Related papers: Approximating the MaxCover Problem with Bounded Fr…
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…
It is well-known that an algorithm exists which approximates the NP-complete problem of Set Cover within a factor of ln(n), and it was recently proven that this approximation ratio is optimal unless P = NP. This optimality result is the…
The sum of radii problem ($k$-MSR) asks, given a metric space on $n$ points, to place $k$ balls covering all points so as to minimize the sum of their radii. Despite extensive study from the perspectives of approximation and parameterized…
This paper gives poly-logarithmic-round, distributed D-approximation algorithms for covering problems with submodular cost and monotone covering constraints (Submodular-cost Covering). The approximation ratio D is the maximum number of…
The seminar assignment problem is a variant of the generalized assignment problem in which items have unit size and the amount of space allowed in each bin is restricted to an arbitrary set of values. The problem has been shown to be…
One key problem in network analysis is the so-called influence maximization problem, which consists in finding a set $S$ of at most $k$ seed users, in a social network, maximizing the spread of information from $S$. This paper studies a…
Let F be a finite set of graphs. In the F-Deletion problem, we are given an n-vertex graph G and an integer k as input, and asked whether at most k vertices can be deleted from G such that the resulting graph does not contain a graph from F…
Building on the blueprint from Goemans and Williamson (1995) for the Max-Cut problem, we construct a polynomial-time approximation algorithm for orthogonally constrained quadratic optimization problems. First, we derive a semidefinite…
Quadratic Programming (QP) is the well-studied problem of maximizing over {-1,1} values the quadratic form \sum_{i \ne j} a_{ij} x_i x_j. QP captures many known combinatorial optimization problems, and assuming the unique games conjecture,…
We examine the minimum entropy coupling problem, where one must find the minimum entropy variable that has a given set of distributions $S = \{p_1, \dots, p_m \}$ as its marginals. Although this problem is NP-Hard, previous works have…
We study geometric variations of the discriminating code problem. In the \emph{discrete version} of the problem, a finite set of points $P$ and a finite set of objects $S$ are given in $\mathbb{R}^d$. The objective is to choose a subset…
In the Densest $k$-Subgraph problem, given an undirected graph $G$ and an integer $k$, the goal is to find a subgraph of $G$ on $k$ vertices that contains maximum number of edges. Even though the state-of-the-art algorithm for the problem…
Given a set of points $P$ and axis-aligned rectangles $\mathcal{R}$ in the plane, a point $p \in P$ is called \emph{exposed} if it lies outside all rectangles in $\mathcal{R}$. In the \emph{max-exposure problem}, given an integer parameter…
Given a graph $G=(V,E)$ with non-negative real edge lengths and an integer parameter $k$, the Min-Max k-Tree Cover problem seeks to find a set of at most $k$ subtrees of $G$, such that the union of the trees is the vertex set $V$. The…
Centrality measures characterize important nodes in networks. Efficiently computing such nodes has received a lot of attention. When considering the generalization of computing central groups of nodes, challenging optimization problems…
In this paper, we introduce the Maximum Matrix Contraction problem, where we aim to contract as much as possible a binary matrix in order to maximize its density. We study the complexity and the polynomial approximability of the problem.…
The goal of this paper is to understand how exponential-time approximation algorithms can be obtained from existing polynomial-time approximation algorithms, existing parameterized exact algorithms, and existing parameterized approximation…
Given $k$ collections of 2SAT clauses on the same set of variables $V$, can we find one assignment that satisfies a large fraction of clauses from each collection? We consider such simultaneous constraint satisfaction problems, and design…
Given a graph G, the {\em maximum internal spanning tree problem} (MIST for short) asks for computing a spanning tree T of G such that the number of internal vertices in T is maximized. MIST has possible applications in the design of…
This paper describes a simple greedy D-approximation algorithm for any covering problem whose objective function is submodular and non-decreasing, and whose feasible region can be expressed as the intersection of arbitrary (closed upwards)…