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We consider the hardness of approximation of optimization problems from the point of view of definability. For many NP-hard optimization problems it is known that, unless P = NP, no polynomial-time algorithm can give an approximate solution…
We develop a randomized approximation algorithm for the classical maximum coverage problem, which given a list of sets $A_1,A_2,\cdots, A_m$ and integer parameter $k$, select $k$ sets $A_{i_1}, A_{i_2},\cdots, A_{i_k}$ for maximum union…
Given a set of objects with durations (jobs) that cover a base region, can we schedule the jobs to maximize the duration the original region remains covered? We call this problem the sensor cover problem. This problem arises in the context…
The main purpose of this paper is to study the NP-complete subset-sum problem, not in the usual context of time-complexity-based classification of the algorithms (exponential/polynomial), but through a new kind of algorithmic classification…
We consider the problem of planning with participation constraints introduced in [Zhang et al., 2022]. In this problem, a principal chooses actions in a Markov decision process, resulting in separate utilities for the principal and the…
Nowadays hybrid evolutionary algorithms, i.e, heuristic search algorithms combining several mutation operators some of which are meant to implement stochastically a well known technique designed for the specific problem in question while…
The paper deals with finite-state Markov decision processes (MDPs) with integer weights assigned to each state-action pair. New algorithms are presented to classify end components according to their limiting behavior with respect to the…
In the PATH COVER problem, one asks to cover the vertices of a graph using the smallest possible number of (not necessarily disjoint) paths. While the variant where the paths need to be pairwise vertex-disjoint, which we call PATH…
The maximum common subtree isomorphism problem asks for the largest possible isomorphism between subtrees of two given input trees. This problem is a natural restriction of the maximum common subgraph problem, which is ${\sf NP}$-hard in…
The design of an automated vehicle controller can be generally formulated into an optimal control problem. This paper proposes a continuous-time finite-horizon approximate dynamicprogramming (ADP) method, which can synthesis off-line…
Approximate message passing (AMP) is a family of iterative algorithms that generalize matrix power iteration. AMP algorithms are known to optimally solve many average-case optimization problems. In this paper, we show that a large class of…
We show that there is a polynomial-time algorithm with approximation guarantee $\frac{3}{2}+\epsilon$ for the $s$-$t$-path TSP, for any fixed $\epsilon>0$. It is well known that Wolsey's analysis of Christofides' algorithm also works for…
Maximum bipartite matching is a fundamental algorithmic problem which can be solved in polynomial time. We consider a natural variant in which there is a separation constraint: the vertices on one side lie on a path or a grid, and two…
In this paper we consider stopping problems with partial observation under a general risk-sensitive optimization criterion for problems with finite and infinite time horizon. Our aim is to maximize the certainty equivalent of the stopping…
We study a class of polynomial optimization problems with a robust polynomial matrix inequality (PMI) constraint where the uncertainty set itself is defined also by a PMI. These can be viewed as matrix generalizations of semi-infinite…
We give polynomial time algorithms for quantitative (and qualitative) reachability analysis for Branching Markov Decision Processes (BMDPs). Specifically, given a BMDP, and given an initial population, where the objective of the controller…
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 survey and unify recent results on the existence of accurate algorithms for evaluating multivariate polynomials, and more generally for accurate numerical linear algebra with structured matrices. By "accurate" we mean that the computed…
Polynomial optimization problems represent a wide class of optimization problems, with a large number of real-world applications. Current approaches for polynomial optimization, such as the sum of squares (SOS) method, rely on large-scale…
In this paper, we present long-awaited algorithmic advances toward the efficient construction of near-optimal replenishment policies for a true inventory management classic, the economic warehouse lot scheduling problem. While this paradigm…