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Structural and behavioral parameters of many real networks such as social networks are unpredictable, uncertain, and have time-varying parameters, and for these reasons, deterministic graphs for modeling such networks are too restrictive to solve most of the real-network problems. It seems that stochastic graphs, in which weights associated to the vertices are random variables, might be better graph models for real-world networks. Once we use a stochastic graph as the model for a network, every feature of the graph such as path, spanning tree, clique, dominating set, and cover set should be treated as a stochastic feature. For example, choosing a stochastic graph as a graph model of an online social network and defining community structure in terms of clique, the concept of a stochastic clique may be used to study community structures’ properties or define spreading of influence according to the coverage of influential users; the concept of stochastic vertex covering may be used to study spread of influence. In this article, minimum vertex covering in stochastic graphs is first defined, and then four learning, automata-based algorithms are proposed for solving a minimum vertex-covering problem in stochastic graphs where the probability distribution functions of the weights associated with the vertices of the graph are unknown. It is shown that through a proper choice of the parameters of the proposed algorithms, one can make the probability of finding minimum vertex cover in a stochastic graph as close to unity as possible. Experimental results on synthetic stochastic graphs reveal that at a certain confidence level the proposed algorithms significantly outperform the standard sampling method in terms of the number of samples needed to be taken from the vertices of the stochastic graph. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a learning automata-based algorithm is proposed for approximating a near optimal solution to the bounded diameter minimum spanning tree (BDMST) problem in stochastic graphs. A stochastic graph is a graph in which the weight associated with each edge is a random variable. Stochastic BDMST problem seeks for finding the BDMST in a stochastic graph. To the best of our knowledge, no work has been done on solving the stochastic BDMST problem, where the weight associated with the graph edge is random variable. In this study, we assume that the probability distribution of the edges random weight is unknown a priori. This makes the stochastic BDMST problem incredibly hard-to-solve. To show the efficiency of the proposed algorithm, its results are compared with those of the standard sampling method (SSM). Numerical results show the superiority of the proposed sampling algorithm over the SSM both in terms of the sampling rate and convergence rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decades, a host of efficient algorithms have been developed for solving the minimum spanning tree problem in deterministic graphs, where the weight associated with the graph edges is assumed to be fixed. Though it is clear that the edge weight varies with time in realistic applications and such an assumption is wrong, finding the minimum spanning tree of a stochastic graph has not received the attention it merits. This is due to the fact that the minimum spanning tree problem becomes incredibly hard to solve when the edge weight is assumed to be a random variable. This becomes more difficult if we assume that the probability distribution function of the edge weight is unknown. In this paper, we propose a learning automata-based heuristic algorithm to solve the minimum spanning tree problem in stochastic graphs wherein the probability distribution function of the edge weight is unknown. The proposed algorithm taking advantage of learning automata determines the edges that must be sampled at each stage. As the presented algorithm proceeds, the sampling process is concentrated on the edges that constitute the spanning tree with the minimum expected weight. The proposed learning automata-based sampling method decreases the number of samples that need to be taken from the graph by reducing the rate of unnecessary samples. Experimental results show the superiority of the proposed algorithm over the well-known existing methods both in terms of the number of samples and the running time of algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Due to the hardness of solving the minimum spanning tree (MST) problem in stochastic environments, the stochastic MST (SMST) problem has not received the attention it merits, specifically when the probability distribution function (PDF) of the edge weight is not a priori known. In this paper, we first propose a learning automata-based sampling algorithm (Algorithm 1) to solve the MST problem in stochastic graphs where the PDF of the edge weight is assumed to be unknown. At each stage of the proposed algorithm, a set of learning automata is randomly activated and determines the graph edges that must be sampled in that stage. As the proposed algorithm proceeds, the sampling process focuses on the spanning tree with the minimum expected weight. Therefore, the proposed sampling method is capable of decreasing the rate of unnecessary samplings and shortening the time required for finding the SMST. The convergence of this algorithm is theoretically proved and it is shown that by a proper choice of the learning rate the spanning tree with the minimum expected weight can be found with a probability close enough to unity. Numerical results show that Algorithm 1 outperforms the standard sampling method. Selecting a proper learning rate is the most challenging issue in learning automata theory by which a good trade off can be achieved between the cost and efficiency of algorithm. To improve the efficiency (i.e., the convergence speed and convergence rate) of Algorithm 1, we also propose four methods to adjust the learning rate in Algorithm 1 and the resultant algorithms are called as Algorithm 2 through Algorithm 5. In these algorithms, the probabilistic distribution parameters of the edge weight are taken into consideration for adjusting the learning rate. Simulation experiments show the superiority of Algorithm 5 over the others. To show the efficiency of Algorithm 5, its results are compared with those of the multiple edge sensitivity method (MESM). The obtained results show that Algorithm 5 performs better than MESM both in terms of the running time and sampling rate. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A weakly connected dominating set (WCDS) of graph G is a subset of G so that the vertex set of the given subset and all vertices with at least one endpoint in the subset induce a connected sub-graph of G. The minimum WCDS (MWCDS) problem is known to be NP-hard, and several approximation algorithms have been proposed for solving MWCDS in deterministic graphs. However, to the best of our knowledge no work has been done on finding the WCDS in stochastic graphs. In this paper, a definition of the MWCDS problem in a stochastic graph is first presented and then several learning automata-based algorithms are proposed for solving the stochastic MWCDS problem where the probability distribution function of the weight associated with the graph vertices is unknown. The proposed algorithms significantly reduce the number of samples needs to be taken from the vertices of the stochastic graph. It is shown that by a proper choice of the parameters of the proposed algorithms, the probability of finding the MWCDS is as close to unity as possible. Experimental results show the major superiority of the proposed algorithms over the standard sampling method in terms of the sampling rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]