Related papers: A Structural Investigation of the Approximability …
In the classical Subset Sum problem we are given a set $X$ and a target $t$, and the task is to decide whether there exists a subset of $X$ which sums to $t$. A recent line of research has resulted in $\tilde{O}(t)$-time algorithms, which…
For many constraint satisfaction problems, the algorithm which chooses a random assignment achieves the best possible approximation ratio. For instance, a simple random assignment for {\sc Max-E3-Sat} allows 7/8-approximation and for every…
We give the first O(m polylog(n)) time algorithms for approximating maximum flows in undirected graphs and constructing polylog(n) -quality cut-approximating hierarchical tree decompositions. Our algorithm invokes existing algorithms for…
We give new rounding schemes for SDP relaxations for the problems of maximizing cubic polynomials over the unit sphere and the $n$-dimensional hypercube. In both cases, the resulting algorithms yield a $O(\sqrt{n/k})$ multiplicative…
We take an algorithmic approach to studying the solution space geometry of relatively sparse random and bounded degree $k$-CNFs for large $k$. In the course of doing so, we establish that with high probability, a random $k$-CNF $\Phi$ with…
The Matrix-based Renyi's entropy enables us to directly measure information quantities from given data without the costly probability density estimation of underlying distributions, thus has been widely adopted in numerous statistical…
In this paper we propose a structural parameter of CNF formulas and use it to identify instances of weighted MaxSAT and #SAT that can be solved in polynomial time. Given a CNF formula we say that a set of clauses is precisely satisfiable if…
We study the general scheduling problem (GSP) which generalizes and unifies several well-studied preemptive single-machine scheduling problems, such as weighted flow time, weighted sum of completion time, and minimizing the total weight of…
We consider the Max-$3$-Section problem, where we are given an undirected graph $ G=(V,E)$ equipped with non-negative edge weights $w :E\rightarrow \mathbb{R}_+$ and the goal is to find a partition of $V$ into three equisized parts while…
In this paper, we study a class of approximation problems, appearing in data approximation and signal processing. The approximations are constructed as combinations of polynomial splines (piecewise polynomials), whose parameters are subject…
For any $\varepsilon > 0$, we prove that $k$-Dimensional Matching is hard to approximate within a factor of $k/(12 + \varepsilon)$ for large $k$ unless $\textsf{NP} \subseteq \textsf{BPP}$. Listed in Karp's 21 $\textsf{NP}$-complete…
The MaxClique problem, finding the largest complete subgraph in an Erd{\"o}s-R{\'e}nyi $G(N,p)$ random graph in the large $N$ limit, is a well-known example of a simple problem for which finding any approximate solution within a factor of…
It has been observed in many places that constant-factor approximable problems often admit polynomial or even linear problem kernels for their decision versions, e.g., Vertex Cover, Feedback Vertex Set, and Triangle Packing. While there…
Reinforcement learning with function approximation has recently achieved tremendous results in applications with large state spaces. This empirical success has motivated a growing body of theoretical work proposing necessary and sufficient…
Maximizing a non-negative, monontone, submodular function $f$ over $n$ elements under a cardinality constraint $k$ (SMCC) is a well-studied NP-hard problem. It has important applications in, e.g., machine learning and influence…
We provide a new approach for establishing hardness of approximation results, based on the theory recently introduced by the author. It allows one to directly show that approximating a problem beyond a certain threshold requires…
The Knapsack problem is one of the most fundamental NP-complete problems at the intersection of computer science, optimization, and operations research. A recent line of research worked towards understanding the complexity of…
In the unsplittable flow problem on a path, we are given a capacitated path $P$ and $n$ tasks, each task having a demand, a profit, and start and end vertices. The goal is to compute a maximum profit set of tasks, such that for each edge…
We continue the investigation of polynomial-time sparsification for NP-complete Boolean Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs). The goal in sparsification is to reduce the number of constraints in a problem instance without changing the…
The independence number of a tree decomposition is the size of a largest independent set contained in a single bag. The tree-independence number of a graph $G$ is the minimum independence number of a tree decomposition of $G$. As shown…