Finding a minimum-weight k-link path in graphs with the concave Monge property and applications

Let G be a weighted, complete, directed acyclic graph (DAG) whose edge weights obey the concave Monge condition. We give an efficient algorithm for finding the minimum-weight k-link path between a given pair of vertices for any given k. The time complexity of our algorithm is {Mathematical expression}. Our algorithm uses some properties of DAGs with the concave Monge property together with the parametric search technique. We apply our algorithm to get efficient solutions for the following problems, improving on previous results: (1) Finding the largest k-gon contained in a given convex polygon. (2) Finding the smallest k-gon that is the intersection of k half-planes out of n half-planes defining a convex n-gon. (3) Computing maximum k-cliques of an interval graph. (4) Computing length-limited Huffman codes. (5) Computing optimal discrete quantization. © 1994 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.