Simultaneously Load Balancing for Every p-norm, With Reassignments

This paper investigates the task of load balancing where the objective function is to minimize the p-norm of loads, for pgeq 1, in both static and incremental settings. We consider two closely related load balancing problems. In the bipartite matching problem we are given a bipartite graph G=(Ccup S, E) and the goal is to assign each client cin C to a server sin S so that the p-norm of assignment loads on S is minimized. In the graph orientation problem the goal is to orient (direct) the edges of a given undirected graph while minimizing the p-norm of the out-degrees. The graph orientation problem is a special case of the bipartite matching problem, but less complex, which leads to simpler algorithms. For the graph orientation problem we show that the celebrated Chiba-Nishizeki peeling algorithm provides a simple linear time load balancing scheme whose output is an orientation that is 2-competitive, in a p-norm sense, for all pgeq 1. For the bipartite matching problem we first provide an offline algorithm that computes an optimal assignment. We then extend this solution to the online bipartite matching problem with reassignments, where vertices from C arrive in an online fashion together with their corresponding edges, and we are allowed to reassign an amortized O(1) vertices from C each time a new vertex arrives. In this online scenario we show how to maintain a single assignment that is 8-competitive, in a p-norm sense, for all pgeq 1

A Robust and Optimal Online Algorithm for Minimum Metric Bipartite Matching

We study the Online Minimum Metric Bipartite Matching Problem. In this problem, we are given point sets S and R which correspond to the server and request locations; here |S|=|R|=n. All these locations are points from some metric space and the cost of matching a server to a request is given by the distance between their locations in this space. In this problem, the request points arrive one at a time. When a request arrives, we must immediately and irrevocably match it to a "free" server. The matching obtained after all the requests are processed is the online matching M. The cost of M is the sum of the cost of its edges. The performance of any online algorithm is the worst-case ratio of the cost of its online solution M to the minimum-cost matching. We present a deterministic online algorithm for this problem. Our algorithm is the first to simultaneously achieve optimal performances in the well-known adversarial and the random arrival models. For the adversarial model, we obtain a competitive ratio of 2n-1 + o(1); it is known that no deterministic algorithm can do better than 2n-1. In the random arrival model, our algorithm obtains a competitive ratio of 2H_n - 1 + o(1); where H_n is the n-th Harmonic number. We also prove that any online algorithm will have a competitive ratio of at least 2H_n - 1-o(1) in this model. We use a new variation of the offline primal-dual method for computing minimum cost matching to compute the online matching. Our primal-dual method is based on a relaxed linear-program. Under metric costs, this specific relaxation helps us relate the cost of the online matching with the offline matching leading to its robust properties

Balancing Relevance and Diversity in Online Bipartite Matching via Submodularity

In bipartite matching problems, vertices on one side of a bipartite graph are paired with those on the other. In its online variant, one side of the graph is available offline, while the vertices on the other side arrive online. When a vertex arrives, an irrevocable and immediate decision should be made by the algorithm; either match it to an available vertex or drop it. Examples of such problems include matching workers to firms, advertisers to keywords, organs to patients, and so on. Much of the literature focuses on maximizing the total relevance---modeled via total weight---of the matching. However, in many real-world problems, it is also important to consider contributions of diversity: hiring a diverse pool of candidates, displaying a relevant but diverse set of ads, and so on. In this paper, we propose the Online Submodular Bipartite Matching (\osbm) problem, where the goal is to maximize a submodular function $f$ over the set of matched edges. This objective is general enough to capture the notion of both diversity (\emph{e.g.,} a weighted coverage function) and relevance (\emph{e.g.,} the traditional linear function)---as well as many other natural objective functions occurring in practice (\emph{e.g.,} limited total budget in advertising settings). We propose novel algorithms that have provable guarantees and are essentially optimal when restricted to various special cases. We also run experiments on real-world and synthetic datasets to validate our algorithms.Comment: To appear in AAAI 201