499 research outputs found
A Robust PTAS for the Parallel Machine Covering Problem
In general, combinatorial optimization problems are unstable: slight changes on the instance of a problem can render huge changes in the optimal solution. Thus, a natural question arises: Can we achieve stability if we only maintain approximate solutions?. In this talk I will first formalize these ideas, and then show some results on the parallel machine covering problem. In particular I will derive a robust PTAS, i.e., I will show how to construct a solution that is not only -approximate, but is also stable. That is, if the instance is changed by adding or removing a job, then we can construct a new near-optimal solution by only slightly modifying the previous one
Inapproximability of Combinatorial Optimization Problems
We survey results on the hardness of approximating combinatorial optimization
problems
Symmetry Exploitation for Online Machine Covering with Bounded Migration
Online models that allow recourse are highly effective in situations where classical models are too pessimistic. One such problem is the online machine covering problem on identical machines. In this setting, jobs arrive one by one and must be assigned to machines with the objective of maximizing the minimum machine load. When a job arrives, we are allowed to reassign some jobs as long as their total size is (at most) proportional to the processing time of the arriving job. The proportionality constant is called the migration factor of the algorithm.
By rounding the processing times, which yields useful structural properties for online packing and covering problems, we design first a simple (1.7 + epsilon)-competitive algorithm using a migration factor of O(1/epsilon) which maintains at every arrival a locally optimal solution with respect to the Jump neighborhood. After that, we present as our main contribution a more involved (4/3+epsilon)-competitive algorithm using a migration factor of O~(1/epsilon^3). At every arrival, we run an adaptation of the Largest Processing Time first (LPT) algorithm. Since the new job can cause a complete change of the assignment of smaller jobs in both cases, a low migration factor is achieved by carefully exploiting the highly symmetric structure obtained by the rounding procedure
Optimal Algorithms for Scheduling under Time-of-Use Tariffs
We consider a natural generalization of classical scheduling problems in
which using a time unit for processing a job causes some time-dependent cost
which must be paid in addition to the standard scheduling cost. We study the
scheduling objectives of minimizing the makespan and the sum of (weighted)
completion times. It is not difficult to derive a polynomial-time algorithm for
preemptive scheduling to minimize the makespan on unrelated machines. The
problem of minimizing the total (weighted) completion time is considerably
harder, even on a single machine. We present a polynomial-time algorithm that
computes for any given sequence of jobs an optimal schedule, i.e., the optimal
set of time-slots to be used for scheduling jobs according to the given
sequence. This result is based on dynamic programming using a subtle analysis
of the structure of optimal solutions and a potential function argument. With
this algorithm, we solve the unweighted problem optimally in polynomial time.
For the more general problem, in which jobs may have individual weights, we
develop a polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS) based on a dual
scheduling approach introduced for scheduling on a machine of varying speed. As
the weighted problem is strongly NP-hard, our PTAS is the best possible
approximation we can hope for.Comment: 17 pages; A preliminary version of this paper with a subset of
results appeared in the Proceedings of MFCS 201
10261 Abstracts Collection -- Algorithm Engineering
From June 27 to July 2, the Dagstuhl Seminar 10261 ``Algorithm Engineering \u27\u27 was held in Schloss Dagstuhl~--~Leibniz Center for Informatics.
During the seminar, several participants presented their current
research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of
the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of
seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section
describes the seminar topics and goals in general.
Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available
A Robust PTAS for Machine Covering and Packing
Scheduling a set of n jobs on m identical parallel machines so as to minimize the makespan or maximize the minimum machine load are two of the most important and fundamental scheduling problems studied in the literature. We consider the general online scenario where jobs are consecutively added to and/or deleted from an instance. The goal is to always maintain a (close to) optimal assignment of the current set of jobs to the m machines. This goal is essentially doomed to failure unless, upon arrival or departure of a job, we allow to reassign some other jobs. Considering that the reassignment of a job induces a cost proportional to its size, the total cost for reassigning jobs must preferably be bounded by a constant r times the total size of added or deleted jobs
Estimating operator norms using covering nets
We present several polynomial- and quasipolynomial-time approximation schemes
for a large class of generalized operator norms. Special cases include the
norm of matrices for , the support function of the set of
separable quantum states, finding the least noisy output of
entanglement-breaking quantum channels, and approximating the injective tensor
norm for a map between two Banach spaces whose factorization norm through
is bounded.
These reproduce and in some cases improve upon the performance of previous
algorithms by Brand\~ao-Christandl-Yard and followup work, which were based on
the Sum-of-Squares hierarchy and whose analysis used techniques from quantum
information such as the monogamy principle of entanglement. Our algorithms, by
contrast, are based on brute force enumeration over carefully chosen covering
nets. These have the advantage of using less memory, having much simpler proofs
and giving new geometric insights into the problem. Net-based algorithms for
similar problems were also presented by Shi-Wu and Barak-Kelner-Steurer, but in
each case with a run-time that is exponential in the rank of some matrix. We
achieve polynomial or quasipolynomial runtimes by using the much smaller nets
that exist in spaces. This principle has been used in learning theory,
where it is known as Maurey's empirical method.Comment: 24 page
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