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“Almost stable” matchings in the Roommates problem. David Abraham Computer Science Department Carnegie-Mellon University, USA Péter Biró Department of Computer Science and Information Theory Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary
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“Almost stable” matchings in the Roommates problem David Abraham Computer Science Department Carnegie-Mellon University, USA Péter Biró Department of Computer Science and Information Theory Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary David ManloveDepartment of Computing ScienceUniversity of Glasgow, UK Supported by EPSRC grant GR/R84597/01,RSE / Scottish Exec Personal Research Fellowship
Stable Roommates Problem (SR) • D Gale and L Shapley, “College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage”, American Mathematical Monthly, 1962 • Input:2nagents; each agent ranks all2n-1other agents in • strict order • Output:astable matching • Amatching is a set ofndisjoint pairs of agents • Ablocking pairof a matchingMis a pair of agents{p,q}Msuch that: • pprefersqto his partner inM, and • qpreferspto his partner inM • A matching isstableif it admits no blocking pair
Example SR Instance (1) Example SR instanceI1:1: 3 2 4 2: 4 3 1 3: 2 1 4 4: 1 3 2
The matching is not stable as {1,3} blocks. Stable matching inI1:1: 3 2 4 2: 4 3 1 3: 2 1 4 4: 1 3 2 Example SR Instance (1) Example SR instanceI1:1: 3 2 4 2: 4 3 1 3: 2 1 4 4: 1 3 2
Example SR Instance (2) Example SR instanceI2:1: 2 3 4 2: 3 1 4 3: 1 2 4 4: 1 2 3
1: 2 3 4 2: 3 1 4 3: 1 2 4 4: 1 2 3 1: 2 3 4 2: 3 1 4 3: 1 2 4 4: 1 2 3 Example SR Instance (2) Example SR instanceI2:1: 2 3 4 2: 3 1 4 3: 1 2 4 4: 1 2 3 The three matchings containing the pairs {1,2}, {1,3}, {1,4} are blocked by the pairs {2,3}, {1,2}, {1,3} respectively. instance I2 has no stable matching.
Application: kidney exchange d1 d2 p2 p1
Application: kidney exchange d1 d2 A. Roth, T. Sönmez, U. Ünver, Pairwise Kidney Exchange, Journal of Economic Theory, to appear p2 p1
(d1 , p1) (d2 , p2) Application: kidney exchange d1 d2 A. Roth, T. Sönmez, U. Ünver, Pairwise Kidney Exchange, Journal of Economic Theory, to appear p2 p1 • Create a vertex for each donor- patient pair • Edges represent compatibility • Preference lists can take into • account degrees of compatibility
Efficient algorithm for SR • Knuth (1976): is there an efficient algorithm for deciding whether there exists a stable matching, given an instance of SR? • Irving (1985):“An efficient algorithm for the ‘Stable Roommates’ Problem”, Journal of Algorithms, 6:577-595 • given an instanceof SR, decides whether a stable matching exists; • if so, finds one • Algorithm is in two phases • Phase 1: similar to GS algorithm for the Stable Marriage problem • Phase 2: elimination of “rotations”
Empirical results Experiments based on taking average of s1,s2,s3 where sjis number of soluble instances among 10,000randomly generated instances, each of given size 2n Results due to Colin Sng % soluble Instance size
Coping with insoluble SR instances • Coalition formation games • Partition agents into sets of size 1 • Notions of B-preferences / W-preferences • Cechlárová and Hajduková, 1999 • Cechlárová and Romero-Medina, 2001 • Cechlárová and Hajduková, 2002 • Stable partition • Every SR instance admits such a structure • Tan 1991 (Journal of Algorithms) • Can be used to find a maximum matching such that the matched pairs are stable within themselves • Tan 1991 (International Journal of Computer Mathematics) • Matching with the fewest number of blocking pairs
