text: Given an undirected @math -node unweighted graph @math , a spanner with stretch function @math is a subgraph @math such that, if two nodes are at distance @math in @math , then they are at distance at most @math in @math . Spanners are very well studied in the literature. The typical goal is to construct the sparsest possible spanner for a given stretch function. In this paper we study pairwise spanners, where we require to approximate the @math - @math distance only for pairs @math in a given set @math . Such @math -spanners were studied before [Coppersmith,Elkin'05] only in the special case that @math is the identity function, i.e. distances between relevant pairs must be preserved exactly (a.k.a. pairwise preservers). Here we present pairwise spanners which are at the same time sparser than the best known preservers (on the same @math ) and of the best known spanners (with the same @math ). In more detail, for arbitrary @math , we show that there exists a @math -spanner of size @math with @math . Alternatively, for any @math , there exists a @math -spanner of size @math with @math . We also consider the relevant special case that there is a critical set of nodes @math , and we wish to approximate either the distances within nodes in @math or from nodes in @math to any other node. We show that there exists an @math -spanner of size @math with @math , and an @math -spanner of size @math with @math . All the mentioned pairwise spanners can be constructed in polynomial time.
  @cite_11: Let G = (V,E) be an undirected weighted graph with vVv = n and vEv = m. Let k ≥ 1 be an integer. We show that G = (V,E) can be preprocessed in O(kmn1 k) expected time, constructing a data structure of size O(kn1p1 k), such that any subsequent distance query can be answered, approximately, in O(k) time. The approximate distance returned is of stretch at most 2k−1, that is, the quotient obtained by dividing the estimated distance by the actual distance lies between 1 and 2k−1. A 1963 girth conjecture of Erdos, implies that Ω(n1p1 k) space is needed in the worst case for any real stretch strictly smaller than 2kp1. The space requirement of our algorithm is, therefore, essentially optimal. The most impressive feature of our data structure is its constant query time, hence the name "oracle". Previously, data structures that used only O(n1p1 k) space had a query time of Ω(n1 k).Our algorithms are extremely simple and easy to implement efficiently. They also provide faster constructions of sparse spanners of weighted graphs, and improved tree covers and distance labelings of weighted or unweighted graphs.
  @cite_14: This paper presents a family of memory-balanced routing schemes that use relatively short paths while storing relatively little routing information. The quality of the routes provided by a scheme is measured in terms of their stretch, namely, the maximum ratio between the length of a route connecting some pair of processors and their distance. The hierarchical schemes @math (for every integer @math ) presented in this paper guarantee a stretch factor of @math on the length of the routes and require storing at most @math bits of routing information per vertex in an n-processor network with diameter D. The schemes are name independent and applicable to general networks with arbitrary edge weights. This improves on previous designs whose stretch bound was exponential in k.The proposed schemes are based on a new efficient solution to a certain graph-theoretic problem concerning sparse graph covers. The new cover technique has already found several other a...
  @cite_4: The first sublinear average space universal compact routing schemes for directed networks are presented. For each integer k ≥ 1, they use O(k log n)size addresses; O(kn1 (k+1))-sized routing tables on average at each node; and achieve roundtrip routes of stretch at most 2k+1 - 1 in any (weighted) directed network. We also present universal compact roundtrip routing schemes with the stronger requirement that they use sublinear maximum space at every node. These schemes also use O(k log n) size addresses and achieve roundtrip routes of stretch at most 2k+ 1 -1 in any (weighted) directed network, and they bound the maximum sized table at each node by O(kn(3k+1) (2ċ3k)).
  @cite_8: The synchronizer is a simulation methodology introduced by Awerbuch [J. Assoc. Comput. Math., 32 (1985), pp. 804–823] for simulating a synchronous network by an asynchronous one, thus enabling the execution of a synchronous algorithm on an asynchronous network. In this paper a novel technique for constructing network synchronizers is presented. This technique is developed from some basic relationships between synchronizers and the structure of a t-spanning subgraph over the network. As a special result, a synchronizer for the hypercube with optimal time and communication complexities is obtained.
  @cite_21: 
  @cite_3: This paper introduces a near-linear time sequential algorithm for constructing a sparse neighborhood cover. This implies analogous improvements (from quadratic to near-linear time) for any problem whose solution relies on network decompositions, including small edge cuts in planar graphs, approximate shortest paths, and weight- and distance-preserving graph spanners. In particular, an O(log n) approximation to the k-shortest paths problem on an n-vertex, E-edge graph is obtained that runs in @math time.
  @cite_6: 
  @cite_0: 
  @cite_5: We present the first universal compact routing algorithm with maximum stretch bounded by 3 that uses sublinear space at every vertex. The algorithm uses local routing tables of size O(n2 3log4 3n) and achieves paths that are most 3 times the length of the shortest path distances for all nodes in an arbitrary weighted undirected network. This answers an open question of Gavoille and Gengler who showed that any universal compact routing algorithm with maximum stretch strictly less than 3 must use ?(n) local space at some vertex.
  @cite_16: 
  @cite_20: Let @math be a weighted undirected graph having nonnegative edge weights. An estimate @math of the actual distance @math between @math is said to be of stretch @math if and only if @math . Computing all-pairs small stretch distances efficiently (both in terms of time and space) is a well-studied problem in graph algorithms. We present a simple, novel, and generic scheme for all-pairs approximate shortest paths. Using this scheme and some new ideas and tools, we design faster algorithms for all-pairs @math -stretch distances for a whole range of stretch @math , and we also answer an open question posed by Thorup and Zwick in their seminal paper [J. ACM, 52 (2005), pp. 1-24].
  @cite_12: 
  @cite_17: We consider the problem of labeling the nodes of a graph in a way that will allow one to compute the distance between any two nodes directly from their labels (without using any additional information). Our main interest is in the minimal length of labels needed in different cases. We obtain upper bounds and (most importantly) lower bounds for several interesting families of graphs. In particular, our main results are the following: For general graphs, the length needed is Θ(n). For trees, the length needed is Θ(log2 n). For planar graphs, we show an upper bound of Ω(√n log n) and a lower bound of Ω(n1 3). For bounded degree graphs, we show a lower bound of Ω(√n). The upper bounds for planar graphs and for trees follow by a more general upper bound for graphs with a r(n)- separator. The two lower bounds, however, are obtained by two different arguments that may be interesting in their own right. We also show some lower bounds on the length of the labels, even if it is only required that distances be approximated to a multiplicative factor s. For example, we show that for general graphs the required length is O(n). We also consider the problem of the time complexity of the distance function once the labels are computed. We show that there are graphs with optimal labels of length 3 log n, such that if we use any labels with fewer than n bits per label, computing the distance function requires exponential time. A similar result is obtained for planar and bounded degree graphs.
summary: Graph spanners were introduced by Peleg and Schaffer @cite_0 in 1989. Spanners have been extensively studied since then, and there are numerous applications involving spanners, such as algorithms for approximate shortest paths @cite_3 @cite_12 @cite_16 , labeling schemes @cite_6 @cite_17 , approximate distance oracles @cite_21 @cite_11 @cite_20 , routing @cite_14 @cite_5 @cite_4 , and network design @cite_8 .