Related papers: Linear-Time Approximation Algorithms for Computing…
We consider optimal route planning when the objective function is a general nonlinear and non-monotonic function. Such an objective models user behavior more accurately, for example, when a user is risk-averse, or the utility function needs…
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…
We devise a polynomial-time approximation scheme for the classical geometric problem of finding an approximate short path amid weighted regions. In this problem, a triangulated region P comprising of n vertices, a positive weight associated…
We present a simple randomized algorithm that approximates the number of satisfying assignments of Boolean formulas in conjunctive normal form. To the best of our knowledge this is the first algorithm which approximates #k-SAT for any k >=…
Given n elements with nonnegative integer weights w1,..., wn and an integer capacity C, we consider the counting version of the classic knapsack problem: find the number of distinct subsets whose weights add up to at most the given…
We extend the concept of polynomial time approximation algorithms to apply to problems for hierarchically specified graphs, many of which are PSPACE-complete. Assuming P != PSPACE, the existence or nonexistence of such efficient…
We study polynomial-time approximation algorithms for (edge/vertex) Sparsest Cut and Small Set Expansion in terms of $k$, the number of edges or vertices cut in the optimal solution. Our main results are $\mathcal{O}(\text{polylog}\,…
We study several questions related to diversifying search results. We give improved approximation algorithms in each of the following problems, together with some lower bounds. - We give a polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS) for a…
Stochastic approximation is a foundation for many algorithms found in machine learning and optimization. It is in general slow to converge: the mean square error vanishes as $O(n^{-1})$. A deterministic counterpart known as quasi-stochastic…
We present a simple randomized polynomial time algorithm to approximate the mixed discriminant of $n$ positive semidefinite $n \times n$ matrices within a factor $2^{O(n)}$. Consequently, the algorithm allows us to approximate in randomized…
Given a list of N numbers, the maximum can be computed in N iterations. During these N iterations, the maximum gets updated on average as many times as the Nth harmonic number. We first use this fact to approximate the Nth harmonic number…
Subset Sum is a classical optimization problem taught to undergraduates as an example of an NP-hard problem, which is amenable to dynamic programming, yielding polynomial running time if the input numbers are relatively small. Formally,…
We show that computing even very coarse approximations of critical points is intractable for simple classes of nonconvex functions. More concretely, we prove that if there exists a polynomial-time algorithm that takes as input a polynomial…
In this paper, we describe randomized Shellsort--a simple, randomized, data-oblivious version of the Shellsort algorithm that always runs in O(n log n) time and, as we show, succeeds in sorting any given input permutation with very high…
Given a directed graph $G$ on $n$ vertices with a special vertex $s$, the directed minimum degree spanning tree problem requires computing a incoming spanning tree rooted at $s$ whose maximum tree in-degree is the smallest among all such…
Short integer linear programs are programs with a relatively small number of constraints. We show how recent improvements on the running-times of solvers for such programs can be used to obtain fast pseudo-polynomial time algorithms for…
We consider an assortment optimization problem where a customer chooses a single item from a sequence of sets shown to her, while limited inventories constrain the items offered to customers over time. In the special case where all of the…
Subset sum is a very old and fundamental problem in theoretical computer science. In this problem, $n$ items with weights $w_1, w_2, w_3, \ldots, w_n$ are given as input and the goal is to find out if there is a subset of them whose weights…
We give a constant factor polynomial time pseudo-approximation algorithm for min-sum clustering with or without outliers. The algorithm is allowed to exclude an arbitrarily small constant fraction of the points. For instance, we show how to…
A distributed network is modeled by a graph having $n$ nodes (processors) and diameter $D$. We study the time complexity of approximating {\em weighted} (undirected) shortest paths on distributed networks with a $O(\log n)$ {\em bandwidth…