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We generalize the fractional packing framework of Garg and Koenemann to the case of linear fractional packing problems over polyhedral cones. More precisely, we provide approximation algorithms for problems of the form $\max\{c^T x : Ax…
Let $S$ be a point set in the plane such that each of its elements is colored either red or blue. A matching of $S$ with rectangles is any set of pairwise-disjoint axis-aligned rectangles such that each rectangle contains exactly two points…
We study the minimum Manhattan network problem, which is defined as follows. Given a set of points called \emph{terminals} in $\R^d$, find a minimum-length network such that each pair of terminals is connected by a set of axis-parallel line…
We show the following problems are in $\textsf{P}$: 1. The contiguous art gallery problem -- a variation of the art gallery problem where each guard can protect a contiguous interval along the boundary of a simple polygon. This was posed at…
We investigate the gap between theory and practice for exact branching algorithms. In theory, branch-and-reduce algorithms currently have the best time complexity for numerous important problems. On the other hand, in practice,…
Consider the Maximum Weight Independent Set problem for rectangles: given a family of weighted axis-parallel rectangles in the plane, find a maximum-weight subset of non-overlapping rectangles. The problem is notoriously hard both in the…
Deletion problems are those where given a graph $G$ and a graph property $\pi$, the goal is to find a subset of edges such that after its removal the graph $G$ will satisfy the property $\pi$. Typically, we want to minimize the number of…
Given a set $P$ of $n$ points and a set $S$ of $n$ segments in the plane, we consider the problem of computing for each segment of $S$ its closest point in $P$. The previously best algorithm solves the problem in $n^{4/3}2^{O(\log^*n)}$…
We give an approximation algorithm for packing and covering linear programs (linear programs with non-negative coefficients). Given a constraint matrix with n non-zeros, r rows, and c columns, the algorithm computes feasible primal and dual…
This paper introduces the \emph{$d$-distance matching problem}, in which we are given a bipartite graph $G=(S,T;E)$ with $S=\{s_1,\dots,s_n\}$, a weight function on the edges and an integer $d\in\mathbb Z_+$. The goal is to find a maximum…
We present a method for segmenting neuron membranes in 2D electron microscopy imagery. This segmentation task has been a bottleneck to reconstruction efforts of the brain's synaptic circuits. One common problem is the misclassification of…
The submodular partitioning problem asks to minimize, over all partitions $P$ of a ground set $V$, the sum of a given submodular function $f$ over the parts of $P$. The problem has seen considerable work in approximability, as it…
Shortest paths in complex networks play key roles in many applications. Examples include routing packets in a computer network, routing traffic on a transportation network, and inferring semantic distances between concepts on the World Wide…
We revisit the minimum-link path problem: Given a polyhedral domain and two points in it, connect the points by a polygonal path with minimum number of edges. We consider settings where the vertices and/or the edges of the path are…
The vertex cover problem is one of the most important and intensively studied combinatorial optimization problems. Khot and Regev (2003) proved that the problem is NP-hard to approximate within a factor $2 - \epsilon$, assuming the Unique…
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…
In Path Set Packing, the input is an undirected graph $G$, a collection $\calp$ of simple paths in $G$, and a positive integer $k$. The problem is to decide whether there exist $k$ edge-disjoint paths in $\calp$. We study the parameterized…
Ordered matchings, defined as graphs with linearly ordered vertices, where each vertex is connected to exactly one edge, play a crucial role in the area of ordered graphs and their homomorphisms. Therefore, we consider related problems from…
The widely studied edge modification problems ask how to minimally alter a graph to satisfy certain structural properties. In this paper, we introduce and study a new edge modification problem centered around transforming a given graph into…
Matroids, particularly linear ones, have been a powerful tool in parameterized complexity for algorithms and kernelization. They have sped up or replaced dynamic programming. Delta-matroids generalize matroids by encapsulating structures…