IEEE INFOCOM 2017 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications
Viral Marketing with Positive Influence
Zhao Zhang Yishuo Shi
Department of Computer Science College of Mathematics
Zhejiang Normal University and System Sciences
Jinhua, Zhejiang, 321004, China Xinjiang University
Email: hxhzz@sina.com Urumqi, Xinjiang, 830046, China
Abstract—One model for viral marketing is the positive influ-
ence. In this model, an inactive node is changed into active if and
only if at least half of its neighbors are already in active state.
The positive influence model can be viewed as a special case of a
general threshold model, in which the threshold function at each
node has value one if at least a certain fraction of neighbors
are in active state, and value 0 otherwise. This function can be
proved to be monotonically increasing and nonsubmodular for
any predefined fraction. Therefore, given a seed set, the number
of influenced nodes is not submodular with respect to the size
of the seed set. This fact makes those optimization problems
related with positive influence very hard, including the minimum
partial positive influence seeding problem: Given a social network
G = (V, E) and a number 0 < p < 1, find a minimum seed set
S which can positively influence at least p|V | nodes.
In this paper, we present an O((log n)2 H(dpne))-
approximation algorithm for the minimum partial positive
influence seeding problem, where n is the number of nodes, and
H(·) is the Harmonic number.
Keywords: viral marketing, partial positive-influence seeding
problem, approximation algorithm.
I. I NTRODUCTION
With the development of Internet and social networks,
viral marketing has been one of the most important product
promotion methods. In the process of viral marketing, ideas
and innovations are carried by influence cascades which spread
between users via fast communications such as e-mails and
online social networks including Facebook. The study of viral
marketing can be tracked back to Domingos et al. [8]. In the
seminal work of Kempe et al. [14], the well-known influence
maximization problem is proposed. Following [14], a huge
body of works have been done regarding the topic of influence
diffusion.
In most popular models of viral marketing, an influence
cascade is triggered by a set of seed users who are selected to
be initially activated and will then influence other users. As an
example, in order to advertise a new product, a company would
like to offer free samples to a set of initial users who will
potentially introduce the new product to their friends. Due to
expense issues, only a limited number of samples are available
and thus the company has to seasonably select seed users.
From the view of optimization, one should either select the
minimum number of users such that the influence can reach
a certain degree, or select a fixed number of users such that
the influence can be maximized. In this paper, we consider the
former one. To be more precise, given a ratio 0 < p < 1, we
978-1-5090-5336-0/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
James Willson, Ding-Zhu Du, Guangmo Tong
Department of Computer Science
University of Texas at Dallas
Richardson, TX, 75080, USA
aim to select the minimum number of seed users such that at
least p · n users will be activated where n is total number of
users. Call this problem as a partial influence seeding problem.
The diffusion mode varies between different influence mod-
els. Two basic models, independent cascade model and linear
threshold model, are first proposed by Kempe et al. [14].
The independent cascade model assumes that each active user
has a certain probability to activate his/her neighbor, while
in the linear threshold model a user becomes active when
the influence from its neighbors accumulates over a certain
threshold. In previous works, thresholds of users are assumed
to be randomly determined. Under such an assumption, the
objective function of the influence maximization problem
is monotone increasing and submodular, and therefore, the
classic greedy algorithm can provide an approximation with
a guaranteed performance ratio. The question is: what if
thresholds are known in advance? In fact, hardness results
in [3] show that the problem becomes extremely difficult if
thresholds are prefixed. In this paper, we consider the threshold
model in which an user u is active if and only if at least ru
of its neighbors are in the seed set, and the goal is to find the
minimum number of seed users such that at least p fraction
of users are active. Name such a problem as Partial Positive
Influence Seeding (PPIS) problem. It can be seen that when
threshold is fixed, the objective function is not submodular.
Therefore those existing techniques are not applicable to the
PPIS problem. Furthermore, prior works [6], [22], [21] mainly
focus on the case when p = 1 which is a special case of the
problem considered in this paper.
One may notice that PPIS is closely related with the classic
set cover problem. Given an element set E, a collection of
subsets S ⊆ 2E , and a cost cS on each set S ∈ S, the classic
set cover problem (SC) asks to find a sub-collection F ⊆ S
to cover all elements, where an element e is covered by a
set S if e ∈ S, and e is covered by sub-collection F if e is
covered by at least one set of F. There are a lot of variations
of SC, including the partial set cover problem (PSC) and the
set multi-cover problem (SMC). In a PSC problem, only a
certain number of elements are required to be covered. In a
SMC problem each element e is required to be covered at least
a specific number re of times. Combining these two problems
together, we have the partial set multi-cover problem (PSMC),
the goal of which is to fully cover at least a certain number
of elements, where an element e is fully covered by a sub-
 IEEE INFOCOM 2017 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications
collection F if e belongs to at least re sets of F. It can be
easily seen that the PPIS problem is a special case of the
PSMC problem, viewing each node u to be a set Su covering
all its neighbors, as well as an element which is required to
be covered at least ru times.
