Design and Analysis of Algorithms

Dr. Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed Ali

University of Khartoum
Faculty of Mathematical Sciences

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 Brute Force
• Science is as far removed from brute force as this sword from
a crowbar.
—Edward Lytton (1803–1873), Leila, Book II, Chapter I

• Doing a thing well is often a waste of time.

—Robert Byrne, a master pool and billiards player and a writer

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 Brute Force
A straightforward approach usually based on problem statement and defi-
nitions
Examples:
1. Computing an (a > 0, n a nonnegative integer)

2.Computing n!

3. Multiply two n by n matrices

4.Selection sort

5.Sequential search

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 Selection Sort and Bubble Sort
• Selection Sort

– Efficiency?
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 Selection Sort and Bubble Sort
• Bubble Sort

– Efficiency?
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 Sequential Search
• Sequential Search

– Efficiency?
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 String Matching
• pattern: a string of m characters to search for
• text: a (long) string of n characters to search in

• Brute force algorithm:

1. Align pattern at beginning of text
2. moving from left to right, compare each character of pattern to the corresponding character
in text until
• all characters are found to match (successful search); or
• a mismatch is detected
3. while pattern is not found and the text is not yet exhausted, realign pattern one position to
the right and repeat step 2.

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 String Matching

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 Brute Force String Matching – Examples:
• Pattern: 001011
• Text: 10010101101001100101111010

• Pattern: happy
• Text: It is never too late to have a happy childhood.

Number of comparisons?

Efficiency?

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 Brute Force Strengths and Weaknesses
• Strengths:
– wide applicability
– simplicity
– yields reasonable algorithms for some important problems
• searching
• string matching
• matrix multiplication
– yields standard algorithms for simple computational tasks
• sum/product of n numbers
• finding max/min in a list
• Weaknesses:
– rarely yields efficient algorithms
– some brute force algorithms unacceptably slow
– not as constructive/creative as some other design techniques

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 Exhaustive Search
• A brute force solution to a problem involving search for an element with a special
property, usually among combinatorial objects such a permutations, combina-
tions, or subsets of a set.

• Method:
– construct a way of listing all potential solutions to the problem in a systematic
manner
• all solutions are eventually listed
• no solution is repeated
– Evaluate solutions one by one, perhaps disqualifying infeasible ones and keep-
ing track of the best one found so far
– When search ends, announce the winner

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 Example 1: Traveling Salesman Problem

• Given n cities with known distances between each pair, find the shortest tour that
passes through all the cities exactly once before returning to the starting city.
• Alternatively: Find shortest Hamiltonian circuit in a weighted connected graph.
• Example:
2
a b
3
8 4
5

c 7 d

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 Traveling Salesman by Exhaustive Search

• Tour Cost .
• a→b→c→d→a 2+3+7+5 = 17
• a→b→d→c→a 2+4+7+8 = 21
• a→c→b→d→a 8+3+4+5 = 20
• a→c→d→b→a 8+7+4+2 = 21
• a→d→b→c→a 5+4+3+8 = 20
• a→d→c→b→a 5+7+3+2 = 17

• Efficiency?
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 Example 2: Knapsack Problem
Given n items:
– weights: w1 w2 … wn
– values: v1 v2 … vn
– a knapsack of capacity W
Find the most valuable subset of the items that fit into the knapsack

Example:
item weight value Knapsack capacity W=16
1 2 $20
2 5 $30
3 10 $50
4 5 $10

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 Knapsack by Exhaustive Search
Subset Total weight Total value
{1} 2 $20
{2} 5 $30 Efficiency?
{3} 10 $50
{4} 5 $10
{1,2} 7 $50
{1,3} 12 $70
{1,4} 7 $30
{2,3} 15 $80
{2,4} 10 $40
{3,4} 15 $60
{1,2,3} 17 not feasible
{1,2,4} 12 $60
{1,3,4} 17 not feasible
{2,3,4} 20 not feasible
{1,2,3,4} 22 not feasible

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 Assignment Problem
There are n people who need to be assigned to execute n jobs, one person
per job.
(That is, each person is assigned to exactly one job and each job is as-
signed to exactly one person.)
Problem: find the minimum total cost.

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 Assignment Problem

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 Assignment Problem

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 Depth-First Search & Breadth-First Search
• Algorithms have proved to be very useful for many applications involv-
ing graphs in artificial intelligence and operations research.

• Efficient investigation of fundamental properties of graphs such as

connectivity and cycle presence(acyclicity).

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 Types of Edges
• Tree edges: edges to a new unvisited vertex

• Back edges: edge leading to a previously visited vertex

• Cross edges: edge leading to a previously visited vertex other than its
immediate predecessor

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 Depth-First Search

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 Breadth-First Search

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 Breadth-First Search
• BFS can be used for finding a path with the fewest number of edges between two
given vertices.

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 Comparison: DFS vs BFS

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 Final Comments
• Brute force is a straightforward approach to solving a problem.

• The principal strengths of the brute-force approach are wide applicability and simplicity; its principal
weakness is the subpar efficiency of most brute-force algorithms.

• Exhaustive search is a brute-force approach to combinatorial problems.

• Exhaustive search algorithms run in a realistic amount of time only on very small instances
•
• In many cases there are much better alternatives!
– shortest paths
– minimum spanning tree

• In some cases, exhaustive search (or variation) is the only known solution

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END