Related papers: A Double Exponential Lower Bound for the Distinct …
This paper studies a bandit optimization problem where the goal is to maximize a function $f(x)$ over $T$ periods for some unknown strongly concave function $f$. We consider a new pairwise comparison oracle, where the decision-maker chooses…
We solve the Bin Packing problem in $O^*(2^k)$ time, where $k$ is the number of items less or equal to one third of the bin capacity. This parameter measures the distance from the polynomially solvable case of only large (i.e., greater than…
Inferring probabilistic networks from data is a notoriously difficult task. Under various goodness-of-fit measures, finding an optimal network is NP-hard, even if restricted to polytrees of bounded in-degree. Polynomial-time algorithms are…
The $\ell$-matroid intersection ($\ell$-MI) problem asks if $\ell$ given matroids share a common basis. Already for $\ell = 3$, notable canonical NP-complete special cases are $3$-Dimensional Matching and Hamiltonian Path on directed…
Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are general-purpose problem solvers that usually perform an unbiased search. This is reasonable and desirable in a black-box scenario. For combinatorial optimization problems, often more knowledge about the…
We study the problem of estimating the number of defective items $d$ within a pile of $n$ elements up to a multiplicative factor of $\Delta>1$, using deterministic group testing algorithms. We bring lower and upper bounds on the number of…
In the $d$-Scattered Set problem we are asked to select at least $k$ vertices of a given graph, so that the distance between any pair is at least $d$. We study the problem's (in-)approximability and offer improvements and extensions of…
We present an algorithm that given a linear program with $n$ variables, $m$ constraints, and constraint matrix $A$, computes an $\epsilon$-approximate solution in $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{rank(A)}\log(1/\epsilon))$ iterations with high probability.…
We present a series of almost settled inapproximability results for three fundamental problems. The first in our series is the subexponential-time inapproximability of the maximum independent set problem, a question studied in the area of…
We present a new method for proving lower bounds on the expected running time of evolutionary algorithms. It is based on fitness-level partitions and an additional condition on transition probabilities between fitness levels. The method is…
We present a new approach to compute selected eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the two-parameter eigenvalue problem. Our method requires computing generalized eigenvalue problems of the same size as the matrices of the initial two-parameter…
We present a simple $O(n^4)$-time algorithm for computing optimal search trees with two-way comparisons. The only previous solution to this problem, by Anderson et al., has the same running time, but is significantly more complicated and is…
Classic cache-oblivious parallel matrix multiplication algorithms achieve optimality either in time or space, but not both, which promotes lots of research on the best possible balance or tradeoff of such algorithms. We study modern…
We study the problem of finding a maximum cardinality minimal separator of a graph. This problem is known to be NP-hard even for bipartite graphs. In this paper, we strengthen this hardness by showing that for planar bipartite graphs, the…
The maximum/minimum bisection problems are, given an edge-weighted graph, to find a bipartition of the vertex set into two sets whose sizes differ by at most one, such that the total weight of edges between the two sets is…
We consider optimization of nonlinear objective functions that balance $d$ linear criteria over $n$-element independence systems presented by linear-optimization oracles. For $d=1$, we have previously shown that an $r$-best approximate…
The paper considers the minimization of a separable convex function subject to linear ascending constraints. The problem arises as the core optimization in several resource allocation scenarios, and is a special case of an optimization of a…
Allen's interval algebra is one of the most well-known calculi in qualitative temporal reasoning with numerous applications in artificial intelligence. Recently, there has been a surge of improvements in the fine-grained complexity of…
Given two matroids $\mathcal{M}_{1} = (E, \mathcal{B}_{1})$ and $\mathcal{M}_{2} = (E, \mathcal{B}_{2})$ on a common ground set $E$ with base sets $\mathcal{B}_{1}$ and $\mathcal{B}_{2}$, some integer $k \in \mathbb{N}$, and two cost…
We identify a new and important global (or non-binary) constraint. This constraint ensures that the values taken by two vectors of variables, when viewed as multisets, are ordered. This constraint is useful for a number of different…