112,347 research outputs found
Connected k-Center and k-Diameter Clustering
Motivated by an application from geodesy, we introduce a novel clustering
problem which is a -center (or k-diameter) problem with a side constraint.
For the side constraint, we are given an undirected connectivity graph on
the input points, and a clustering is now only feasible if every cluster
induces a connected subgraph in . We call the resulting problems the
connected -center problem and the connected -diameter problem.
We prove several results on the complexity and approximability of these
problems. Our main result is an -approximation algorithm for the
connected -center and the connected -diameter problem. For Euclidean
metrics and metrics with constant doubling dimension, the approximation factor
of this algorithm improves to . We also consider the special cases that
the connectivity graph is a line or a tree. For the line we give optimal
polynomial-time algorithms and for the case that the connectivity graph is a
tree, we either give an optimal polynomial-time algorithm or a
-approximation algorithm for all variants of our model. We complement our
upper bounds by several lower bounds
Faster Clustering via Preprocessing
We examine the efficiency of clustering a set of points, when the
encompassing metric space may be preprocessed in advance. In computational
problems of this genre, there is a first stage of preprocessing, whose input is
a collection of points ; the next stage receives as input a query set
, and should report a clustering of according to some
objective, such as 1-median, in which case the answer is a point
minimizing .
We design fast algorithms that approximately solve such problems under
standard clustering objectives like -center and -median, when the metric
has low doubling dimension. By leveraging the preprocessing stage, our
algorithms achieve query time that is near-linear in the query size ,
and is (almost) independent of the total number of points .Comment: 24 page
Dynamic Approximate All-Pairs Shortest Paths: Breaking the O(mn) Barrier and Derandomization
We study dynamic -approximation algorithms for the all-pairs
shortest paths problem in unweighted undirected -node -edge graphs under
edge deletions. The fastest algorithm for this problem is a randomized
algorithm with a total update time of and constant
query time by Roditty and Zwick [FOCS 2004]. The fastest deterministic
algorithm is from a 1981 paper by Even and Shiloach [JACM 1981]; it has a total
update time of and constant query time. We improve these results as
follows: (1) We present an algorithm with a total update time of and constant query time that has an additive error of
in addition to the multiplicative error. This beats the previous
time when . Note that the additive
error is unavoidable since, even in the static case, an -time
(a so-called truly subcubic) combinatorial algorithm with
multiplicative error cannot have an additive error less than ,
unless we make a major breakthrough for Boolean matrix multiplication [Dor et
al. FOCS 1996] and many other long-standing problems [Vassilevska Williams and
Williams FOCS 2010]. The algorithm can also be turned into a
-approximation algorithm (without an additive error) with the
same time guarantees, improving the recent -approximation
algorithm with running
time of Bernstein and Roditty [SODA 2011] in terms of both approximation and
time guarantees. (2) We present a deterministic algorithm with a total update
time of and a query time of . The
algorithm has a multiplicative error of and gives the first
improved deterministic algorithm since 1981. It also answers an open question
raised by Bernstein [STOC 2013].Comment: A preliminary version was presented at the 2013 IEEE 54th Annual
Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS 2013
Matroid and Knapsack Center Problems
In the classic -center problem, we are given a metric graph, and the
objective is to open nodes as centers such that the maximum distance from
any vertex to its closest center is minimized. In this paper, we consider two
important generalizations of -center, the matroid center problem and the
knapsack center problem. Both problems are motivated by recent content
distribution network applications. Our contributions can be summarized as
follows:
1. We consider the matroid center problem in which the centers are required
to form an independent set of a given matroid. We show this problem is NP-hard
even on a line. We present a 3-approximation algorithm for the problem on
general metrics. We also consider the outlier version of the problem where a
given number of vertices can be excluded as the outliers from the solution. We
present a 7-approximation for the outlier version.
2. We consider the (multi-)knapsack center problem in which the centers are
required to satisfy one (or more) knapsack constraint(s). It is known that the
knapsack center problem with a single knapsack constraint admits a
3-approximation. However, when there are at least two knapsack constraints, we
show this problem is not approximable at all. To complement the hardness
result, we present a polynomial time algorithm that gives a 3-approximate
solution such that one knapsack constraint is satisfied and the others may be
violated by at most a factor of . We also obtain a 3-approximation
for the outlier version that may violate the knapsack constraint by
.Comment: A preliminary version of this paper is accepted to IPCO 201
- …