Related papers: A note on: No need to choose: How to get both a PT…
We study classic scheduling problems on uniformly related machines. Efficient polynomial time approximation schemes (EPTAS's) are fast and practical approximation schemes. New methods and techniques are essential in developing such improved…
In this paper, we propose a general framework to design {efficient} polynomial time approximation schemes (EPTAS) for fundamental stochastic combinatorial optimization problems. Given an error parameter $\epsilon>0$, such algorithmic…
An important objective in scheduling literature is to minimize the sum of weighted flow times. We are given a set of jobs where each job is characterized by a release time, a processing time, and a weight. Our goal is to find a preemptive…
We study several questions related to diversifying search results. We give improved approximation algorithms in each of the following problems, together with some lower bounds. - We give a polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS) for a…
An unconstrained nonlinear binary optimization problem of selecting a maximum expected value subset of items is considered. Each item is associated with a profit and probability. Each of the items succeeds or fails independently with the…
A searcher is tasked with exploring a graph with edge lengths and vertex weights, starting from a designated vertex. Initially, only the starting vertex is considered explored. At each step, the searcher adds an edge to the solution,…
We develop a framework for obtaining polynomial time approximation schemes (PTAS) for a class of stochastic dynamic programs. Using our framework, we obtain the first PTAS for the following stochastic combinatorial optimization problems:…
In the Closest String problem one is given a family $\mathcal S$ of equal-length strings over some fixed alphabet, and the task is to find a string $y$ that minimizes the maximum Hamming distance between $y$ and a string from $\mathcal S$.…
The Consensus Clustering problem has been introduced as an effective way to analyze the results of different microarray experiments. The problem consists of looking for a partition that best summarizes a set of input partitions (each…
We consider the classical scheduling problem on parallel identical machines to minimize the makespan, and achieve the following results under the Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH) 1. The scheduling problem on a constant number $m$ of…
Everywhere-$\delta$-dense graphs are defined as graphs on $n$ vertices in which every vertex has degree at least $\delta n$ for some constant $\delta > 0$. Approximation schemes are vital for handling NP-hard optimization problems, but for…
We present novel randomized approximation schemes for the Edit Distance (ED) problem and the Longest Common Subsequence (LCS) problem that, for any constant $\epsilon>0$, compute a $(1+\epsilon)$-approximation for ED and a…
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 propose an $\widetilde{O}(n + 1/\eps)$-time FPTAS (Fully Polynomial-Time Approximation Scheme) for the classical Partition problem. This is the best possible (up to a polylogarithmic factor) assuming SETH (Strong Exponential Time…
We study polynomial-time approximation schemes (PTASes) for constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) such as Maximum Independent Set or Minimum Vertex Cover on sparse graph classes. Baker's approach gives a PTAS on planar graphs,…
We consider the SUBSET SUM problem and its important variants in this paper. In the SUBSET SUM problem, a (multi-)set $X$ of $n$ positive numbers and a target number $t$ are given, and the task is to find a subset of $X$ with the maximal…
We consider basic problems of non-preemptive scheduling on uniformly related machines. For a given schedule, defined by a partition of the jobs into m subsets corresponding to the m machines, C_i denotes the completion time of machine i.…
First, we study geometric variants of the standard set cover motivated by assignment of directional antenna and shipping with deadlines, providing the first known polynomial-time exact solutions. Next, we consider the following general…
The main results of this paper provide an Efficient Polynomial-Time Approximation Scheme (EPTAS) for approximating the genus (and non-orientable genus) of dense graphs. By dense we mean that $|E(G)|\ge \alpha |V(G)|^2$ for some fixed…
It has long been known, since the classical work of (Arora, Karger, Karpinski, JCSS~99), that \MC\ admits a PTAS on dense graphs, and more generally, \kCSP\ admits a PTAS on "dense" instances with $\Omega(n^k)$ constraints. In this paper we…