搜索结果：Kemeny

Kemeny's constant quantifies the expected time for a random walk to reach a randomly chosen vertex, providing insight into the global behavior of a Markov chain. We present a novel eigenvector-based formula for computing Kemeny's constant. Moreover, we analyze the impact of network structure on Kemeny's constant. In particular, we use various spectral techniques, such as spectral sparsification of graphs and eigenvalue interlacing, and show that they are particularly useful in this context for deriving approximations and sharp bounds for Kemeny's constant

Kemeny constant, defined as the expected hitting time of random walks from a source node to a randomly chosen target node, is a fundamental metric in graph data management with many real-world applications. However, computing it exactly on large graphs is highly challenging, as it requires inverting large graph matrices. Existing solutions mainly rely on approximate random-walk-based methods, which still need large sample sizes and lack strong theoretical guarantees. In this paper, we propose a new approach for approximating the Kemeny constant via 2-forest sampling. We first derive an unbiased estimator expressed through spanning trees by introducing a path mapping technique that establishes a direct correspondence between spanning trees and certain classes of 2-forests. Compared to random walk-based estimators, 2-forest-based estimators yield leads to a better theoretical bound. We further design efficient algorithms to sample and traverse spanning trees, leveraging data structures such as the Binary Indexed Tree (BIT) for optimization. Our theoretical analysis shows that the Kemeny constant can be approximated with relative error $ε$ in $O\left(\frac{Δ^2\bar{d}^2}{ε^2}(τ+ n\min(

Rank aggregation is the task of combining $n$ input rankings (linear orders) of alternatives into a single output ranking. The Kemeny rank aggregation rule selects the output ranking that minimizes the total Kendall-tau distance to the input rankings, i.e., the total number of adjacent swaps that need to be performed across input rankings so that they are all equal to the output ranking. Dwork et al. (2001) proved that the problem of computing such a ranking is NP-complete for every even $n \ge 4$ and asked whether hardness holds even for $n = 3$. We give a hardness reduction from MAX CUT that proves the problem is NP-complete for $n = 3$. The reduction was found in July 2026 by GPT 5.6 Sol Ultra and simplified in part with help from Claude Fable 5.

In the k-Kemeny problem, we are given an ordinal election, i.e., a collection of votes ranking the candidates from best to worst, and we seek the smallest number of swaps of adjacent candidates that ensure that the election has at most k different rankings. We study this problem for a number of structured domains, including the single-peaked, single-crossing, group-separable, and Euclidean ones. We obtain two kinds of results: (1) We show that k-Kemeny remains intractable under most of these domains, even for k=2, and (2) we use k-Kemeny to rank these domains in terms of their diversity.

The Kemeny aggregation problem consists of computing the consensus rankings of an election with respect to the well-known Kemeny-Young voting method. These consensus rankings satisfy various fundamental properties and are the geometric medians of the votes in the election under the Kendall-tau distance which counts the number of pairwise disagreements. The Kemeny aggregation problem admits important applications in various domains such as computational social choice, machine learning, operations research, and biology but it is unfortunately NP-hard. Recently, Milosz and the second author presented an approach to reduce the search space of the problem by solving the relative order of pairs of elements in those consensus. In this article, we prove an optimized extension of this approach achieving significantly more refined space reduction techniques without adding much to the running time of the algorithms in practice, as illustrated by experimental results and analysis on real and synthetic data. We show how the constraints built by our approach can be used in combination with other methods such as Integer Programming and Finest Condorcet Partitioning to achieve an efficient and sca

The Kemeny method is one of the popular tools for rank aggregation. However, computing an optimal Kemeny ranking is NP-hard. Consequently, the computational task of finding a Kemeny ranking has been studied under the lens of parameterized complexity with respect to many parameters. We first present a comprehensive relationship, both theoretical and empirical, among these parameters. Further, we study the problem of computing all distinct Kemeny rankings under the lens of parameterized complexity. We consider the target Kemeny score, number of candidates, average distance of input rankings, maximum range of any candidate, and unanimity width as our parameters. For all these parameters, we already have FPT algorithms. We find that any desirable number of Kemeny rankings can also be found without substantial increase in running time. We also present FPT approximation algorithms for Kemeny rank aggregation with respect to these parameters.

Kemeny's constant measures the efficiency of a Markov chain in traversing its states. We investigate whether structure-preserving perturbations to the transition probabilities of a reversible Markov chain can improve its connectivity while maintaining a fixed stationary distribution. Although the minimum achievable value for Kemeny's constant can be estimated, the required perturbations may be infeasible. We reformulate the problem as an optimization task, focusing on solution existence and efficient algorithms, with an emphasis on the problem of minimizing Kemeny's constant under sparsity constraints.

