Related papers: On Approximability of Block Sorting
We show that \emph{Sorting by Strip Swaps} (SbSS) is NP-hard by a polynomial reduction of \emph{Block Sorting}. The key idea is a local gadget, a \emph{cage}, that replaces every decreasing adjacency $(a_i,a_{i+1})$ by a guarded triple…
The (Non-Preemptive) Throughput Maximization problem is a natural and fundamental scheduling problem. We are given $n$ jobs, where each job $j$ is characterized by a processing time and a time window, contained in a global interval $[0,T)$,…
In the reordering buffer management problem (RBM) a sequence of $n$ colored items enters a buffer with limited capacity $k$. When the buffer is full, one item is removed to the output sequence, making room for the next input item. This step…
Discrete energy minimization is widely-used in computer vision and machine learning for problems such as MAP inference in graphical models. The problem, in general, is notoriously intractable, and finding the global optimal solution is…
We connect the problem of properly PAC learning decision trees to the parameterized Nearest Codeword Problem ($k$-NCP). Despite significant effort by the respective communities, algorithmic progress on both problems has been stuck: the…
We study the $\ell_0$-Low Rank Approximation Problem, where the goal is, given an $m \times n$ matrix $A$, to output a rank-$k$ matrix $A'$ for which $\|A'-A\|_0$ is minimized. Here, for a matrix $B$, $\|B\|_0$ denotes the number of its…
We introduce a new variant of the nearest neighbor search problem, which allows for some coordinates of the dataset to be arbitrarily corrupted or unknown. Formally, given a dataset of $n$ points $P=\{ x_1,\ldots, x_n\}$ in high-dimensions,…
In the Colored Clustering problem, one is asked to cluster edge-colored (hyper-)graphs whose colors represent interaction types. More specifically, the goal is to select as many edges as possible without choosing two edges that share an…
We revisit two NP-hard geometric partitioning problems - convex decomposition and surface approximation. Building on recent developments in geometric separators, we present quasi-polynomial time algorithms for these problems with improved…
The joint optimization of the integer matrix $\mathbf{A}$ and the power scaling matrix $\mathbf{D}$ is central to achieving the capacity-approaching performance of Integer-Forcing (IF) precoding. This problem, however, is known to be…
We present approximation algorithms for almost all variants of the multi-criteria traveling salesman problem (TSP). First, we devise randomized approximation algorithms for multi-criteria maximum traveling salesman problems (Max-TSP). For…
The problem of maximizing the $p$-th power of a $p$-norm over a halfspace-presented polytope in $\R^d$ is a convex maximization problem which plays a fundamental role in computational convexity. It has been shown in 1986 that this problem…
We consider several combinatorial optimization problems which combine the classic shop scheduling problems, namely open shop scheduling or job shop scheduling, and the shortest path problem. The objective of the obtained problem is to…
We consider the problem of evaluating certain types of functional aggregation queries on relational data subject to additive inequalities. Such aggregation queries, with a smallish number of additive inequalities, arise naturally/commonly…
The efficient sparse coding and reconstruction of signal vectors via linear observations has received a tremendous amount of attention over the last decade. In this context, the automated learning of a suitable basis or overcomplete…
Optimization problems consist of either maximizing or minimizing an objective function. Instead of looking for a maximum solution (resp. minimum solution), one can find a minimum maximal solution (resp. maximum minimal solution). Such…
How can a stack of identical blocks be arranged to extend beyond the edge of a table as far as possible? We consider a generalization of this classic puzzle to blocks that differ in width and mass. Despite the seemingly simple premise, we…
We consider the Max-$3$-Section problem, where we are given an undirected graph $ G=(V,E)$ equipped with non-negative edge weights $w :E\rightarrow \mathbb{R}_+$ and the goal is to find a partition of $V$ into three equisized parts while…
Two kinds of approximation algorithms exist for the k-BALANCED PARTITIONING problem: those that are fast but compute unsatisfying approximation ratios, and those that guarantee high quality ratios but are slow. In this paper we prove that…
We consider worst case time bounds for NP-complete problems including 3-SAT, 3-coloring, 3-edge-coloring, and 3-list-coloring. Our algorithms are based on a constraint satisfaction (CSP) formulation of these problems. 3-SAT is equivalent to…