Related papers: Scalefree hardness of average-case Euclidean TSP a…
We study the sample complexity of learning an $\epsilon$-optimal policy in the Stochastic Shortest Path (SSP) problem. We first derive sample complexity bounds when the learner has access to a generative model. We show that there exists a…
We consider optimal route planning when the objective function is a general nonlinear and non-monotonic function. Such an objective models user behavior more accurately, for example, when a user is risk-averse, or the utility function needs…
We establish the validity of asymptotic limits for the general transportation problem between random i.i.d. points and their common distribution, with respect to the squared Euclidean distance cost, in any dimension larger than three.…
Set Cover is a classic NP-hard problem; as shown by Slav\'{i}k (1997) the greedy algorithm gives an approximation ratio of $\ln n - \ln \ln n + \Theta(1)$. A series of works by Lund \& Yannakakis (1994), Feige (1998), Moshkovitz (2015) have…
We give a probabilistic analysis of the unit-demand Euclidean capacitated vehicle routing problem in the random setting, where the input distribution consists of $n$ unit-demand customers modeled as independent, identically distributed…
We prove the first, even super-polynomial, lower bounds on the size of tropical (min,+) and (max,+) circuits approximating given optimization problems. Many classical dynamic programming (DP) algorithms for optimization problems are pure in…
A long standing conjecture says that the integrality ratio of the subtour LP for metric TSP is $4/3$. A well known family of graphic TSP instances achieves this lower bound asymptotically. For Euclidean TSP the best known lower bound on the…
In this experimental study we consider Steiner tree approximations that guarantee a constant approximation of ratio smaller than $2$. The considered greedy algorithms and approaches based on linear programming involve the incorporation of…
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…
Tabu search is one of the most effective heuristics for locating high-quality solutions to a diverse array of NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems. Despite the widespread success of tabu search, researchers have a poor understanding…
A worst-case complexity bound is proved for a sequential quadratic optimization (commonly known as SQP) algorithm that has been designed for solving optimization problems involving a stochastic objective function and deterministic nonlinear…
We introduce a 2-round stochastic constraint-satisfaction problem, and show that its approximation version is complete for (the promise version of) the complexity class AM. This gives a `PCP characterization' of AM analogous to the PCP…
Parameterized runtime analysis seeks to understand the influence of problem structure on algorithmic runtime. In this paper, we contribute to the theoretical understanding of evolutionary algorithms and carry out a parameterized analysis of…
In the Euclidean TSP with neighborhoods (TSPN), we are given a collection of $n$ regions (neighborhoods) and we seek a shortest tour that visits each region. In the path variant, we seek a shortest path that visits each region. We present…
The Metropolis process (MP) and Simulated Annealing (SA) are stochastic local search heuristics that are often used in solving combinatorial optimization problems. Despite significant interest, there are very few theoretical results…
We present a deterministic (1+sqrt(5))/2-approximation algorithm for the s-t path TSP for an arbitrary metric. Given a symmetric metric cost on n vertices including two prespecified endpoints, the problem is to find a shortest Hamiltonian…
We prove that all 'gradient span algorithms' have asymptotically deterministic behavior on scaled Gaussian random functions as the dimension tends to infinity. In particular, this result explains the counterintuitive phenomenon that…
We establish higher-order nonasymptotic expansions for a difference between probability distributions of sums of i.i.d. random vectors in a Euclidean space. The derived bounds are uniform over two classes of sets: the set of all Euclidean…
Consider~\(n\) nodes~\(\{X_i\}_{1 \leq i \leq n}\) independently distributed in the unit square~\(S,\) each according to a distribution~\(f\) and let~\(K_n\) be the complete graph formed by joining each pair of nodes by a straight line…
In the design of greedy algorithms for the maximum cardinality matching problem the utilization of degree information when selecting the next edge is a well established and successful approach. We define the class of "degree sensitive"…