Related papers: Approximation and Hardness for Token Swapping
Given a graph $\mathcal{G}$, the spanning centrality (SC) of an edge $e$ measures the importance of $e$ for $\mathcal{G}$ to be connected. In practice, SC has seen extensive applications in computational biology, electrical networks, and…
We show improved fine-grained hardness of two key lattice problems in the $\ell_p$ norm: Bounded Distance Decoding to within an $\alpha$ factor of the minimum distance ($\mathrm{BDD}_{p, \alpha}$) and the (decisional) $\gamma$-approximate…
We consider the {\em stochastic matching} problem. An edge-weighted general (i.e., not necessarily bipartite) graph $G(V, E)$ is given in the input, where each edge in $E$ is {\em realized} independently with probability $p$; the…
Hopsets and spanners are fundamental graph structures, playing a key role in shortest path computation, distributed communication, and more. A (near-exact) hopset for a given graph $G$ is a (small) subset of weighted edges $H$ that when…
The graph isomorphism problem asks whether two graphs are identical up to vertex relabeling. While the exact problem admits quasi-polynomial-time classical algorithms, many applications in molecular comparison, noisy network analysis, and…
Parallel tempering, also known as replica exchange sampling, is an important method for simulating complex systems. In this algorithm simulations are conducted in parallel at a series of temperatures, and the key feature of the algorithm is…
In this paper we show that the problem of identifying an edge $(i,j)$ in a graph $G$ such that there exists an optimal vertex cover $S$ of $G$ containing exactly one of the nodes $i$ and $j$ is NP-hard. Such an edge is called a weak edge.…
We present a time-optimal deterministic distributed algorithm for approximating a minimum weight vertex cover in hypergraphs of rank $f$. This problem is equivalent to the Minimum Weight Set Cover problem in which the frequency of every…
It is known for many algorithmic problems that if a tree decomposition of width $t$ is given in the input, then the problem can be solved with exponential dependence on $t$. A line of research by Lokshtanov, Marx, and Saurabh [SODA 2011]…
Given an $n$-vertex non-negatively real-weighted graph $G$, whose vertices are partitioned into a set of $k$ clusters, a \emph{clustered network design problem} on $G$ consists of solving a given network design optimization problem on $G$,…
For graphs $G$ and $T$, and a family of graphs $\mathcal{F}$ let $\mathrm{ex}(G,T,\mathcal{F})$ denote the maximum possible number of copies of $T$ in an $\mathcal{F}$-free subgraph of $G$. We investigate the algorithmic aspects of…
A dominating set D in a graph G is a subset of its vertices such that every vertex of the graph which does not belong to set D is adjacent to at least one vertex from set D. A set of vertices of graph G is a global dominating set if it is a…
The element distinctness problem takes as input a list $I$ of $n$ values from a totally ordered universe and the goal is to decide whether $I$ contains any duplicates. It is a well-studied problem with a classical worst-case $\Omega(n \log…
Approximating the graph diameter is a basic task of both theoretical and practical interest. A simple folklore algorithm can output a 2-approximation to the diameter in linear time by running BFS from an arbitrary vertex. It has been open…
Detecting and counting copies of permutation patterns are fundamental algorithmic problems, with applications in the analysis of rankings, nonparametric statistics, and property testing tasks such as independence and quasirandomness…
Consider a vertex-weighted graph $G$ with a source $s$ and a target $t$. Tracking Paths requires finding a minimum weight set of vertices (trackers) such that the sequence of trackers in each path from $s$ to $t$ is unique. In this work, we…
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…
Betweenness is a well-known centrality measure that ranks the nodes of a network according to their participation in shortest paths. Since an exact computation is prohibitive in large networks, several approximation algorithms have been…
In the stochastic weighted matching problem, the goal is to find a large-weight matching of a graph when we are uncertain about the existence of its edges. In particular, each edge $e$ has a known weight $w_e$ but is realized independently…
In kidney exchange programs, multiple patient-donor pairs each of whom are otherwise incompatible, exchange their donors to receive compatible kidneys. The Kidney Exchange problem is typically modelled as a directed graph where every vertex…