20CA102

Data Structures and Algorithms

UNIT V

BACK TRACKING AND BRANCH

AND BOUND
 Divide and Conquer
Backtracking and branch-and-bound—
often make it possible to solve at least
some large instances of difficult
combinatorial problems.

Both strategies can be considered an

improvement over exhaustive search
 State Space Trees
 Both backtracking and branch-and-bound
are based on the construction of a state-
space tree whose nodes reflect specific
choices made for a solution’s components.

 Both techniques terminate a node as soon

as it can be guaranteed that no solution to
the problem can be obtained by
considering choices that correspond to the
node’s descendants.
 State Space Trees
 Its root represents an initial state before the
search for a solution begins. The nodes of the
first level in the tree represent the choices made
for the first component of a solution.
 The nodes of the second level represent the
choices for the second component, and so on.
– A node in a state-space tree is said to be promising
if it correspond to a partially constructed solution
that may still lead to a complete solution;
otherwise, it is called non-promising
 Backtracking
 Both backtracking and branch-and-bound
are based on the construction of a state-
space tree whose nodes reflect specific
choices made for a solution’s components.

 Both techniques terminate a node as soon

as it can be guaranteed that no solution to
the problem can be obtained by
considering choices that correspond to the
node’s descendants.
 Backtracking
 The principal idea is to construct solutions
one component at a time and evaluate such
partially constructed candidates as follows.
– If a partially constructed solution can be developed
further without violating the problem’s constraints, it is
done by taking the first remaining legitimate option for
the next component.
– If there is no legitimate option for the next component,
no alternatives for any remaining component need to be
considered. In this case, the algorithm backtracks to
replace the last component of the partially constructed
solution with its next option
N-Queens Problem
 Hamiltonian Circuit Problem
A Hamiltonian circuit is a circuit that visits
every vertex once with no repeats.
Being a circuit, it must start and end at
the same vertex.
A Hamiltonian path also visits every
vertex once with no repeats, but does not
have to start and end at the same vertex
Hamiltonian Circuit Problem
Hamiltonian Circuit Problem
 Subset-Sum Problem
• find a subset of a given set A = {a1, . . . ,
an} of n positive integers whose sum is
equal to a given positive integer d.
• For example, for A = {1, 2, 5, 6, 8} and d =
9, there are two solutions:
• {1, 2, 6} and {1, 8}.
• Of course, some instances of this problem
may have no solutions.
Subset-Sum Problem
 Branch-and-Bound
• Branch and Bound is used to solve
optimization problems.
• An optimization problem seeks to minimize or
maximize some objective function
• (a tour length, the value of items selected, the
cost of an assignment, and the like), usually
subject to some constraints
 Feasible Solution

• A Feasible solution is a point in the problem’s

search space that satisfies all the problem’s
constraints.

• An optimal solution is a feasible solution with

the best value of the objective function
Back Tracking and Branch and Bound

• Compared to backtracking, branch-and-bound

requires two additional items:
– A way to provide, for every node of a state-
space tree, a bound on the best value of the
objective function on any solution that can
be obtained by adding further components
to the partially constructed solution
represented by the node
– The value of the best solution seen so far
 Terminating Search path
• In general, we terminate a search path at the
current node in a state-spacetree of a branch-
and-bound algorithm for any one of the following
three reasons:
– The value of the node’s bound is not better than the
value of the best solution seen so far.
– The node represents no feasible solutions because the
constraints of the problem are already violated.
– The subset of feasible solutions represented by the
node consists of a single point (and hence no further
choices can be made)—in this case, we compare the
value of the objective function for this feasible solution
with that of the best solution seen so far and update
the latter with the former if the new solution is better.
 Assignment Problem
• An assignment problem is specified by an n × n
cost matrix C
• We can state the problem as follows:
– Select one element in each row of the matrix so that
no two selected elements are in the same column
and their sum is the smallest possible
Assignment Problem
Assignment Problem
Assignment Problem
Assignment Problem
 Knapsack Problem
• Given n items of known weights wi
and values vi , i = 1, 2, . . . , n,
• And a knapsack of capacity W, find
the most valuable subset of the
items that fit in the knapsack
 Ordering of Items
•Arrange the given instance in descending
order by their value-to-weight ratios.

•Then the first item gives the best payoff

per weight unit and the last one gives the
worst payoff per weight unit, with ties
resolved arbitrarily
 State Space Trees
• Each node on the ith level of this tree, 0 ≤ i
≤ n, represents all the subsets of n items
that include a particular selection made
from the first i ordered items.

• This particular selection is uniquely

determined by the path from the root to the
node:
• a branch going to the left indicates the
inclusion of the next item, and a branch
going to the right indicates its exclusion.
 State Space Trees
• A simple way to compute the upper
bound ub is to add to v, the total value
of the items already selected.
• The product of the remaining capacity
of the knapsack W − w and the best per
unit payoff among the remaining items,
which is
Example
 Traveling Salesman Problem
• Apply the branch-and-bound technique
to instances of the traveling salesman
problem if we come up with a
reasonable lower bound on tour
lengths.
 Traveling Salesman Problem
• We can compute a lower bound on the
length l of any tour as follows.
• For each city i, 1≤ i ≤ n, find the sum si
of the distances from city i to the two
nearest cities;
• compute the sum s of these n numbers,
divide the result by 2, and, if all the
distances are integers, round up the
result to the nearest integer:
Traveling Salesman Problem
Traveling Salesman Problem
Traveling Salesman Problem
Traveling Salesman Problem
 Approximation Algorithms
• Their optimization versions fall in the class of
NP-hard problems.
• Problems that are at least as hard as NP-
complete problems.
Nearest-neighbor algorithm
Example
 Optimal Solution
• The optimal solution, as can be easily checked
by exhaustive search, is the tour

• s∗: a − b − d − c − a of length 8.

• Thus, the accuracy ratio of this approximation

is
 Accuracy of Approximation

Tour sa is 25% longer than the optimal tour s∗

Approximation Algorithms for the
Knapsack Problem
Example
Example
 Solution
• The greedy algorithm will select the first item
of weight 4,
• skip the next item of weight 7,
• select the next item of weight 5,
• skip the last item of weight 3.
• The solution obtained happens to be optimal
for this instance