Cluster Editing on Cographs and Related Classes
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In the Cluster Editing problem, sometimes known as (unweighted) Correlation Clustering, we must insert and delete a minimum number of edges to achieve a graph in which every connected component is a clique. Owing to its applications in computational biology, social network analysis, machine learning, and others, this problem has been widely studied for decades and is still undergoing active research. There exist several parameterized algorithms for general graphs, but little is known about the complexity of the problem on specific classes of graphs. Among the few important results in this direction, if only deletions are allowed, the problem can be solved in polynomial time on cographs, which are the P₄-free graphs. However, the complexity of the broader editing problem on cographs is still open. We show that even on a very restricted subclass of cographs, the problem is NP-hard, W[1]-hard when parameterized by the number p of desired clusters, and that time n^o(p/log p) is forbidden under the ETH. This shows that the editing variant is substantially harder than the deletion-only case, and that hardness holds for the many superclasses of cographs (including graphs of clique-width at most 2, perfect graphs, circle graphs, permutation graphs). On the other hand, we provide an almost tight upper bound of time n^O(p), which is a consequence of a more general n^O(cw⋅p) time algorithm, where cw is the clique-width. Given that forbidding P₄s maintains NP-hardness, we look at {P₄, C₄}-free graphs, also known as trivially perfect graphs, and provide a cubic-time algorithm for this class.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.008 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.009 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".