There are a lot of studies on PSC and SMC, achieving
performance ratios matching those best possible ones for the
classic set cover problem. However, study on the combination
of these two problems is very rare. According to recent
studies [17], [18], this problem seems to be extremely difficult,
frustrating those methods which have won triumph on PSC and
SMC.
A. Related Work
The minimum set cover problem (SC) was one of the first
21 problems proved to be NP-hard in Karp’s seminal paper
[12]. In fact, Feige [9] proved that it cannot be approximated
within factor ρ ln n for any 0 < ρ < 1 unless N P ⊆
DT IM E(nO(log log n) ), where n is the number of elements.
On the other hand, greedy strategy achieves performance ratio
H(∆) ≈ ln ∆ + 0.57 [4], [11], [16], where ∆ is the maximum
cardinality of a set and H(∆) = 1 + 21 + · · · + ∆ 1
is the
Harmonic number.
Dobson proposed the minimum set multi-cover problem in
[7] and gave an H(K)-approximation, where K is the sum of
all the covering requirements.
For the minimum partial set cover problem, Kearns [13]
gave a greedy algorithm achieving performance ratio 2H(n)+
3, where n is the size of the ground set. By modifying the
greedy algorithm a little, Slavik [20] improved the perfor-
mance ratio to H(min{dpne, ∆}), where p is the percentage
that elements are required to be covered. Gandhi et al. [10]
proposed a primal-dual algorithm achieving performance ratio
f , where f is the maximum frequency of an element, that
is, each element is contained in at most f sets. Bar-Yuhuda
[1] studied a generalized version in which each element
has a profit and the total profit of covered elements should
exceed a threshold. Using local ratio method, he also obtained
performance ratio f . Konemann et al. [15] presented a La-
grangian relaxation framework and obtained performance ratio
( 34 + )H(∆) for the generalized partial set cover problem.
It can be seen from the above results that both SMC and
PSC have achieved performance ratios which match those
best ratios for the classic set cover problem. The situation
is significantly different for the partial set multi-cover prob-
lem. In [17], Ran et al. studied the PPIS problem through
the study of the partial set mulit-cover problem, achieving
performance ratio γH(δmax ), where γ = 1/(1 − (1 − p)η),
2
η ≈ δmax /δmin , and δmax , δmin are the maximum degree and
the minimum degree of the graph, respectively. For power-
law graphs, they showed that their algorithm has a constant
performance ratio. In [18], Ran et al. presented a simple
greedy algorithm achieving performance ratio ∆. They also
presented a local ratio algorithm for PSMC, which reveals
a “shock wave” phenomenon for the combination of partial
cover and multi-cover: their performance ratio is f for PSC
and SMC, matching those classic results for PSC and SMC;
but for PSMC, the ratio jumps abruptly to O(n) even when
p is smaller than 1 by a very small amount. It seems that the
PSMC problem is very challenging.
B. Our Contribution and Techniques
In this paper, we study the PPIS problem through the study
on PSMC. The following results are obtained in this paper.
• A new problem called minimum density sub-collection
(MDSC) is defined, which is also NP-hard. We show
that when the maximum covering requirement rmax
is a constant, an α-approximation for MDSC can be
used to produce an α(H(dpne) + 1)-approximation for
PSMC, no matter whether it is a constrained version
or an unbounded version. By designing an O((log n)2 )-
approximation for constrained MDSC, we obtained per-
formance ratio O((log n)2 (H(dpne))+1) for constrained
PSMC.
• Our performance ratio significantly improves those in
[17] and [18]. Notice that the performance ratio obtained
2
in [17] is meaningful only when (1 − p)δmax /δmin < 1
(which is satisfied, in many applications, only when p
is very close to 1), and the performance ratio is very
large even when it is meaningful. While our performance
ratio is valid without any restriction on p. The ∆-
approximation for PSMC obtained in [18] also uses a
greedy idea, but in a much simpler form. Notice that in
a worst case, ∆ can be as large as n − 1. While our ratio
is polynomial in ln n.
The overall idea of our algorithms is greedy. However, using
a classic greedy algorithm cannot achieve a good approxima-
tion as indicated by previous studies in [17] and [18]. We
propose a new algorithm in this paper, it consists of two stages.
In the first stage, the algorithm iteratively picks most efficient
sub-collections until at least dpne elements are fully covered.
The obstacle to obtaining a good approximation factor at this
stage lies in the last iteration: the sub-collection chosen in the
last iteration might cover much more elements than required,
although at a low density, a lot of cost might be wasted
on covering excessive elements. So, in the second stage, we
further prune the last sub-collection by using greedy strategy
and guess method.
A crucial stepping-stone to the above solutions is the MDSC
problem, which is also NP-hard, and we failed to conquer it
using a natural LP formulation using the language of sets.
