Certified Algorithms: Worst-Case Analysis and Beyond

In this paper, we introduce the notion of a certified algorithm. Certified algorithms provide worst-case and beyond-worst-case performance guarantees. First, a ?-certified algorithm is also a ?-approximation algorithm - it finds a ?-approximation no matter what the input is. Second, it exactly solves ?-perturbation-resilient instances (?-perturbation-resilient instances model real-life instances). Additionally, certified algorithms have a number of other desirable properties: they solve both maximization and minimization versions of a problem (e.g. Max Cut and Min Uncut), solve weakly perturbation-resilient instances, and solve optimization problems with hard constraints. In the paper, we define certified algorithms, describe their properties, present a framework for designing certified algorithms, provide examples of certified algorithms for Max Cut/Min Uncut, Minimum Multiway Cut, k-medians and k-means. We also present some negative results

Clustering Under Perturbation Stability in Near-Linear Time

We consider the problem of center-based clustering in low-dimensional Euclidean spaces under the perturbation stability assumption. An instance is ?-stable if the underlying optimal clustering continues to remain optimal even when all pairwise distances are arbitrarily perturbed by a factor of at most ?. Our main contribution is in presenting efficient exact algorithms for ?-stable clustering instances whose running times depend near-linearly on the size of the data set when ? ? 2 + ?3. For k-center and k-means problems, our algorithms also achieve polynomial dependence on the number of clusters, k, when ? ? 2 + ?3 + ? for any constant ? > 0 in any fixed dimension. For k-median, our algorithms have polynomial dependence on k for ? > 5 in any fixed dimension; and for ? ? 2 + ?3 in two dimensions. Our algorithms are simple, and only require applying techniques such as local search or dynamic programming to a suitably modified metric space, combined with careful choice of data structures

Bilu-Linial Stability, Certified Algorithms and the Independent Set Problem

We study the classic Maximum Independent Set problem under the notion of stability introduced by Bilu and Linial (2010): a weighted instance of Independent Set is gamma-stable if it has a unique optimal solution that remains the unique optimal solution under multiplicative perturbations of the weights by a factor of at most gamma >= 1. The goal then is to efficiently recover this "pronounced" optimal solution exactly. In this work, we solve stable instances of Independent Set on several classes of graphs: we improve upon previous results by solving O~(Delta/sqrt(log Delta))-stable instances on graphs of maximum degree Delta, (k - 1)-stable instances on k-colorable graphs and (1 + epsilon)-stable instances on planar graphs (for any fixed epsilon > 0), using both combinatorial techniques as well as LPs and the Sherali-Adams hierarchy. For general graphs, we present a strong lower bound showing that there are no efficient algorithms for O(n^(1/2 - epsilon))-stable instances of Independent Set, assuming the planted clique conjecture. To complement our negative result, we give an algorithm for (epsilon n)-stable instances, for any fixed epsilon > 0. As a by-product of our techniques, we give algorithms as well as lower bounds for stable instances of Node Multiway Cut (a generalization of Edge Multiway Cut), by exploiting its connections to Vertex Cover. Furthermore, we prove a general structural result showing that the integrality gap of convex relaxations of several maximization problems reduces dramatically on stable instances. Moreover, we initiate the study of certified algorithms for Independent Set. The notion of a gamma-certified algorithm was introduced very recently by Makarychev and Makarychev (2018) and it is a class of gamma-approximation algorithms that satisfy one crucial property: the solution returned is optimal for a perturbation of the original instance, where perturbations are again multiplicative up to a factor of gamma >= 1 (hence, such algorithms not only solve gamma-stable instances optimally, but also have guarantees even on unstable instances). Here, we obtain Delta-certified algorithms for Independent Set on graphs of maximum degree Delta, and (1+epsilon)-certified algorithms on planar graphs. Finally, we analyze the algorithm of Berman and Fürer (1994) and prove that it is a ((Delta + 1)/3 + epsilon)-certified algorithm for Independent Set on graphs of maximum degree Delta where all weights are equal to 1.ISSN:1868-896

LIPIcs, Volume 261, ICALP 2023, Complete Volume

LIPIcs, Volume 261, ICALP 2023, Complete Volum