961 research outputs found
Replica Placement via Capacitated Vertex Cover
In this paper, we study the replica placement problem on trees and present a constant factor approximation algorithm (with an additional additive constant factor). This improves the best known previous algorithm having an approximation ratio dependent on the maximum degree of the tree. Our techniques also extend to the partial cover version. Our algorithms are based on the LP rounding technique. The core component of our algorithm exploits a connection between the natural LP solutions of the replica placement problem and the capacitated vertex cover problem
Parameterized Approximation Schemes using Graph Widths
Combining the techniques of approximation algorithms and parameterized
complexity has long been considered a promising research area, but relatively
few results are currently known. In this paper we study the parameterized
approximability of a number of problems which are known to be hard to solve
exactly when parameterized by treewidth or clique-width. Our main contribution
is to present a natural randomized rounding technique that extends well-known
ideas and can be used for both of these widths. Applying this very generic
technique we obtain approximation schemes for a number of problems, evading
both polynomial-time inapproximability and parameterized intractability bounds
Minimum Makespan Multi-vehicle Dial-a-Ride
Dial a ride problems consist of a metric space (denoting travel time between
vertices) and a set of m objects represented as source-destination pairs, where
each object requires to be moved from its source to destination vertex. We
consider the multi-vehicle Dial a ride problem, with each vehicle having
capacity k and its own depot-vertex, where the objective is to minimize the
maximum completion time (makespan) of the vehicles. We study the "preemptive"
version of the problem, where an object may be left at intermediate vertices
and transported by more than one vehicle, while being moved from source to
destination. Our main results are an O(log^3 n)-approximation algorithm for
preemptive multi-vehicle Dial a ride, and an improved O(log t)-approximation
for its special case when there is no capacity constraint. We also show that
the approximation ratios improve by a log-factor when the underlying metric is
induced by a fixed-minor-free graph.Comment: 22 pages, 1 figure. Preliminary version appeared in ESA 200
Cluster Before You Hallucinate: Approximating Node-Capacitated Network Design and Energy Efficient Routing
We consider circuit routing with an objective of minimizing energy, in a
network of routers that are speed scalable and that may be shutdown when idle.
We consider both multicast routing and unicast routing. It is known that this
energy minimization problem can be reduced to a capacitated flow network design
problem, where vertices have a common capacity but arbitrary costs, and the
goal is to choose a minimum cost collection of vertices whose induced subgraph
will support the specified flow requirements. For the multicast (single-sink)
capacitated design problem we give a polynomial-time algorithm that is
O(log^3n)-approximate with O(log^4 n) congestion. This translates back to a
O(log ^(4{\alpha}+3) n)-approximation for the multicast energy-minimization
routing problem, where {\alpha} is the polynomial exponent in the dynamic power
used by a router. For the unicast (multicommodity) capacitated design problem
we give a polynomial-time algorithm that is O(log^5 n)-approximate with
O(log^12 n) congestion, which translates back to a O(log^(12{\alpha}+5)
n)-approximation for the unicast energy-minimization routing problem.Comment: 22 pages (full version of STOC 2014 paper
Walking Through Waypoints
We initiate the study of a fundamental combinatorial problem: Given a
capacitated graph , find a shortest walk ("route") from a source to a destination that includes all vertices specified by a set
: the \emph{waypoints}. This waypoint routing problem
finds immediate applications in the context of modern networked distributed
systems. Our main contribution is an exact polynomial-time algorithm for graphs
of bounded treewidth. We also show that if the number of waypoints is
logarithmically bounded, exact polynomial-time algorithms exist even for
general graphs. Our two algorithms provide an almost complete characterization
of what can be solved exactly in polynomial-time: we show that more general
problems (e.g., on grid graphs of maximum degree 3, with slightly more
waypoints) are computationally intractable
LP-Based Algorithms for Capacitated Facility Location
Linear programming has played a key role in the study of algorithms for
combinatorial optimization problems. In the field of approximation algorithms,
this is well illustrated by the uncapacitated facility location problem. A
variety of algorithmic methodologies, such as LP-rounding and primal-dual
method, have been applied to and evolved from algorithms for this problem.
Unfortunately, this collection of powerful algorithmic techniques had not yet
been applicable to the more general capacitated facility location problem. In
fact, all of the known algorithms with good performance guarantees were based
on a single technique, local search, and no linear programming relaxation was
known to efficiently approximate the problem.
In this paper, we present a linear programming relaxation with constant
integrality gap for capacitated facility location. We demonstrate that the
fundamental theories of multi-commodity flows and matchings provide key
insights that lead to the strong relaxation. Our algorithmic proof of
integrality gap is obtained by finally accessing the rich toolbox of LP-based
methodologies: we present a constant factor approximation algorithm based on
LP-rounding.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figures; minor revision
O(f) Bi-Approximation for Capacitated Covering with Hard Capacities
We consider capacitated vertex cover with hard capacity constraints (VC-HC) on hypergraphs. In this problem we are given a hypergraph G = (V, E) with a maximum edge size f. Each edge is associated with a demand and each vertex is associated with a weight (cost), a capacity, and an available multiplicity. The objective is to find a minimum-weight vertex multiset such that the demands of the edges can be covered by the capacities of the vertices and the multiplicity of each vertex does not exceed its available multiplicity.
In this paper we present an O(f) bi-approximation for VC-HC that gives a trade-off on the number of augmented multiplicity and the cost of the resulting cover. In particular, we show that, by augmenting the available multiplicity by a factor of k geq 2, a cover with a cost ratio of (1+ frac{1}{k - 1})(f - 1) to the optimal cover for the original instance can be obtained. This improves over a previous result, which has a cost ratio of f^2 via augmenting the available multiplicity by a factor of f
Tight Kernel Bounds for Problems on Graphs with Small Degeneracy
In this paper we consider kernelization for problems on d-degenerate graphs,
i.e. graphs such that any subgraph contains a vertex of degree at most .
This graph class generalizes many classes of graphs for which effective
kernelization is known to exist, e.g. planar graphs, H-minor free graphs, and
H-topological-minor free graphs. We show that for several natural problems on
d-degenerate graphs the best known kernelization upper bounds are essentially
tight.Comment: Full version of ESA 201
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