However, we manage to formulate the problem as a linear
program using a language similar to “flow” and made use of
an approximation algorithm for the minimum node-weighted
Steiner network problem as a subroutine.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section II, we give
formal definitions of those problems studied in this paper
and prove the NP-hardness of MDSC. In Section III, we
show how an α-approximation algorithm for MDSC leads to
an αH(dpne)-approximation for PSMC. In Section IV, we
present an O((log n)2 )-approximation algorithm for bounded
 IEEE INFOCOM 2017 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications
MDSC. In Section V, the paper is concluded with some
discussions on future work.
II. P RELIMINARIES
A. Formal Definition of Problem
Definition II.1 (Partial Positive Influence Seeding (PPIS)).
Given a graph G with node set V and edge set E, two real
numbers 0 < p ≤ 1 (called total influence threshold) and
0 < µ ≤ 1 (called local influence threshold), find a subset of
nodes C ⊆ V (called seed set) such that at least p|V | nodes
are influence by C, where a node v is influenced by C if v has
at least dµ · deg(v)e neighbors in C and deg(v) is the degree
of node v in G.
PPIS is a special case of the following partial set multi-cover
E
problem. Suppose E is S an element set, S ⊆ 2 is a collection
of subsets of E with S∈S S = E, each set S ∈ S has a cost
cS , each element e ∈ E has a positive covering requirement re .
For a sub-collection S 0 ⊆ S, denote by Se0 = {S ∈ S 0 : e ∈ S}
those sets of S 0 containing element e. Use e ∼ S 0 to denote
0 will be studied in Section IV.
that element e is fully covered by SP , that is, |Se0 | ≥ re . The
cost of sub-collection S 0 is c(S 0 ) = S∈S 0 c(S).
Definition II.2 (Partial Set Multi-Cover (PSMC)). Given
E, S, c, r and a nonnegative integer P , the PSMC problem is to
find a minimum cost sub-collection S 0 such that |{e ∈ E : e ∼
S 0 }| ≥ P . An instance of PSMC is denoted as (E, S, c, r, P ).
Given a graph G on node set V , taking S = {N (v) : v ∈
V }, where N (v) is the set of neighbors of v in G, rv =
dµ · deg(v)e for each v ∈ V , and P = dp|V |e, then we have
the PPIS problem.
In this paper, we assume that the maximum covering
requirement rmax = max{re : e ∈ E} has a constant upper
bound.
B. Minimum Density Sub-Collection Problem
For simplicity of statement, we shall use C(S 0 ) to denote
the set of elements fully covered by sub-collection S 0 . As we
have stated in Subsection I-B, our algorithm will choose a most
efficient sub-collection in each iteration, where the efficiency
of a sub-collection S 0 is measured by its density defined as
den(S 0 ) = c(S 0 )/|C(S 0 )|.
Definition II.3 (Minimum Density Sub-Collection (MDSC)).
Given E, S, c, r, the MDSC problem is to find a sub-collection
with the minimum density.
Unfortunately, MDSC is also NP-hard.
Theorem II.4. The MDSC problem is NP-hard.
Proof. We reduce the perfect 3-dimensional matching problem
to MDSC. Given an integer k, three sets X, Y, Z each having
cardinality k, and a set T ⊆ X × Y × Z, the perfect
3-dimensional matching problem asks whether there is a
subset T 0 ⊆ T with |T 0 | = k such that for any elements
(x, y, z), (x0 , y 0 , z 0 ) ∈ T 0 , x 6= x0 , y 6= y 0 , and z 6= z 0 .
Construct an instance of MDSC as follows. Let E = X ∪
Y ∪ Z ∪ {u0 } and S = {{x, y, z, u0 } : (x, y, z) ∈ T }. The
covering requirement ru0 = k and ru = 1 for u ∈ X ∪ Y ∪ Z.
The cost c(S) = 1 for all S ∈ S. Next, we show that there
is a perfect 3-dimensional matching if and only if the optimal
value for the MDSC problem is k/(3k + 1).
In fact, if T 0 is a perfect 3-dimensional matching, then
S = {{x, y, z, u0 } : (x, y, z) ∈ T 0 } has |S 0 | = |T 0 | = k
0
and |C(S 0 )| = 3k + 1. Suppose the instance does not
have a perfect 3-dimensional matching. Consider an arbi-
trary sub-collection S 00 and its corresponding subset T 00 =
{(x, y, z) : {x, y, z, u0 } ∈ S 00 }. Then |T 00 | ≤ |S 00 | = c(S 00 ).
If |T 00 | > k, then c(S 0 )/|C(S 0 )| > k/(3k + 1). If |T 00 | < k,
then u0 6∈ C(S 00 ) and thus |C(S 00 )| ≤ 3|T 00 |. In this case,
c(S 00 )/|C(S 00 )| ≥ |T 00 |/(3|T 00 |) > k/(3k + 1).
