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For a programming paradigm, see Dynamic programming language.
In mathematics and computer science, dynamic programming is a method of solving complex problems by breaking them down into simpler steps. It is applicable to problems that exhibit the properties of overlapping subproblems and optimal substructure (described below). When applicable, the method takes much less time than naive methods. Bottom-up dynamic programming simply means storing the results of certain calculations, which are then re-used later because the same calculation is a sub-problem in a larger calculation. Bottom-up dynamic programming involves formulating a complex calculation as a recursive series of simpler calculations.
[edit] HistoryThe term was originally used in the 1940s by Richard Bellman to describe the process of solving problems where one needs to find the best decisions one after another. By 1953, he had refined this to the modern meaning, which refers specifically to nesting smaller decision problems inside larger decisions,[1] and the field was thereafter recognized by the IEEE as a systems analysis and engineering topic. Bellman's contribution is remembered in the name of the Bellman equation, a central result of dynamic programming which restates an optimization problem in recursive form. Originally the word "programming" in "dynamic programming" had no connection to computer programming, and instead came from the term "mathematical programming"[2] - a synonym for optimization. However, nowadays many optimization problems are best solved by writing a computer program that implements a dynamic programming algorithm, rather than carrying out hundreds of tedious calculations by hand. Some of the examples given below are illustrated using computer programs. [edit] OverviewDynamic programming is both a mathematical optimization method, and a computer programming method. In both contexts, it refers to simplifying a complicated problem by breaking it down into simpler subproblems in a recursive manner. While some decision problems cannot be taken apart this way, decisions that span several points in time do often break apart recursively; Bellman called this the "Principle of Optimality". Likewise, in computer science, a problem which can be broken down recursively is said to have optimal substructure. If subproblems can be nested recursively inside larger problems, so that dynamic programming methods are applicable, then there is a relation between the value of the larger problem and the values of the subproblems.[3] In the optimization literature this relationship is called the Bellman equation. [edit] Dynamic programming in mathematical optimizationIn terms of mathematical optimization, dynamic programming usually refers to a simplification of a decision by breaking it down into a sequence of decision steps over time. This is done by defining a sequence of value functions V1 , V2 , ... Vn , with an argument y representing the state of the system at times i from 1 to n. The definition of Vn(y) is the value obtained in state y at the last time n. The values Vi at earlier times i=n-1,n-2,...,2,1 can be found by working backwards, using a recursive relationship called the Bellman equation. For i=2,...n, Vi -1 at any state y is calculated from Vi by maximizing a simple function (usually the sum) of the gain from decision i-1 and the function Vi at the new state of the system if this decision is made. Since Vi has already been calculated, for the needed states, the above operation yields Vi -1 for all the needed states. Finally, V1 at the initial state of the system is the value of the optimal solution. The optimal values of the decision variables can be recovered, one by one, by tracking back the calculations already performed. [edit] Dynamic programming in computer programmingAs a computer programming method, dynamic programming is mainly used to tackle problems that are solvable in polynomial time.[citation needed] There are two key attributes that a problem must have in order for dynamic programming to be applicable: optimal substructure and overlapping subproblems. Optimal substructure means that the solution to a given optimization problem can be obtained by the combination of optimal solutions to its subproblems. Consequently, the first step towards devising a dynamic programming solution is to check whether the problem exhibits such optimal substructure. Such optimal substructures are usually described by means of recursion. For example, given a graph G=(V,E), the shortest path p from a vertex u to a vertex v exhibits optimal substructure: take any intermediate vertex w on this shortest path p. If p is truly the shortest path, then the path p1 from u to w and p2 from w to v are indeed the shortest paths between the corresponding vertices (by the simple cut-and-paste argument described in CLRS). Hence, one can easily formulate the solution for finding shortest paths in a recursive manner, which is what the Bellman-Ford algorithm does. Overlapping subproblems means that the space of subproblems must be small, that is, any recursive algorithm solving the problem should solve the same subproblems over and over, rather than generating new subproblems. For example, consider the recursive formulation for generating the Fibonacci series: Fi = Fi-1 + Fi-2, with base case F1=F2=1. Then F43 = F42 + F41, and F42 = F41 + F40. Now F41 is being solved in the recursive subtrees of both F43 as well as F42. Even though the total number of subproblems is actually small (only 43 of them), we end up solving the same problems over and over if we adopt a naive recursive solution such as this. Dynamic programming takes account of this fact and solves each subproblem only once. Figure 2. The subproblem graph for the Fibonacci sequence. The fact that it is not a tree indicates overlapping subproblems. This can be achieved in either of two ways:[citation needed]
