Related papers: Barrier Coverage with Non-uniform Lengths to Minim…

The dynamic shortest paths problem on planar graphs asks us to preprocess a planar graph $G$ such that we may support insertions and deletions of edges in $G$ as well as distance queries between any two nodes $u,v$ subject to the constraint…

The maximum coverage problem is to select $k$ sets from a collection of sets such that the cardinality of the union of the selected sets is maximized. We consider $(1-1/e-\epsilon)$-approximation algorithms for this NP-hard problem in three…

A fundamental problem in shape matching and geometric similarity is computing the maximum area overlap between two polygons under translation. For general simple polygons, the best-known algorithm runs in $O((nm)^2 \log(nm))$ time [Mount,…

We study extensions of the classic \emph{Line Cover} problem, which asks whether a set of $n$ points in the plane can be covered using $k$ lines. Line Cover is known to be NP-hard, and we focus on two natural generalizations. The first is…

Let $({\bf U},{\bf S},d)$ be an instance of Set Cover Problem, where ${\bf U}=\{u_1,...,u_n\}$ is a $n$ element ground set, ${\bf S}=\{S_1,...,S_m\}$ is a set of $m$ subsets of ${\bf U}$ satisfying $\bigcup_{i=1}^m S_i={\bf U}$ and $d$ is a…

We study approximation algorithms for the following geometric version of the maximum coverage problem: Let $\mathcal{P}$ be a set of $n$ weighted points in the plane. Let $D$ represent a planar object, such as a rectangle, or a disk. We…

The problem of finding "small" sets that meet every straight-line which intersects a given convex region was initiated by Mazurkiewicz in 1916. We call such a set an {\em opaque set} or a {\em barrier} for that region. We consider the…

This paper discusses the problem of covering and hitting a set of line segments $\cal L$ in ${\mathbb R}^2$ by a pair of axis-parallel squares such that the side length of the larger of the two squares is minimized. We also discuss the…

We consider the Minimum Coverage Kernel problem: given a set $B$ of $d$-dimensional boxes, find a subset of $B$ of minimum size covering the same region as $B$. This problem is $\mathsf{NP}$-hard, but as for many $\mathsf{NP}$-hard problems…

The Planar Graph Metric Compression Problem is to compactly encode the distances among $k$ nodes in a planar graph of size $n$. Two na\"ive solutions are to store the graph using $O(n)$ bits, or to explicitly store the distance matrix with…

The NP-hard Metric Dimension problem is to decide for a given graph G and a positive integer k whether there is a vertex subset of size at most k that separates all vertex pairs in G. Herein, a vertex v separates a pair {u,w} if the…

Barrier coverage is a critical issue in wireless sensor networks for many practical applications,e.g., national border monitoring, security surveillance and intruder detection, etc. Its aim is to detect intruders that attempt to cross 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…

In the pairwise weighted spanner problem, the input consists of an $n$-vertex-directed graph, where each edge is assigned a cost and a length. Given $k$ vertex pairs and a distance constraint for each pair, the goal is to find a…

We study the classic NP-Hard problem of finding the maximum $k$-set coverage in the data stream model: given a set system of $m$ sets that are subsets of a universe $\{1,\ldots,n \}$, find the $k$ sets that cover the most number of distinct…

We study the algorithmic problem of optimally covering a tree with $k$ mobile robots. The tree is known to all robots, and our goal is to assign a walk to each robot in such a way that the union of these walks covers the whole tree. We…

Tracking of moving objects is crucial to security systems and networks. Given a graph $G$, terminal vertices $s$ and $t$, and an integer $k$, the \textsc{Tracking Paths} problem asks whether there exists at most $k$ vertices, which if…

In this paper, we prove that it is W[2]-hard to approximate k-SetCover within any constant ratio. Our proof is built upon the recently developed threshold graph composition technique. We propose a strong notion of threshold graphs and use a…

We study approximation algorithms for the following geometric version of the maximum coverage problem: Let P be a set of n weighted points in the plane. We want to place m a * b rectangles such that the sum of the weights of the points in P…

The art gallery problem enquires about the least number of guards sufficient to ensure that an art gallery, represented by a simple polygon $P$, is fully guarded. Most standard versions of this problem are known to be NP-hard. In 1987,…