III. A PPROXIMATION A LGORITHM FOR PSMC
Assuming an α-approximation algorithm for MDSC, we
shall make use of this algorithm to design approximation
algorithms for PSMC. Approximation algorithms for MDSC
It should be mentioned that since the algorithm is iterative,
the set C(S 0 ) only refers to those elements effectively fully
covered by S 0 . That is, for an element e which belongs to a
set of S 0 , if e is already fully covered in previous iterations, or
if the covering requirement of e is still not fulfilled after S 0 is
added, then e is not counted as an element fully covered by S 0 .
In other words, C(S 0 ) can be interpreted as the set of elements
whose covering requirements are fulfilled when sub-collection
S 0 is added.
A. The Algorithm for PSMC
Our algorithm for PSMC consists of two stages. In the first
stage, the algorithm implements an α-approximation algorithm
for MDSC to greedily choose sub-collections until at least P
elements are fully covered. In the second stage, the last sub-
collection is further pruned by a greedy strategy.
To control the cost, a “guessing” technique is implemented.
That is, we guess at most rmax heaviest sets in an optimal
solution. If an optimal solution contains at most rmax sets, then
an optimal solution is obtained. Otherwise, for each guess,
remove those heavier sets to obtain a reduced instance, and
solve the reduced instance. The algorithm chooses the best
solution over all guesses. Under the assumption that rmax
has a constant upper bound, guessing can be accomplished
in polynomial time.
For each guessed sub-collection G containing rmax sets, the
collection of sets S 0 used in the reduced instance is obtained
from S by removing those sets in G as well as removing
all those sets heavier than minS∈G c(S). The input for the
reduced instance (with respect to G) is (E 0 , S 0 , c, r0 , P 0 ),
where E 0 = E − C(G) is the set of elements waiting to
be fully covered, the total remaining covering requirement
P 0 = P − |C(S 0 )|, the remaining covering requirement for
element e is re0 = max{0, re −|Ge |}, and those elements which
have been fully covered by G have to be removed from each
set. In the following, when we mention a reduced instance
 IEEE INFOCOM 2017 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications

or when we say that the instance is updated, it is always Algorithm 2 S UB -PSMC(E 0 , S 0 , c, r0 , P 0 ): S UBROUTINE
understood that the above operations are executed. FOR PSMC
The main algorithm is presented in Algorithm 1, in which Input: A PSMC instance (E 0 , S 0 , c, r0 , P 0 )
the subroutine S UB -PSMC is recursively called to compute Output: A pair [tag, A], in which tag = 0 if the instance is
a solution on the reduced instances with respect to different infeasible and tag = 1 otherwise. In the latter case, A is a
guesses. sub-collection fully covering at least P 0 elements.
1: A ← ∅, tag ← 0.
Algorithm 1 M AIN A LGORITHM F OR PSMC 2: while P 0 > 0 do
Input: A PSMC instance (E, S, c, r, P ) 3: Use an α-approximation algorithm for MDSC to find
Output: A sub-collection F fully covering at least P ele- a sub-collection R.
ments. 4: if |C(R)| < P 0 then.
1: F ← S and c0 ← c(S). 5: A ← A ∪ R.
2: for each sub-collection G with |G| ≤ rmax do 6: Update the instance.
3: if |C(G)| ≥ P and c(G) < c0 then 7: else
4: F ← G and c0 ← c(G). 8: tag = 1.
5: end if 9: if |C(R)| = P 0 then
6: end for 10: A ← A ∪ R.
7: for each sub-collection G with |G| = rmax do 11: else
8: Construct the reduced instance (E 0 , S 0 , c, r0 , P 0 ) with 12: B ← S UB -P RUNE(E 0 , R, c, r0 , P 0 )
respect to G. 13: A←A∪B
9: [tag, A] ← S UB -PSMC(E 0 , S 0 , c, r0 , P 0 ). 14: end if
10: if tag = 1 then 15: P 0 ← 0.
11: if c(A) + c(G) < c0 then 16: end if
12: F ← A ∪ G and c0 ← c(A) + c(G). 17: end while
13: end if 18: Return [tag, A].
14: end if
15: end for Algorithm 3 S UB -P RUNE(E 0 , R, c, r0 , P 0 ): S UBROUTINE
16: Output F. FOR P RUNING
Input: An instance (E 0 , R, c, r0 , P 0 ) such that R fully covers
The output of subroutine S UB -PSMC is a pair [tag, A]. The at least P 0 elements.
first parameter tag indicates whether the reduced instance is Output: A sub-collection B ⊆ R which also fully covers at
infeasible. If feasible, the subroutine outputs a sub-collection least P 0 elements of E.
