition for "0" and a transition for
"1".
 A transition can loop back to the state it came from, and an arrow
(or loop) may have more than one label on it.
 3. These are "machines" which process an input string and move from state to state
as they process the string.
o The machine begins computation in the start state
o The machine then reads an input string one symbol at a time, and
transitions according to the symbol that it reads.
o Computation stops when the end of the string is reached. If the DFA is in
an accept state at that point, then the string is considered accepted by the
machine. Otherwise the string is considered rejected.
4. A string is a sequence of symbols.
o In this class, all of our symbols are the binary digits "0" and "1".
5. A language is a set of strings, and the language of a DFA is the set of strings that
the DFA accepts.
o The language of the DFA shown above is {11, 110, 111, 1100, 1101,
1110, 1111, 11000, ...}, that is, the set of strings which begin with "11".
o Also, in the DFA above, computation on any string which starts with "00"
will end in the lower-right state.
6. Some more examples:

he language of the DFA to the right is:

{011, 0011, 1011, 00011, 01011, 10011, 11011, ...},
That is, the set of all strings which end in "011".

The language of the DFA to the right is:

{0, 1, 01, 10, 010, 101, 0101, 1010, ...}.
That is, the set of all strings which have no two
consecutive symbols the same

This DFA, taken from the website:

http://www.netaxs.com/people/nerp/automata/dfa1.gif
accepts all strings which contain an even number of 0s
and an even number of 1s.
This DFA accepts the language:
{0, 1, 00, 01, 10, 11, 000, 001, 010, 100, 101, 110,
111, 0000, 0001, ...},
That is, the set of all strings which do not contain
"011" as a substring.

This DFA accepts the language:

{0, 1, 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, 111, 00000,
00001, 00010, 00011, 00100, ...},
That is, the set of strings with an odd number of
symbols.
Question 11: What is the language of the DFA
shown to the right?

Question 12: What is the language of the DFA

shown to the right?

o Question 13: Construct a DFA which accepts a string if and only if it

starts with "1" and ends with "00".
o Question 14: Construct a DFA which accepts a string if and only if its
second symbol is a "1", such as {01, 11, 010, 011, 110, 111, ...}

Turing Machines

1. A Turing machine is a DFA with an attached tape from which it reads its input,
and onto which it can write
2. Turing machines are capable of implementing all algorithms which could be
programmed into a computer
3. However, we can prove that there are some tasks which a Turing machine cannot
perform
o Such as recognizing whether the program on its tape would ever print an
"x"
o Such as recognizing whether the program on its tape has an infinite loop
or not. This problem is called the "Halting problem."
4. A Turing machine is a simple model of computation. As such, we can prove
statements about what is or is not possible on a computer by proving that a Turing
machine can or cannot do it.
5. Question 15: What is the Halting problem
6. Question 16: Is it possible to write a computer program which reads another
program as input and determines whether that program has an infinite loop
or not?