Related papers: A PTAS for the continuous 1.5D Terrain Guarding Pr…
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…
We study approximability of subdense instances of various covering problems on graphs, defined as instances in which the minimum or average degree is Omega(n/psi(n)) for some function psi(n)=omega(1) of the instance size. We design new…
Many combinatorial optimization problems can be formulated as the search for a subgraph that satisfies certain properties and minimizes the total weight. We assume here that the vertices correspond to points in a metric space and can take…
We consider a special case of the generalized minimum spanning tree problem (GMST) and the generalized travelling salesman problem (GTSP) where we are given a set of points inside the integer grid (in Euclidean plane) where each grid cell…
Given a simple polygon $\mathcal{P}$ on $n$ vertices, two points $x,y$ in $\mathcal{P}$ are said to be visible to each other if the line segment between $x$ and $y$ is contained in $\mathcal{P}$. The Point Guard Art Gallery problem asks for…
We consider the problem of tracking $n$ targets in the plane using $2n$ cameras. We can use two cameras to estimate the location of a target. We are then interested in forming $n$ camera pairs where each camera belongs to exactly one pair,…
The theoretical models providing mathematical abstractions for several significant optimization problems in machine learning, combinatorial optimization, computer vision and statistical physics have intrinsic similarities. We propose a…
Consider the following distance query for an $n$-node graph $G$ undergoing edge insertions and deletions: given two sets of nodes $I$ and $J$, return the distances between every pair of nodes in $I\times J$. This query is rather general and…
The concept of bounded highway dimension was developed to capture observed properties of the metrics of road networks. We show that a graph with bounded highway dimension, for any vertex, can be embedded into a a graph of bounded treewidth…
We study the problem of supervised learning a metric space under discriminative constraints. Given a universe $X$ and sets ${\cal S}, {\cal D}\subset {X \choose 2}$ of similar and dissimilar pairs, we seek to find a mapping $f:X\to Y$, into…
We study the minimum Manhattan network problem, which is defined as follows. Given a set of points called \emph{terminals} in $\R^d$, find a minimum-length network such that each pair of terminals is connected by a set of axis-parallel line…
We study the problem of finding a tour of $n$ points in which every edge is long. More precisely, we wish to find a tour that visits every point exactly once, maximizing the length of the shortest edge in the tour. The problem is known as…
Interdiction problems ask about the worst-case impact of a limited change to an underlying optimization problem. They are a natural way to measure the robustness of a system, or to identify its weakest spots. Interdiction problems have been…
$\newcommand{\eps}{\varepsilon}$ We observe that a $(1-\eps)$-approximation algorithm to Independent Set, that works for any induced subgraph of the input graph, can be used, via a polynomial time reduction, to provide a…
We provide simple and fast polynomial time approximation schemes (PTASs) for several variants of the max-sum diversification problem which, in its most basic form, is as follows: Given n points p_1,...,p_n in R^d and an integer k, select k…
This paper presents an algorithm to deploy a team of {\it free} guards equipped with omni-directional cameras for tracking a bounded speed intruder inside a simply-connected polygonal environment. The proposed algorithm partitions the…
We give a number of approximation metatheorems for monotone maximization problems expressible in the first-order logic, in substantially more general settings than the previously known. We obtain * constant-factor approximation algorithm in…
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,…
Given a line segment $I=[0,L]$, the so-called barrier, and a set of $n$ sensors with varying ranges positioned on the line containing $I$, the barrier coverage problem is to move the sensors so that they cover $I$, while minimising the…
The Tree Augmentation Problem (TAP) is a fundamental network design problem in which we are given a tree and a set of additional edges, also called \emph{links}. The task is to find a set of links, of minimum size, whose addition to the…