A which fully covers at least the required number P 0 of 1: B ← ∅.
elements. 2: while P 0 > 0 do
In each while loop of S UB -PSMC, after having found a sub- 3: Select a 0sub-collection R0 ⊆ R such that R0 =
collection R using an α-approximation algorithm for MDSC, c(R )
arg min{ |C(R 0
0 )| : |R | ≤ rmax }.
if the covering requirement P 0 is still not satisfied, then the 4: B ←B∪R. 0
algorithm takes R into the solution, updates the instance, and 5: Update the instance.
iterates. When the algorithm comes to the last iteration, in 6: end while
which a sub-collection R is found fulfilling the remaining total 7: Return B.
covering requirement, the algorithm prunes R into a smaller
sub-collection B by subroutine S UB -P RUNE, which still fulfills
the remaining total covering requirement, and takes B into the heaviest sets in an optimal solution, A0 is the sub-collection
solution. It should be remembered that when S UB -P RUNE is output by S UB -PSMC on the reduced instance with respect to
called, E 0 , r0 , P 0 may have been updated although the same G0 , and F0 = A0 ∪ G0 . Since the output F of Algorithm 1 is
notation is used. the best solution through all guesses, we have c(F) ≤ c(F0 ).
In S UB -P RUNE, the algorithm iteratively chooses a sub- So in the following, we only consider the call of S UB -PSMC
collection R0 ⊆ R containing at most rmax sets with the on the instance related with G0 .
minimum density. By our assumption that rmax has a constant Suppose line 3 of S UB -PSMC is executed t times, selecting
upper bound, the minimum density sub-collection of cardinal- sub-collections R1 , . . . , Rt , and then Rt is pruned into B by
ity at most rmax can be found in polynomial time. The update S UB -P RUNE (the case that Rt need not be further pruned is
of instances is similar to the one described previously. Pt−1
simpler and thus omitted here). We estimate costs i=1 c(Ri )
B. Performance Ratio and c(B) separately. In the following, OP T denotes an optimal
solution to PSMC, and opt = c(OP T ).
We only consider the case when an optimal solution con- Pt−1
tains more than rmax sets. Suppose G0 is the collection of rmax Lemma III.1. i=1 c(Ri ) ≤ αH(P )(opt − c(G0 )).
 IEEE INFOCOM 2017 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications

Proof. For i = 1, 2, . . . , t, denote by Pi the remaining cover- The desired upper bound for c(B) follows from (4) and
ing requirement after Ri is selected. Then |C(Ri )| = Pi−1 −Pi (5).
for i = 1, . . . , t − 1 where P0 = P 0 ≤ P is the input total
Since the output of Algorithm 1 is G0 ∪R1 ∪· · ·∪Rt−1 ∪B,
covering requirement of S UB -PSMC related with G0 . After
the performance ratio follows from Lemma III.1 and Lemma
the (i − 1)-th iteration, OP T − G0 is a sub-collection fulfilling
III.2.
the remaining covering requirement Pi−1 . So the density of
an optimal solution R∗i to the MDSC problem in the i-th Theorem III.3. Implementing an α-approximation algorithm
iteration is upper bounded by (opt − c(G0 ))/Pi−1 . Since Ri for MDSC, the PSMC problem admits an approximation within
approximates the density of R∗i within a factor of α, we have factor α(H(P ) + 1).
c(Ri ) opt − c(G0 ) IV. A PPROXIMATION FOR MDSC
≤α . (1)
Pi−1 − Pi Pi−1
This section presents an approximation algorithm for
So, MDSC. We first try to formulate the problem by a linear
t−1 t−1 programming using a language similar to “flow”.
X X Pi−1 − Pi
c(Ri ) ≤ α(opt − c(G0 ))
i=1 i=1
Pi−1 A. An LP-Formulation
≤ αH(P )(opt − c(G0 )). For an element e, an re -cover-set is a sub-collection S 0 with
0
|S | = re which fully covers e. Denote by Qe the family of
The lemma is proved. all re -cover-sets. Consider the following example.
Lemma III.2. c(B) ≤ α · opt − (α − 1)c(G0 )).
Example IV.1. E = {e1 , e2 , e3 }. S = {S1 , S2 , S3 } with S1 =
Proof. Let S UB -P RUNE -E XT be an extension of the algorithm {e1 , e2 , e3 }, S2 = {e1 } and S3 = {e1 , e3 }. r(e1 ) = 2 and
S UB -P RUNE on input sub-collection Rt in the following way: r(e2 ) = r(e3 ) = 1.
instead of halting when at least Pt−1 elements are fully
For this example, Qe1 = {{S1 , S2 }, {S1 , S3 }, {S2 , S3 }},
covered, it continues until all elements in C(Rt ) are fully
Qe2 = {S1 } and Qe3 = {{S1 }, {S3 }}. It should be empha-
covered (notice that the input P 0 of S UB -P RUNE equals Pt−1 ,
sized that a same cover-set belonging to different Qe ’s will be
the number of elements effectively fully covered in the last
viewed as different cover-sets. For example, {S1 } belongs to
iteration of S UB -PSMC). Suppose the sub-collections selected (e )
both Qe2 and Qe3 . To distinguish them, we shall use Qj i to
by S UB -P RUNE -E XT are R01 , . . . , R0l sequentially, and q is the
denote cover-sets in Qei . For example, Qe1 contains three re1 -
first index when at least Pt−1 elements are fully covers, that (e ) (e ) (e )
is, cover-sets Q1 1 = {S1 , S2 }, Q2 1 = {S1 , S3 } and Q3 1 =
(e2 )
|C(R01 )| + |C(R02 )| + · · · + |C(R0q−1 )| < Pt−1 (2) {S2 , S3 }, Qe2 contains one re2 -cove-set Q1 = {S1 }, Qe3
(e ) (e )
contains two re3 -cover-sets Q1 3 = {S1 } and Q2 3 = {S3 }.