For the problem of aggregating several rankings into one ranking, Kemeny (1959) proposed two methods: the median rule which selects the ranking with the smallest total swap distance to the input rankings, and the mean rule which minimizes the squared swap distances to the input rankings. The median rule has been extensively studied since and is now known simply as Kemeny's rule. It exhibits majoritarian properties, so for example if more than half of the input rankings are the same, then the output of the rule is the same ranking. We observe that this behavior is undesirable in many rank aggregation settings. For example, when we rank objects by different criteria (quality, price, etc.) and want to aggregate them with specified weights for the criteria, then a criterion with weight 51% should have 51% influence on the output instead of 100%. We show that the Squared Kemeny rule (i.e., the mean rule) behaves this way, by establishing a bound on the distance of the output ranking to any input rankings, as a function of their weights. Furthermore, we give an axiomatic characterization of the Squared Kemeny rule, which mirrors the existing characterization of the Kemeny rule but replac

The important Kemeny problem, which consists of computing median consensus rankings of an election with respect to the Kemeny voting rule, admits important applications in biology and computational social choice and was generalized recently via an interesting setwise approach by Gilbert et. al. Our first results establish optimal quantitative extensions of the Unanimity property and the well-known $3/4$-majority rule of Betzler et al. for the classical Kemeny median problem. Moreover, by elaborating an exhaustive list of quantified axiomatic properties (such as the Condorcet and Smith criteria, the $5/6$-majority rule, etc.) of the $3$-wise Kemeny rule where not only pairwise comparisons but also the discordance between the winners of subsets of three candidates are also taken into account, we come to the conclusion that the $3$-wise Kemeny voting scheme induced by the $3$-wise Kendall-tau distance presents interesting advantages in comparison with the classical Kemeny rule. For example, it satisfies several improved manipulation-proof properties. Since the $3$-wise Kemeny problem is NP-hard, our results also provide some of the first useful space reduction techniques by determinin

Kemeny's rule is one of the most studied and well-known voting schemes with various important applications in computational social choice and biology. Recently, Kemeny's rule was generalized via a set-wise approach by Gilbert et. al. This paradigm presents interesting advantages in comparison with Kemeny's rule since not only pairwise comparisons but also the discordance between the winners of subsets of three alternatives are also taken into account in the definition of the $3$-wise Kendall-tau distance between two rankings. In spite of the NP-hardness of the 3-wise Kemeny problem which consists of computing the set of $3$-wise consensus rankings, namely rankings whose total $3$-wise Kendall-tau distance to a given voting profile is minimized, we establish in this paper several generalizations of the Major Order Theorems, as obtained by Milosz and Hamel for Kemeny's rule, for the $3$-wise Kemeny voting schemes to achieve a substantial search space reduction by efficiently determining in polynomial time the relative orders of pairs of alternatives. Essentially, our theorems quantify precisely the nontrivial property that if the preference for an alternative over another one in an e

We propose two possible definitions for a version of Kemeny's constant of a graph based on non-backtracking random walks (in place of the usual simple random walk). We show that these two definitions coincide for edge-transitive graphs, and give a condition generalizing edge-transitive for which equality holds, and investigate by how much they can differ in general. We compute our non-backtracking Kemeny's constant for several families of graphs.

Kemeny's constant quantifies a graph's connectivity by measuring the average time for a random walker to reach any other vertex. We introduce two concepts of the directional derivative of Kemeny's constant with respect to an edge and use them to define centrality measures for edges and non-edges in the graph. Additionally, we present a sensitivity measure of Kemeny's constant. An explicit expression for these quantities involving the inverse of the modified graph Laplacian is provided, which is valid even for cut-edges. These measures are connected to the one introduced in [Altafini et al., SIMAX 2023], and algorithms for their computation are included. The benefits of these measures are discussed, along with applications to road networks and link prediction analysis. For one-path graphs, an explicit expression for these measures is given in terms of the edge weights.

In this article we develop a new method for summarizing a ranking distribution, \textit{i.e.} a probability distribution on the symmetric group $\mathfrak{S}_n$, beyond the classical theory of consensus and Kemeny medians. Based on the notion of \textit{local ranking median}, we introduce the concept of \textit{consensus ranking distribution} ($\crd$), a sparse mixture model of Dirac masses on $\mathfrak{S}_n$, in order to approximate a ranking distribution with small distortion from a mass transportation perspective. We prove that by choosing the popular Kendall $τ$ distance as the cost function, the optimal distortion can be expressed as a function of pairwise probabilities, paving the way for the development of efficient learning methods that do not suffer from the lack of vector space structure on $\mathfrak{S}_n$. In particular, we propose a top-down tree-structured statistical algorithm that allows for the progressive refinement of a CRD based on ranking data, from the Dirac mass at a Kemeny median at the root of the tree to the empirical ranking data distribution itself at the end of the tree's exhaustive growth. In addition to the theoretical arguments developed, the releva

