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In the Maximum Independent Set problem we are asked to find a set of pairwise nonadjacent vertices in a given graph with the maximum possible cardinality. In general graphs, this classical problem is known to be NP-hard and hard to…
We investigate the computational complexity of the following problem. We are given a graph in which each vertex has an initial and a target color. Each pair of adjacent vertices can swap their current colors. Our goal is to perform the…
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 consider stamps with different values (denominations) and same dimensions, and an envelope with a fixed maximum number of stamp positions. The local postage stamp problem is to find the smallest value that cannot be realized by the sum…
Genome rearrangements are events in which large blocks of DNA exchange pieces during evolution. The analysis of such events is a tool for understanding evolutionary genomics, based on finding the minimum number of rearrangements to…
Strip packing is a classical packing problem, where the goal is to pack a set of rectangular objects into a strip of a given width, while minimizing the total height of the packing. The problem has multiple applications, e.g. in scheduling…
In the Demand Strip Packing problem (DSP), we are given a time interval and a collection of tasks, each characterized by a processing time and a demand for a given resource (such as electricity, computational power, etc.). A feasible…
For an edge-weighted connected undirected graph, the minimum $k$-way cut problem is to find a subset of edges of minimum total weight whose removal separates the graph into $k$ connected components. The problem is NP-hard when $k$ is part…
We study a two-dimensional generalization of the classical Bin Packing problem, denoted as 2D Demand Bin Packing. In this context, each bin is a horizontal timeline, and rectangular tasks (representing electric appliances or computational…
The Graph Pricing problem is among the fundamental problems whose approximability is not well-understood. While there is a simple combinatorial 1/4-approximation algorithm, the best hardness result remains at 1/2 assuming the Unique Games…
We study the Minimum Sum Vertex Cover problem, which asks for an ordering of vertices in a graph that minimizes the total cover time of edges. In particular, n vertices of the graph are visited according to an ordering, and for each edge…
Quantum computing promises breakthroughs in simulating and solving complex, classically intractable problems. However, current noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices are relatively small and error-prone, prohibiting large-scale…
The Euclidean $k$-means problem is a classical problem that has been extensively studied in the theoretical computer science, machine learning and the computational geometry communities. In this problem, we are given a set of $n$ points in…
We describe a $\frac{4}{3}$-approximation algorithm for the traveling salesman problem in which the distances between points are induced by graph-theoretical distances in an unweighted graph. The algorithm is based on finding a minimum cost…
Optimization problems consist of either maximizing or minimizing an objective function. Instead of looking for a maximum solution (resp. minimum solution), one can find a minimum maximal solution (resp. maximum minimal solution). Such…
Given a redundant dictionary $\Phi$, represented by an $M \times N$ matrix ($\Phi \in \mathbb{R}^{M \times N}$) and a target signal $y \in \mathbb{R}^M$, the \emph{sparse approximation problem} asks to find an approximate representation of…
We show improved NP-hardness of approximating Ordering Constraint Satisfaction Problems (OCSPs). For the two most well-studied OCSPs, Maximum Acyclic Subgraph and Maximum Betweenness, we prove inapproximability of $14/15+\epsilon$ and…
The general Bandpass-$B$ problem is NP-hard and can be approximated by a reduction into the weighted $B$-set packing problem, with a worst case performance ratio of $O(B^2)$. When $B = 2$, a maximum weight matching gives a 2-approximation…
The orthogonality dimension of a graph $G$ over $\mathbb{R}$ is the smallest integer $k$ for which one can assign a nonzero $k$-dimensional real vector to each vertex of $G$, such that every two adjacent vertices receive orthogonal vectors.…
We study the Parallel Task Scheduling problem $Pm|size_j|C_{\max}$ with a constant number of machines. This problem is known to be strongly NP-complete for each $m \geq 5$, while it is solvable in pseudo-polynomial time for each $m \leq 3$.…