and |C(R01 )| + |C(R02 )| + · · · + |C(R0q )| ≥ Pt−1 . The following is an integer program for bounded MDSC:
By the greedy strategy, we have P
S∈S cS xS
c(R01 ) c(R02 ) c(R0l ) min P (6)
0 ≤ 0 ≤ ··· ≤ . e∈E ye
|C(R1 )| |C(R2 )| |C(R0l )| X
s.t. lQ ≥ ye for e ∈ E
Hence Q:Q∈Qe
c(R01 ) + · · · + c(R0q−1 ) X
xS ≥ lQ for e ∈ E, S ∈ S
|C(R01 )| + · · · + |C(R0q−1 )| Q:S∈Q∈Qe
c(R01 ) + · · · + c(R0l ) c(Rt ) xS ∈ {0, 1}, for S ∈ S
≤ ≤ . (3)
|C(R01 )| + · · · + |C(R0l )| |C(Rt )| ye ∈ {0, 1}, for e ∈ E
Similarly to the deduction of inequality (1), we have lQ ∈ {0, 1}, for every Q ∈ Qe for some e ∈ E
c(Rt ) opt − c(G0 )
≤α . In fact, lQ indicates whether a cover-set Q is selected and xS
|C(Rt )| Pt−1 indicates whether set S is selected. The first constraint says
Combining this with (2) and (3), that if ye = 1 then at least one re -cover-set is selected and
q−1 thus e is fully covered. The family of selected sets is the union
X
c(R0i ) ≤ α(opt − c(G0 )). (4) of all those selected cover-sets. So, the second constraint says
i=1 that if S belong to some re -cover-set which is selected, then
S must be selected. The object function is exactly the density
Recall that every set used in S UB -PMSMC has cost at most
of selected sets.
minS∈G0 c(S), and each sub-collection R0i consists of at most
rmax sets. So, Consider Example IV.1 again. Setting lQ(e1 ) = lQ(e3 ) = 1
2 1
and all other l-values to be 0 implies that the selected sub-
c(R0q ) ≤ rmax min c(S) ≤ c(G0 ). (5) 0 (e1 ) (e3 )
collection S = Q2 ∪ Q1 = {S1 , S3 } and e1 , e3 are fully
S∈G0
 IEEE INFOCOM 2017 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications

covered. By the second constraint, xS1 = xS3 = 1 and we
may take xS2 = 0 (to minimize the objective function, it is
better to take xS to be 0 if the right hand side of the second
constraint is 0). By the first constraint, ye2 = 0 and we may
take ye1 = ye2 = 1 (to minimize the objective function, it
is better to take ye to be 1 for all those elements e which
(e )
are fully covered). Notice that {S1 } serves as both Q1 2 and
(e3 )
Q1 , the l-value for the former is 0 and the l-value for the
latter is 1, they are set independently.
The above integer program (6) can be relaxed to the
following linear program LP1 :
nodes with the minimum weight to satisfy those connectivity
requirements between terminal nodes.
Our algorithm for bounded MDSC is presented in Algorithm
4. The NWSN instance used in line 4 of the algorithm is
constructed in the following way. Let H be the graph on
node set Yi0 ∪ S ∪ {s} and edge set {eS : e ∈ Yi0 , S ∈
S, e ∈ S} ∪ {sS : S ∈ S}. Set the weight on every S ∈ S
to be cS and the weight on all other nodes as zero. Set the
connectivity requirement rs,e = re for every e ∈ Yi0 and
the connectivity requirement on all other node pairs as zero.
Denote the constructed instance as (H, c, r).

Algorithm 4 A LGORITHM F OR BOUNDED MDSC

X
min cS xS (7)
S∈S Input: An MDSC instance (E, S, c, r)
Output: A sub-collection S 0 .
X
s.t. ye = 1
e∈E 1: Find an optimal solution (xf , y f , lf ) to linear program
X (7).
lQ ≥ ye for e ∈ E
2: Let Yi = {e ∈ E : 2−(i+1) < yef ≤ 2−i } for 0 ≤ i ≤ I −1
Q:Q∈Qe
X and YI = {e ∈ E : yef ≤ 2−I }, where I = 2blog nc − 1.
xS ≥ lQ for e ∈ E, S ∈ S 3: Let i0 be an index such that |Yi0 | ≥ 2i0 /(I + 1).