1: 2 3 5 6 4 2: 3 1 6 4 5 3: 1 2 4 5 6 4: 5 6 2 3 1 5: 6 4 3 1 2 6: 4 5 1 2 3 |bp(M2)|=12 |bp(M1)|=2 1: 2 3 5 6 4 2: 3 1 6 4 5 3: 1 2 4 5 6 4: 5 6 2 3 1 5: 6 4 3 1 2 6: 4 5 1 2 3 “Almost stable” matchings 1: 2 3 5 6 4 2: 3 1 6 4 5 3: 1 2 4 5 6 4: 5 6 2 3 1 5: 6 4 3 1 2 6: 4 5 1 2 3 • The following instanceI3of SR is insoluble • Stable partition {1,2,3, 4,5,6} • Letbp(M)denote the set of blocking pairs of matchingM
Hardness results for SR • Let Ibe an SR instance • Define bp(I)=min{|bp(M)|: M is a matching in I} • Define MIN-BP-SR to be problem of computing bp(I), given an SR instance I • Theorem 1:MIN-BP-SR is not approximable within n½-, for any > 0, unless P=NP • Define EXACT-BP-SR to be problem of deciding whether I admits a matching M such that |bp(M)|=K, given an integer K • Theorem 2:EXACT-BP-SR is NP-complete
Outline of the proof • Using a “gap introducing” reduction from EXACT-MM • Given a cubic graph G=(V,E) and an integer K, decide whether G admits a maximal matching of size K • EXACT-MM is NP-complete, by transformation from MIN-MM (Minimization version), which is NP-complete for cubic graphs • Horton and Kilakos, 1993 • Create an instance I of SR with n agents • If G admits a maximal matching of size K then I admits a matching with p blocking pairs, where p=|V| • If G admits no maximal matching of size K, then bp(I) > pn½-
Preference lists with ties • Let I be an instance of SR with ties • Problem of deciding whether I admits a stable matching is NP-complete • Ronn, Journal of Algorithms, 1990 • Irving and Manlove, Journal of Algorithms, 2002 • Can define MIN-BP-SRT analogously to MIN-BP-SR • Theorem 3:MIN-BP-SRT is not approximable within n1-, for any > 0, unless P=NP, even if each tie has length 2 and there is at most one tie per list • Define EXACT-BP-SRTanalogously to EXACT-BP-SR • Theorem 4:EXACT-BP-SRT is NP-complete for each fixed K 0
Polynomial-time algorithm • Theorem 5: EXACT-BP-SR is solvable in polynomial time if K is fixed • Algorithm also works for possibly incomplete preference lists • Given an SR instance I where m is the total length of the preference lists, O(mK+1)algorithm finds a matching M where |bp(M)|=K or reports that none exists • Idea: • For each subset B of agent pairs {ai, aj} where |B|=K • Try to construct a matching M in I such that bp(M)=B • Step 1: O(mK) subsets to consider • Step 2: O(m) time
Outline of the algorithm • Let {ai, aj}B where |B|=K • Preference list ofai : … … ak … … aj … … • If {ai, aj}bp(M) then {ai, ak}M • Delete {ai, ak} but must not introduce new blocking pairs • Preference list ofak : … … ai … … aj … … • If {ai, ak} Bthen {aj, ak}M • Delete {ak, aj}and markak • Check whether there is a stable matching M in reduced SR instance such that all marked agents are matched in M
Interpolation of |bp(M)| • Clearly|bp(M)|½(2n)(2n-2)=2n(n-1) • Is |bp(M)| an interpolating invariant? That is, given an SR instance I, if I admits matchings M1, M2 such that |bp(M1) |=k and |bp(M2)|=k+2, is there a matching M3in I such that |bp(M3)|=k+1 ? • Not in general! 1: 2 3 5 6 4 2: 3 1 6 4 5 3: 1 2 4 5 6 4: 5 6 2 3 1 5: 6 4 3 1 2 6: 4 5 1 2 3 • Instance I3 admits 15 matchings: • 9 admit 2 blocking pairs • 2 admit 6 blocking pairs • 3 admit 8 blocking pairs • 1 admits 12 blocking pairs
Open problems • Is there an approximation algorithm for MIN-BP-SR that has performance guarantee o(n2)? • Trivial upper bound is 2n(n-1) • Determine values of kn and obtain a characterisation of In such that In is an SR instance with 2n agents in which bp(In)=kn and kn = max{bp(I) : I is an SR instance with 2n agents}