No Arabic abstract
Motivated by map labeling, Funke, Krumpe, and Storandt [IWOCA 2016] introduced the following problem: we are given a sequence of $n$ disks in the plane. Initially, all disks have radius $0$, and they grow at constant, but possibly different, speeds. Whenever two disks touch, the one with the higher index disappears. The goal is to determine the elimination order, i.e., the order in which the disks disappear. We provide the first general subquadratic algorithm for this problem. Our solution extends to other shapes (e.g., rectangles), and it works in any fixed dimension. We also describe an alternative algorithm that is based on quadtrees. Its running time is $Obig(n big(log n + min { log Delta, log Phi }big)big)$, where $Delta$ is the ratio of the fastest and the slowest growth rate and $Phi$ is the ratio of the largest and the smallest distance between two disk centers. This improves the running times of previous algorithms by Funke, Krumpe, and Storandt [IWOCA 2016], Bahrdt et al. [ALENEX 2017], and Funke and Storandt [EuroCG 2017]. Finally, we give an $Omega(nlog n)$ lower bound, showing that our quadtree algorithms are almost tight.
We provide the solution for a fundamental problem of geometric optimization by giving a complete characterization of worst-case optimal disk coverings of rectangles: For any $lambdageq 1$, the critical covering area $A^*(lambda)$ is the minimum value for which any set of disks with total area at least $A^*(lambda)$ can cover a rectangle of dimensions $lambdatimes 1$. We show that there is a threshold value $lambda_2 = sqrt{sqrt{7}/2 - 1/4} approx 1.035797ldots$, such that for $lambda<lambda_2$ the critical covering area $A^*(lambda)$ is $A^*(lambda)=3pileft(frac{lambda^2}{16} +frac{5}{32} + frac{9}{256lambda^2}right)$, and for $lambdageq lambda_2$, the critical area is $A^*(lambda)=pi(lambda^2+2)/4$; these values are tight. For the special case $lambda=1$, i.e., for covering a unit square, the critical covering area is $frac{195pi}{256}approx 2.39301ldots$. The proof uses a careful combination of manual and automatic analysis, demonstrating the power of the employed interval arithmetic technique.
We improve the running times of $O(1)$-approximation algorithms for the set cover problem in geometric settings, specifically, covering points by disks in the plane, or covering points by halfspaces in three dimensions. In the unweighted case, Agarwal and Pan [SoCG 2014] gave a randomized $O(nlog^4 n)$-time, $O(1)$-approximation algorithm, by using variants of the multiplicative weight update (MWU) method combined with geometric data structures. We simplify the data structure requirement in one of their methods and obtain a deterministic $O(nlog^3 nloglog n)$-time algorithm. With further new ideas, we obtain a still faster randomized $O(nlog n(loglog n)^{O(1)})$-time algorithm. For the weighted problem, we also give a randomized $O(nlog^4nloglog n)$-time, $O(1)$-approximation algorithm, by simple modifications to the MWU method and the quasi-uniform sampling technique.
In 1960, Asplund and Grunbaum proved that every intersection graph of axis-parallel rectangles in the plane admits an $O(omega^2)$-coloring, where $omega$ is the maximum size of a clique. We present the first asymptotic improvement over this six-decade-old bound, proving that every such graph is $O(omegalogomega)$-colorable and presenting a polynomial-time algorithm that finds such a coloring. This improvement leads to a polynomial-time $O(loglog n)$-approximation algorithm for the maximum weight independent set problem in axis-parallel rectangles, which improves on the previous approximation ratio of $O(frac{log n}{loglog n})$.
We give a polynomial-time constant-factor approximation algorithm for maximum independent set for (axis-aligned) rectangles in the plane. Using a polynomial-time algorithm, the best approximation factor previously known is $O(loglog n)$. The results are based on a new form of recursive partitioning in the plane, in which faces that are constant-complexity and orthogonally convex are recursively partitioned into a constant number of such faces.
We consider the problem of finding textit{semi-matching} in bipartite graphs which is also extensively studied under various names in the scheduling literature. We give faster algorithms for both weighted and unweighted case. For the weighted case, we give an $O(nmlog n)$-time algorithm, where $n$ is the number of vertices and $m$ is the number of edges, by exploiting the geometric structure of the problem. This improves the classical $O(n^3)$ algorithms by Horn [Operations Research 1973] and Bruno, Coffman and Sethi [Communications of the ACM 1974]. For the unweighted case, the bound could be improved even further. We give a simple divide-and-conquer algorithm which runs in $O(sqrt{n}mlog n)$ time, improving two previous $O(nm)$-time algorithms by Abraham [MSc thesis, University of Glasgow 2003] and Harvey, Ladner, Lovasz and Tamir [WADS 2003 and Journal of Algorithms 2006]. We also extend this algorithm to solve the textit{Balance Edge Cover} problem in $O(sqrt{n}mlog n)$ time, improving the previous $O(nm)$-time algorithm by Harada, Ono, Sadakane and Yamashita [ISAAC 2008].