968 research outputs found
Parameterized complexity of machine scheduling: 15 open problems
Machine scheduling problems are a long-time key domain of algorithms and
complexity research. A novel approach to machine scheduling problems are
fixed-parameter algorithms. To stimulate this thriving research direction, we
propose 15 open questions in this area whose resolution we expect to lead to
the discovery of new approaches and techniques both in scheduling and
parameterized complexity theory.Comment: Version accepted to Computers & Operations Researc
On the Hardness of Bribery Variants in Voting with CP-Nets
We continue previous work by Mattei et al. (Mattei, N., Pini, M., Rossi, F.,
Venable, K.: Bribery in voting with CP-nets. Ann. of Math. and Artif. Intell.
pp. 1--26 (2013)) in which they study the computational complexity of bribery
schemes when voters have conditional preferences that are modeled by CP-nets.
For most of the cases they considered, they could show that the bribery problem
is solvable in polynomial time. Some cases remained open---we solve two of them
and extend the previous results to the case that voters are weighted. Moreover,
we consider negative (weighted) bribery in CP-nets, when the briber is not
allowed to pay voters to vote for his preferred candidate.Comment: improved readability; identified Cheapest Subsets to be the
enumeration variant of K.th Largest Subset, so we renamed it to K-Smallest
Subsets and point to the literatur; some more typos fixe
Implicit regularization in AI meets generalized hardness of approximation in optimization -- Sharp results for diagonal linear networks
Understanding the implicit regularization imposed by neural network
architectures and gradient based optimization methods is a key challenge in
deep learning and AI. In this work we provide sharp results for the implicit
regularization imposed by the gradient flow of Diagonal Linear Networks (DLNs)
in the over-parameterized regression setting and, potentially surprisingly,
link this to the phenomenon of phase transitions in generalized hardness of
approximation (GHA). GHA generalizes the phenomenon of hardness of
approximation from computer science to, among others, continuous and robust
optimization. It is well-known that the -norm of the gradient flow of
DLNs with tiny initialization converges to the objective function of basis
pursuit. We improve upon these results by showing that the gradient flow of
DLNs with tiny initialization approximates minimizers of the basis pursuit
optimization problem (as opposed to just the objective function), and we obtain
new and sharp convergence bounds w.r.t.\ the initialization size. Non-sharpness
of our results would imply that the GHA phenomenon would not occur for the
basis pursuit optimization problem -- which is a contradiction -- thus implying
sharpness. Moreover, we characterize minimizer of the
basis pursuit problem is chosen by the gradient flow whenever the minimizer is
not unique. Interestingly, this depends on the depth of the DLN
The complexity of general-valued CSPs seen from the other side
The constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) is concerned with homomorphisms
between two structures. For CSPs with restricted left-hand side structures, the
results of Dalmau, Kolaitis, and Vardi [CP'02], Grohe [FOCS'03/JACM'07], and
Atserias, Bulatov, and Dalmau [ICALP'07] establish the precise borderline of
polynomial-time solvability (subject to complexity-theoretic assumptions) and
of solvability by bounded-consistency algorithms (unconditionally) as bounded
treewidth modulo homomorphic equivalence.
The general-valued constraint satisfaction problem (VCSP) is a generalisation
of the CSP concerned with homomorphisms between two valued structures. For
VCSPs with restricted left-hand side valued structures, we establish the
precise borderline of polynomial-time solvability (subject to
complexity-theoretic assumptions) and of solvability by the -th level of the
Sherali-Adams LP hierarchy (unconditionally). We also obtain results on related
problems concerned with finding a solution and recognising the tractable cases;
the latter has an application in database theory.Comment: v2: Full version of a FOCS'18 paper; improved presentation and small
correction
Circular economy implementation in waste management network design problem: a case study
The paper presents a new approach to support the strategic decision-making in the area of municipal solid waste management applying modern circular economy principles. A robust two-stage integer non-linear program is developed. The primary goal tends to reduce the waste production. The generated waste should be preferably recycled as much as possible and the resultant residual waste might be used for energy recovery. Only some waste residues are appropriate for landfilling. The aim is to propose the near-optimal waste allocation for its suitable processing as well as waste transportation plan at an operational level. In addition, the key strategical decisions on waste treatment facilities location must be made. Since waste production is very often hard to predict, it is modeled as an uncertain decision-dependent quantity. To support the circular economy ideas, advertising and pricing principles are introduced and applied. Due to the size of available real-world data and complexity of the designed program, the presented model is linearized and uncertainty is handled by a robust optimization methodology. The model, data, and algorithm are implemented in MATLAB and Julia, using the state-of-the-art solvers. The computational result is a set of decisions providing a trade-off between the average performance and the immunization against the worst-case conditions. © 2019, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature
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