No Arabic abstract
In the graph balancing problem the goal is to orient a weighted undirected graph to minimize the maximum weighted in-degree. This special case of makespan minimization is NP-hard to approximate to a factor better than 3/2 even when there are only two types of edge weights. In this note we describe a simple 3/2 approximation for the graph balancing problem with two-edge types, settling this very special case of makespan minimization.
Motivated by the classic Generalized Assignment Problem, we consider the Graph Balancing problem in the presence of orientation costs: given an undirected multi-graph G = (V,E) equipped with edge weights and orientation costs on the edges, the goal is to find an orientation of the edges that minimizes both the maximum weight of edges oriented toward any vertex (makespan) and total orientation cost. We present a general framework for minimizing makespan in the presence of costs that allows us to: (1) achieve bicriteria approximations for the Graph Balancing problem that capture known previous results (Shmoys-Tardos [Math. Progrm. 93], Ebenlendr-Krcal- Sgall [Algorithmica 14], and Wang-Sitters [Inf. Process. Lett. 16]); and (2) achieve bicriteria approximations for extensions of the Graph Balancing problem that admit hyperedges and unrelated weights. Our framework is based on a remarkably simple rounding of a strengthened linear relaxation. We complement the above by presenting bicriteria lower bounds with respect to the linear programming relaxations we use that show that a loss in the total orientation cost is required if one aims for an approximation better than 2 in the makespan.
Given an n-vertex graph G, a drawing of G in the plane is a mapping of its vertices into points of the plane, and its edges into continuous curves, connecting the images of their endpoints. A crossing in such a drawing is a point where two such curves intersect. In the Minimum Crossing Number problem, the goal is to find a drawing of G with minimum number of crossings. The value of the optimal solution, denoted by OPT, is called the graphs crossing number. This is a very basic problem in topological graph theory, that has received a significant amount of attention, but is still poorly understood algorithmically. The best currently known efficient algorithm produces drawings with $O(log^2 n)(n + OPT)$ crossings on bounded-degree graphs, while only a constant factor hardness of approximation is known. A closely related problem is Minimum Edge Planarization, in which the goal is to remove a minimum-cardinality subset of edges from G, such that the remaining graph is planar. Our main technical result establishes the following connection between the two problems: if we are given a solution of cost k to the Minimum Edge Planarization problem on graph G, then we can efficiently find a drawing of G with at most $poly(d)cdot kcdot (k+OPT)$ crossings, where $d$ is the maximum degree in G. This result implies an $O(ncdot poly(d)cdot log^{3/2}n)$-approximation for Minimum Crossing Number, as well as improved algorithms for special cases of the problem, such as, for example, k-apex and bounded-genus graphs.
Set function optimization is essential in AI and machine learning. We focus on a subadditive set function that generalizes submodularity, and examine the subadditivity of non-submodular functions. We also deal with a minimax subadditive load balancing problem, and present a modularization-minimization algorithm that theoretically guarantees a worst-case approximation factor. In addition, we give a lower bound computation technique for the problem. We apply these methods to the multi-robot routing problem for an empirical performance evaluation.
We give the first polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS) for the stochastic load balancing problem when the job sizes follow Poisson distributions. This improves upon the 2-approximation algorithm due to Goel and Indyk (FOCS99). Moreover, our approximation scheme is an efficient PTAS that has a running time double exponential in $1/epsilon$ but nearly-linear in $n$, where $n$ is the number of jobs and $epsilon$ is the target error. Previously, a PTAS (not efficient) was only known for jobs that obey exponential distributions (Goel and Indyk, FOCS99). Our algorithm relies on several probabilistic ingredients including some (seemingly) new results on scaling and the so-called focusing effect of maximum of Poisson random variables which might be of independent interest.
In a (parameterized) graph edge modification problem, we are given a graph $G$, an integer $k$ and a (usually well-structured) class of graphs $mathcal{G}$, and ask whether it is possible to transform $G$ into a graph $G in mathcal{G}$ by adding and/or removing at most $k$ edges. Parameterized graph edge modification problems received considerable attention in the last decades. In this paper, we focus on finding small kernels for edge modification problems. One of the most studied problems is the Cluster Editing problem, in which the goal is to partition the vertex set into a disjoint union of cliques. Even if this problem admits a $2k$ kernel [Cao, 2012], this kernel does not reduce the size of most instances. Therefore, we explore the question of whether linear kernels are a theoretical limit in edge modification problems, in particular when the target graphs are very structured (such as a partition into cliques for instance). We prove, as far as we know, the first sublinear kernel for an edge modification problem. Namely, we show that Clique + Independent Set Deletion, which is a restriction of Cluster Deletion, admits a kernel of size $O(k/log k)$. We also obtain small kernels for several other edge modification problems. We prove that Split Addition (and the equivalent Split Deletion) admits a linear kernel, improving the existing quadratic kernel of Ghosh et al. [Ghosh et al., 2015]. We complement this result by proving that Trivially Perfect Addition admits a quadratic kernel (improving the cubic kernel of Guo [Guo, 2007]), and finally prove that its triangle-free version (Starforest Deletion) admits a linear kernel, which is optimal under ETH.