Q:S∈Q∈Qe 4: Find an approximation solution H 0 to NWSN on instance
xS ≥ 0 for S ∈ S (H, c, r) constructed by the method in the above para-
ye ≥ 0 for e ∈ E graph.
5: Output S 0 = V (H 0 ) \ {Yi0 ∪ s}.
lQ ≥ 0 for Q ∈ Qe for some e ∈ E.

It should be noticed that under the assumption that rmax is The rational behind the algorithm will be manifested
upper bounded by a constant, the number of constraints in (7) through the analysis in the following subsection.
is polynomial, and thus (7) is polynomial-time solvable.
C. Theoretical Analysis
Lemma IV.2. The optimal value of the above linear program, Notice that any feasible solution to the NWSN problem on
denoted as optLP1 , satisfies optLP1 ≤ optM DSC , where instance (H, c, r) induces a feasible solution to the multi-cover
optM DSC is the optimal value for the integer linear program problem on instance (Yi0 , S, c, r). In fact, suppose element
(6). e ∈ Yi0 is connected to node s by rs,e = re edge-disjoint
paths which has the form of {sSi e}ri=1 e
, then {Si }ri=1
e
fully
Proof. Let (x∗ , y ∗ , Q∗ ) be an optimal solution to (6). Suppose
∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ covers element e. Taking the union of such sets will fully
, Q∗ /P ∗ ) is a feasi-
P
e∈E ye = P . Then (x /P , y /P P
∗ ∗ cover all elements in Yi0 .
ble solution toP(7). Hence optLP1 ≤ S∈S cS (xS /P ) =
P ∗ ∗ To analyze the correctness and the performance of the
S∈S cS xS / e∈E ye .
algorithm, we first give an LP-relaxation for the multi-cover
problem and an LP-relaxation for the NWSN problem.
B. The Algorithm
LP-relaxation for multi-cover. Similar to the construction
The algorithm for bounded MDSC makes use of an ap- of integer program (6), the multi-cover problem on instance
proximation algorithm for the minimum node weighted Steiner (Yi0 , S, c, r) can be formulated as an integer linear program
network problem. whose relaxation is as follows (notice that every element in
Yi0 is required to be fully covered):
Definition IV.3 (Node Weighted Steiner Network Problem X
(NWSN)). Given a graph G = (V, E) with a weight function min cS x S (8)
c on V and a connectivity requirement rs,t for each pair S∈S
of nodes (s, t), the minimum node weighted Steiner network
X
s.t. lQ ≥ 1 for e ∈ Yi0
problem asks for a subgraph H such that every pair of nodes Q:Q∈Qe
(s, t) are connected by at least rs,t edge-disjoint paths in H X
and the node weight of H is as small as possible. xS ≥ lQ for e ∈ Yi0 , S ∈ S
Q:S∈Q∈Qe
Notice that H must include all those nodes s with rs,t 6= 0 xS ≥ 0 for S ∈ S
for at least one node t. Such a node s can be viewed as a
lQ ≥ 0 for for Q ∈ Qe for some e ∈ E
terminal node. On the other hand, those nodes s with rs,t = 0
for any t 6= s need not be included in H. Such nodes are It should be remarked that an optimal solution automatically
Steiner nodes. The NWSN problem is to select a set of Steiner satisfies lQ ≤ 1. As a consequence, we also have xS ≤ 1. So,
 IEEE INFOCOM 2017 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications

(8) does not explicitly require xS and lQ to be no greater than Since i0 ≤ I − 1, we have yef ≥ 2−(i0 +1) for every e ∈ Yi0 .
1. Hence
LP-relaxation for NWSN. Next, consider the node- X
ˆlQ = 2(i0 +1)
X
weighted Steiner network problem. For each pair of nodes lQ f ≥ 2(i0 +1) yef ≥ 1
Q:Q∈Qe Q:Q∈Qe
s and t, an rs,t -path-set is a set of rs,t edge-disjoint (s, t)-
paths in G. Denote by Ps,t the family of all rs,t -path-sets and for every e ∈ Yi0 .
let P be the union of all these families. The following linear This implies that {x̂S , ˆlQ } is a feasible solution to LP2 . Hence
program LP3 is a relaxation for the NWSN problem which X X
was presented in [2]: optLP2 ≤ cS x̂S = 2i0 +1 cS xfS = 2i0 +1 opt1
X S∈S S∈S
min cv x v (9)
≤ 2i0 +1 optM DSC ,
v∈V
X
s.t. lP ≥ 1 for s, t ∈ V where the last inequality comes from Lemma IV.2.