Some programming languages can automatically memoize the result of a function call with a particular set of arguments, in order to speed up call-by-name evaluation (this mechanism is referred to as call-by-need). Some languages make it possible portably (e.g. Scheme, Common Lisp or Perl), some need special extensions (e.g. C++, see [4]). Some languages have automatic memoize built in. In any case, this is only possible for a referentially transparent function. [edit] Example: mathematical optimization[edit] Optimal consumption and savingA mathematical optimization problem that is often used in teaching dynamic programming to economists (because it can be solved by hand: see Stokey et al., 1989, Chap. 1) concerns a consumer who lives over the periods t = 0,1,2,...,T and must decide how much to consume and how much to save in each period. Let ct be consumption in period t, and assume consumption yields utility u(ct) = ln(ct) as long as the consumer lives. Assume the consumer is impatient, so that he discounts future utility by a factor b each period, where 0 < b < 1. Let kt be capital in period t. Assume initial capital is a given amount k0 > 0, and suppose that this period's capital and consumption determine next period's capital as
Written this way, the problem looks complicated, because it involves solving for all the choice variables c0,c1,c2,...,cT and k1,k2,k3,...,kT + 1 simultaneously. (Note that k0 is not a choice variable—the consumer's initial capital is taken as given.) The dynamic programming approach to solving this problem involves breaking it apart into a sequence of smaller decisions. To do so, we define a sequence of value functions Vt(k), for t = 0,1,2,...,T,T + 1 which represent the value of having any amount of capital k at each time t. Note that VT + 1(k) = 0, that is, there is (by assumption) no utility from having capital after death. The value of any quantity of capital at any previous time can be calculated by backward induction using the Bellman equation. In this problem, for each t = 0,1,2,...,T, the Bellman equation is
This problem is much simpler than the one we wrote down before, because it involves only two decision variables, ct and kt + 1. Intuitively, instead of choosing his whole lifetime plan at birth, the consumer can take things one step at a time. At time t, his current capital kt is given, and he only needs to choose current consumption ct and saving kt + 1. To actually solve this problem, we work backwards. For simplicity, the current level of capital is denoted as k. VT + 1(k) is already known, so using the Bellman equation once we can calculate VT(k), and so on until we get to V0(k), which is the value of the initial decision problem for the whole lifetime. In other words, once we know VT − j + 1(k), we can calculate VT − j(k), which is the maximum of ln(cT − j) + bVT − j + 1(Aka − cT − j), where cT − j is the variable and where each vT − j is a constant, and the optimal amount to consume at time t = T − j is which can be simplified to
We see that it is optimal to consume a larger fraction of current wealth as one gets older, finally consuming all current wealth in period T, the last period of life. [edit] Examples: Computer algorithms[edit] Fibonacci sequenceHere is a naive implementation of a function finding the nth member of the Fibonacci sequence, based directly on the mathematical definition: function fib(n) if n = 0 return 0 if n = 1 return 1 return fib(n − 1) + fib(n − 2) Notice that if we call, say,
In particular, Now, suppose we have a simple map object, m, which maps each value of var m := map(0 → 0, 1 → 1) function fib(n) if map m does not contain key n m[n] := fib(n − 1) + fib(n − 2) return m[n] This technique of saving values that have already been calculated is called memoization; this is the top-down approach, since we first break the problem into subproblems and then calculate and store values. In the bottom-up approach we calculate the smaller values of function fib(n) var previousFib := 0, currentFib := 1 if n = 0 return 0 else if n = 1 return 1 repeat n − 1 times var newFib := previousFib + currentFib previousFib := currentFib currentFib := newFib return currentFib In both these examples, we only calculate [edit] A type of balanced 0-1 matrixConsider the problem of assigning values, either zero or one, to the positions of an n x n matrix, n even, so that each row and each column contains exactly n / 2 zeros and n / 2 ones. For example, when n = 4, three possible solutions are: + - - - - + + - - - - + + - - - - + | 0 1 0 1 | | 0 0 1 1 | | 1 1 0 0 | | 1 0 1 0 | and | 0 0 1 1 | and | 0 0 1 1 | | 0 1 0 1 | | 1 1 0 0 | | 1 1 0 0 | | 1 0 1 0 | | 1 1 0 0 | | 0 0 1 1 | + - - - - + + - - - - + + - - - - + We ask how many different assignments there are for a given n. There are at least three possible approaches: brute force, backtracking, and dynamic programming. Brute force consists of checking all assignments of zeros and ones and counting those that have balanced rows and columns (n / 2 zeros and n / 2 ones). As there are We consider For example, in the two boards shown above the sequences of vectors would be ((2, 2) (2, 2) (2, 2) (2, 2)) ((2, 2) (2, 2) (2, 2) (2, 2)) k = 4 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 ((1, 2) (2, 1) (1, 2) (2, 1)) ((1, 2) (1, 2) (2, 1) (2, 1)) k = 3 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 ((1, 1) (1, 1) (1, 1) (1, 1)) ((0, 2) (0, 2) (2, 0) (2, 0)) k = 2 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 ((0, 1) (1, 0) (0, 1) (1, 0)) ((0, 1) (0, 1) (1, 0) (1, 0)) k = 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 ((0, 0) (0, 0) (0, 0) (0, 0)) ((0, 0) (0, 0), (0, 0) (0, 0)) The number of solutions (sequence A058527 in OEIS) is Links to the Perl source of the backtracking approach, as well as a MAPLE and a C implementation of the dynamic programming approach may be found among the external links. [edit] CheckerboardConsider a checkerboard with n × n squares and a cost-function c(i, j) which returns a cost associated with square i,j (i being the row, j being the column). For instance (on a 5 × 5 checkerboard),
Thus c(1, 3) = 5 Let us say you had a checker that could start at any square on the first rank (i.e., row) and you wanted to know the shortest path (sum of the costs of the visited squares are at a minimum) to get to the last rank, assuming the checker could move only diagonally left forward, diagonally right forward, or straight forward. That is, a checker on (1,3) can move to (2,2), (2,3) or (2,4).
This problem exhibits optimal substructure. That is, the solution to the entire problem relies on solutions to subproblems. Let us define a function q(i, j) as
If we can find the values of this function for all the squares at rank n, we pick the minimum and follow that path backwards to get the shortest path. Note that q(i, j) is equal to the minimum cost to get to any of the three squares below it (since those are the only squares that can reach it) plus c(i, j). For instance:
Now, let us define q(i, j) in somewhat more general terms:
The first line of this equation is there to make the recursive property simpler (when dealing with the edges, so we need only one recursion). The second line says what happens in the last rank, to provide a base case. The third line, the recursion, is the important part. It is similar to the A,B,C,D example. From this definition we can make a straightforward recursive code for q(i, j). In the following pseudocode, n is the size of the board, function minCost(i, j) if j < 1 or j > n return infinity else if i = 5 return c(i, j) else return min( minCost(i+1, j-1), minCost(i+1, j), minCost(i+1, j+1) ) + c(i, j) It should be noted that this function only computes the path-cost, not the actual path. We will get to the path soon. This, like the Fibonacci-numbers example, is horribly slow since it spends mountains of time recomputing the same shortest paths over and over. However, we can compute it much faster in a bottom-up fashion if we store path-costs in a two-dimensional array We also need to know what the actual shortest path is. To do this, we use another array function computeShortestPathArrays() for x from 1 to n q[1, x] := c(1, x) for y from 1 to n q[y, 0] := infinity q[y, n + 1] := infinity for y from 2 to n for x from 1 to n m := min(q[y-1, x-1], q[y-1, x], q[y-1, x+1]) q[y, x] := m + c(y, x) if m = q[y-1, x-1] p[y, x] := -1 else if m = q[y-1, x] p[y, x] := 0 else p[y, x] := 1 Now the rest is a simple matter of finding the minimum and printing it. function computeShortestPath() computeShortestPathArrays() minIndex := 1 min := q[n, 1] for i from 2 to n if q[n, i] < min minIndex := i min := q[n, i] printPath(n, minIndex) function printPath(y, x) print(x) print("<-") if y = 2 print(x + p[y, x]) else printPath(y-1, x + p[y, x]) [edit] Sequence alignmentIn genetics, sequence alignment is an important application where dynamic programming is essential [5]. Typically, the problem consists of transforming one sequence into another using edit operations that replace, insert, or remove an element. Each operation has an associated cost, and the goal is to find the sequence of edits with the lowest total cost. The problem can be stated naturally as a recursion, a sequence A is optimally edited into a sequence B by either:
The partial alignments can be tabulated in a matrix, where cell (i,j) contains the cost of the optimal alignment of A[1..i] to B[1..j]. The cost in cell (i,j) can be calculated by adding the cost of the relevant operations to the cost of its neighboring cells, and selecting the optimum. Different variants exist, see Smith-Waterman and Needleman-Wunsch. [edit] Algorithms that use dynamic programming
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