Parameterized Algorithms for Matrix Completion With Radius Constraints

Abstract: Considering matrices with missing entries, we study NP-hard matrix completion problems where the resulting completed matrix shall have limited (local) radius. In the pure radius version, this means that the goal is to fill in the entries such that there exists a 'center string' which has Hamming distance to all matrix rows as small as possible. In stringology, this problem is also known as Closest String with Wildcards. In the local radius version, the requested center string must be one of the rows of the completed matrix. Hermelin and Rozenberg [CPM 2014, TCS 2016] performed parameterized complexity studies for Closest String with Wildcards. We answer one of their open questions, fix a bug concerning a fixed-parameter tractability result in their work, and improve some upper running time bounds. For the local radius case, we reveal a computational complexity dichotomy. In general, our results indicate that, although being NP-hard as well, this variant often allows for faster (fixed-parameter) algorithms.