P :P ∈Ps,t Claim 3. optLP 3 ≤ optLP2 , where optLP3 is the optimal
X value of LP3 (linear program (9)).
xv ≥ lP for v and s, t ∈ V
Suppose (x, l) is a feasible solution to LP2 . For each re -
P :v∈P ∈Ps,t
cover-set Q, let P (Q) = {sSe}S∈Q be the rs,e -path set
xv ≥ 0 for v ∈ V corresponding to Q. Setting lP (Q) = lQ will induces a feasible
lP ≥ 0 for P ∈ P solution to LP3 . The claim is proved.
In fact, for the corresponding integral formulation in which It was shown by Chekuri et.al in paper [2] that the integral-
lP and xv can only take values from {0, 1}, lP indicates ity gap for LP3 is
whether path-set P is chosen and xv indicates whether node v O(rmax log n), which is O(log n) under the assumption that
is chosen. The model in [2] uses equality instead of inequality rmax is a constant. Combining this with Claim 2 and Claim
in the first constraint, whose meaning is that for each pair of 3, the output S 0 of Algorithm 4 has cost
nodes s and t, exactly one rs,t -path-set is chosen, and thus c(S 0 ) ≤ 2i0 +1 O(log n)optM DSC .
the connectivity requirement between s and t is satisfied. The
second constraint says that if node v belongs to some chosen Since S 0 fully covers all elements in Yi0 , we have
path-set, then v must be chosen. Hence the chosen nodes c(S 0 ) c(S 0 ) 2i0 +1 O(log n)optM DSC
are those nodes on the union of chosen path-sets, and the ≤ ≤
|C(S 0 )| |Yi0 | 2i0 /(I + 1)
objective is to minimize the weight of those chosen nodes. 2
When relaxing variables by allowing fractional values, any = O((log n) )optM DSC .
optimal
P solution automatically has lP ≤ 1, xv ≤ 1, and The theorem is proved.
P :P ∈Ps,t lP = 1. Hence it does not matter if we relax the
first constraint to be inequality and do not explicitly require D. Application on PSMC and PPIS
xS and lP to be no greater than 1. Combining Theorem IV.4 with Theorem III.3, both the
Now, we are ready to analyze the performance ratio of constrained PSMC problem and the PPIS problem admit an ap-
Algorithm 4. proximation within factor O((log n)2 H(P )), where P = dpne
Theorem IV.4. For n ≥ 32, Algorithm 4 has performance for the PPIS problem.
ratio at most O((log n)2 ) for the bounded MDSC problem. V. C ONCLUSION AND D ISCUSSION
Proof. We prove the theorem step by step by first establishing In this paper, we studied the viral marketing with positive-
the following three claims. influence model and investigated a problem aiming to occupy
Claim 1. An index i0 as in Line 3 of Algorithm 4 exists a certain percentage of market, how much resource we should
and i0 ≤ I − P 1. invest? This was formulated as the PPIS problem.
f
In fact, by e∈E ye = 1, there exists an index i0 such that As a corollary of the above studies on PSMC, the PPIS prob-
f f −i0
P
e∈Yi0 ye ≥ 1/(I + 1). Since ye ≤ 2 for every e ∈ Yi0 , lem admits an approximation within factor O((log n)2 H(pn),
i0
we have |Yi0 | ≥ 2 /(I + 1). as long as the maximum degree of the social network is upper
Notice that e∈YI yef ≤ n2−I < 1/(I + 1) for n ≥ 32.
P
bounded by a constant. Improvement on this ratio will depend
Hence the above i0 ≤ I − 1. on improved algorithms for the minimum density subcollection
Claim 2. optLP2 ≤ 2i0 +1 optM DSC , where optLP2 is the problem.
optimal value of LP2 (linear program (8)). Our studies show that PPIS is a very challenging problem.
Let x̂S = 2i0 +1 xfS for each set S and let ˆlQ = 2i0 +1 lQ f One reason is that it possesses a “leapfrogging” property.
for each cover-set Q. For any element e ∈ Yi0 and any set As an illustration, suppose a user is activated only when
S ∈ S, at least 10 of his friends posses the product. Even if he
has heard about the product from 9 of his friends, he is
X X
x̂S = 2i0 +1 xf ≥ 2i0 +1
S lQ f = ˆlQ .
Q:S∈Q∈Qe Q:S∈Q∈Qe
still not activated. One more message from a friend pushes
 IEEE INFOCOM 2017 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications

him across the threshold, while the effect of 9 messages is [22] H. Zhang, D. Thang, and M.T. Thai, Maximizing the spread of positive
equivalent to nothing. So, although the company has strived influence in online social networks. IEEE 33rd International Conference
on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS’2013), 2013.
to provide a large amount of samples, it is still possible that
only very few users are activated. Since what matters is only
the number of activated users, a lot of efforts might have been
wasted on fruitless influence on those inactive users. So, in
order to obtain a good approximation, one has to control the
wasted. Such a “leapfrogging” phenomenon is interesting and
appear frequently in the real world. New ideas are needed and
conquering such a problem will have a great theoretical value.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research is supported by NSFC (61222201,11531011).

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