Related papers: No Small Linear Program Approximates Vertex Cover …
We consider single-machine scheduling problems that are natural generalizations or variations of the min-sum set cover problem and the min-sum vertex cover problem. For each of these problems, we give new approximation algorithms. Some of…
Finding a minimum vertex cover in a network is a fundamental NP-complete graph problem. One way to deal with its computational hardness, is to trade the qualitative performance of an algorithm (allowing non-optimal outputs) for an improved…
Quadratic programs with box constraints involve minimizing a possibly nonconvex quadratic function subject to lower and upper bounds on each variable. This is a well-known NP-hard problem that frequently arises in various applications. We…
Makespan minimization on unrelated machines is a classic problem in approximation algorithms. No polynomial time $(2-\delta)$-approximation algorithm is known for the problem for constant $\delta> 0$. This is true even for certain special…
A systematic technique to bound factor-revealing linear programs is presented. We show how to derive a family of upper bound factor-revealing programs (UPFRP), and show that each such program can be solved by a computer to bound the…
Set packing is a fundamental problem that generalises some well-known combinatorial optimization problems and knows a lot of applications. It is equivalent to hypergraph matching and it is strongly related to the maximum independent set…
The Euclidean $k$-means problem is a classical problem that has been extensively studied in the theoretical computer science, machine learning and the computational geometry communities. In this problem, we are given a set of $n$ points in…
In the MINIMUM CONVEX COVER (MCC) problem, we are given a simple polygon $\mathcal P$ and an integer $k$, and the question is if there exist $k$ convex polygons whose union is $\mathcal P$. It is known that MCC is $\mathsf{NP}$-hard…
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…
Our goal in this paper is to propose a \textit{combinatorial algorithm} that beats the only such algorithm known previously, the greedy one. We study the polynomial approximation of the Maximum Vertex Cover Problem in bipartite graphs by a…
Given a set of $n$ points in the plane, the Unit Disk Cover (UDC) problem asks to compute the minimum number of unit disks required to cover the points, along with a placement of the disks. The problem is NP-hard and several approximation…
We consider approximation algorithms for covering integer programs of the form min $\langle c, x \rangle $ over $x \in \mathbb{N}^n $ subject to $A x \geq b $ and $x \leq d$; where $A \in \mathbb{R}_{\geq 0}^{m \times n}$, $b \in…
In this paper we present linear time approximation schemes for several generalized matching problems on nonbipartite graphs. Our results include $O_\epsilon(m)$-time algorithms for $(1-\epsilon)$-maximum weight $f$-factor and…
We introduce and study two natural generalizations of the Connected VertexCover (VC) problem: the $p$-Edge-Connected and $p$-Vertex-Connected VC problem (where $p \geq 2$ is a fixed integer). Like Connected VC, both new VC problems are FPT,…
Partitioning the vertices of a graph into two roughly equal parts while minimizing the number of edges crossing the cut is a fundamental problem (called Balanced Separator) that arises in many settings. For this problem, and variants such…
In this paper we will be concerned with a class of packing and covering problems which includes Vertex Cover and Independent Set. Typically, one can write an LP relaxation and then round the solution. In this paper, we explain why the…
We study the problem of Covering Orthogonal Polygons with Rectangles. For polynomial-time algorithms, the best-known approximation factor is $O(\sqrt{\log n})$ when the input polygon may have holes [Kumar and Ramesh, STOC '99, SICOMP '03],…
This thesis investigates the extent to which the optimal value of a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) can be approximated by some sentence of fixed point logic with counting (FPC). It is known that, assuming $\mathsf{P} \neq…
It is currently an unsolved problem to determine whether a $\triangle$-free planar graph $G$ contains an independent set $A$ such that $G[V_G\setminus A]$ is $2$-choosable. However, in this paper, we take a slightly different approach by…
We develop a polynomial time $\Omega\left ( \frac 1R \log R \right)$ approximate algorithm for Max 2CSP-$R$, the problem where we are given a collection of constraints, each involving two variables, where each variable ranges over a set of…