For continuous-time ergodic Markov processes, the Kemeny time $τ_*$ is the characteristic time needed to converge towards the steady state $P_*(x)$ : in real-space, the Kemeny time $τ_*$ corresponds to the average of the Mean-First-Passage-Time $τ(x,x_0) $ over the final configuration $x$ drawn with the steady state $P_*(x)$, which turns out to be independent of the initial configuration $x_0$; in the spectral domain, the Kemeny time $τ_*$ corresponds to the sum of the inverses of all the non-vanishing eigenvalues $λ_n e 0 $ of the opposite generator. We describe many illustrative examples involving jumps and/or diffusion in one dimension, where the Kemeny time can be explicitly computed as a function of the system-size, via its real-space definition and/or via its spectral definition : we consider both reversible processes satisfying detailed-balance where the eigenvalues are real, and irreversible processes characterized by non-vanishing steady currents where the eigenvalues can be complex. In particular, we study the specific properties of the Kemeny times for Markov processes with stochastic resetting, and for absorbing Markov processes conditioned to survive forever.

Kemeny's constant measures how fast a random walker moves around in a graph. Expressions for Kemeny's constant can be quite involved, and for this reason, many lines of research focus on graphs with structure that makes them amenable to more in-depth study (for example, regular graphs, acyclic graphs, and 1-connected graphs). In this article, we study Kemeny's constant for random walks on threshold graphs, which are an interesting family of graphs with properties that make examining Kemeny's constant difficult; that is, they are usually not regular, not acyclic, and not 1-connected. This article is a showcase of various techniques for calculating Kemeny's constant and related random walk parameters for graphs. We establish explicit formulae for $\mathcal{K}(G)$ in terms of the construction code of a threshold graph, and completely determine the ordering of the accessibility indices of vertices in threshold graphs.

Kemeny's constant for random walks on a graph is defined as the mean hitting time from one node to another selected randomly according to the stationary distribution. It has found numerous applications and attracted considerable research interest. However, exact computation of Kemeny's constant requires matrix inversion, which scales poorly for large networks with millions of nodes. Existing approximation algorithms either leverage properties exclusive to undirected graphs or involve inefficient simulation, leaving room for further optimization. To address these limitations for directed graphs, we propose two novel approximation algorithms for estimating Kemeny's constant on directed graphs with theoretical error guarantees. Extensive numerical experiments on real-world networks validate the superiority of our algorithms over baseline methods in terms of efficiency and accuracy.

Kemeny's constant is an invariant of discrete-time Markov chains, equal to the expected number of steps between two states sampled from the stationary distribution. It appears in applications as a concise characterization of the mixing properties of a Markov chain and has many alternative definitions. In this short article, we derive a new geometric expression for Kemeny's constant, which involves the distance between two points in a simplex associated to the Markov chain: the circumcenter and the Lemoine point. Our proof uses an expression due to Wang, Dubbeldam and Van Mieghem of Kemeny's constant in terms of effective resistances and Fiedler's interpretation of effective resistances as edge lengths of a simplex.

On trees of fixed order, we show a direct relation between Kemeny's constant and Wiener index, and provide a new formula of Kemeny's constant from the relation with a combinatorial interpretation. Moreover, the relation simplifies proofs of several known results for extremal trees in terms of Kemeny's constant for random walks on trees. Finally, we provide various families of co-Kemeny's mates, which are two non-isomorphic connected graphs with the same Kemeny's constant, and we also give a necessary condition for a tree to attain maximum Kemeny's constant for trees with fixed diameter.

Let $M$ be an irreducible transition matrix on a finite state space $V$. For a Markov chain $C=(C_k,k\geq 0)$ with transition matrix $M$, let $τ^{\geq 1}_u$ denote the first positive hitting time of $u$ by $C$, and $ρ$ the unique invariant measure of $M$. Kemeny proved that if $X$ is sampled according to $ρ$ independently of $C$, the expected value of the first positive hitting time of $X$ by $C$ does not depend on the starting state of the chain: all the values $(E(τ^{\geq 1}_X~|~C_0=u), u \in V)$ are equal. \par In this paper, we show that this property follows from a more general result: the generating function $\sum_{v\in V}E(x^{τ_v^{\geq 1}}~|~C_0=u)\det(Id-xM^{(v)})$ is independent of the starting state $u$, where $M^{(v)}$ is obtained from $M$ by deleting the row and column corresponding to the state $v$. The factors appearing in this generating function are: first, the probability generating function of $τ^{\geq 1}_v$, and second, the sequence of determinants $(det(Id-xM^{(v)}),v\in V),$ which, for $x=1$, is known to be proportional to the invariant measure $(ρ_u,u\in V)$. From this property, we deduce several further results, including relations involving higher moments of