Related papers: On the Approximation of Submodular Functions
In the classical selection problem, the input consists of a collection of elements and the goal is to pick a subset of elements from the collection such that some objective function $f$ is maximized. This problem has been studied…
We present combinatorial and parallelizable algorithms for maximization of a submodular function, not necessarily monotone, with respect to a size constraint. We improve the best approximation factor achieved by an algorithm that has…
Submodular functions -- functions exhibiting diminishing returns -- are central to machine learning. When the objective is monotone and non-negative, the greedy algorithm achieves a tight $63\%$ approximation. But many practical objectives…
It is known that a subharmonic function of finite order $\rho$ can be approximated by the logarithm of the modulus of an entire function at the point $z$ outside an exceptional set up to $C\log|z|$. In this article we prove that if such an…
The greedy algorithm for monotone submodular function maximization subject to cardinality constraint is guaranteed to approximate the optimal solution to within a $1-1/e$ factor. Although it is well known that this guarantee is essentially…
Submodular optimization has received significant attention in both practice and theory, as a wide array of problems in machine learning, auction theory, and combinatorial optimization have submodular structure. In practice, these problems…
We investigate the approximability of several classes of real-valued functions by functions of a small number of variables ({\em juntas}). Our main results are tight bounds on the number of variables required to approximate a function…
Submodular and fractionally subadditive (or equivalently XOS) functions play a fundamental role in combinatorial optimization, algorithmic game theory and machine learning. Motivated by learnability of these classes of functions from random…
We study universal approximation of continuous functionals on compact subsets of products of Hilbert spaces. We prove that any such functional can be uniformly approximated by models that first take finitely many continuous linear…
Robust optimization is becoming increasingly important in machine learning applications. In this paper, we study a unified framework of robust submodular optimization. We study this problem both from a minimization and maximization…
Greedy algorithms are widely used for problems in machine learning such as feature selection and set function optimization. Unfortunately, for large datasets, the running time of even greedy algorithms can be quite high. This is because for…
We consider fairness in submodular maximization subject to a knapsack constraint, a fundamental problem with various applications in economics, machine learning, and data mining. In the model, we are given a set of ground elements, each…
In this paper we describe a new algorithm called Fast Adaptive Sequencing Technique (FAST) for maximizing a monotone submodular function under a cardinality constraint $k$ whose approximation ratio is arbitrarily close to $1-1/e$, is…
We consider the problem of maximizing a monotone submodular function under noise. There has been a great deal of work on optimization of submodular functions under various constraints, resulting in algorithms that provide desirable…
We consider submodular function minimization in the oracle model: given black-box access to a submodular set function $f:2^{[n]}\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$, find an element of $\arg\min_S \{f(S)\}$ using as few queries to $f(\cdot)$ as…
We present an optimal, combinatorial 1-1/e approximation algorithm for monotone submodular optimization over a matroid constraint. Compared to the continuous greedy algorithm (Calinescu, Chekuri, Pal and Vondrak, 2008), our algorithm is…
We show that any submodular minimization (SM) problem defined on a linear constraint set with constraints having up to two variables per inequality, are 2-approximable in polynomial time. If the constraints are monotone (the two variables…
We develop a framework for the distributed minimization of submodular functions. Submodular functions are a discrete analog of convex functions and are extensively used in large-scale combinatorial optimization problems. While there has…
We present a provably more efficient implementation of the Minimum Norm Point Algorithm conceived by Fujishige than the one presented in \cite{FUJI06}. The algorithm solves the minimization problem for a class of functions known as…
Submodularity is a discrete domain functional property that can be interpreted as mimicking the role of the well-known convexity/concavity properties in the continuous domain. Submodular functions exhibit strong structure that lead to…