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We study a delay-sensitive information flow problem where a source streams information to a sink over a directed graph G(V,E) at a fixed rate R possibly using multiple paths to minimize the maximum end-to-end delay, denoted as the Min-Max-Delay problem. Transmission over an edge incurs a constant delay within the capacity. We prove that Min-Max-Delay is weakly NP-complete, and demonstrate that it becomes strongly NP-complete if we require integer flow solution. We propose an optimal pseudo-polynomial time algorithm for Min-Max-Delay, with time complexity O(log (Nd_{max}) (N^5d_{max}^{2.5})(log R+N^2d_{max}log(N^2d_{max}))), where N = max{|V|,|E|} and d_{max} is the maximum edge delay. Besides, we show that the integrality gap, which is defined as the ratio of the maximum delay of an optimal integer flow to the maximum delay of an optimal fractional flow, could be arbitrarily large.
Asadpour, Feige, and Saberi proved that the integrality gap of the configuration LP for the restricted max-min allocation problem is at most $4$. However, their proof does not give a polynomial-time approximation algorithm. A lot of efforts have been devoted to designing an efficient algorithm whose approximation ratio can match this upper bound for the integrality gap. In ICALP 2018, we present a $(6 + delta)$-approximation algorithm where $delta$ can be any positive constant, and there is still a gap of roughly $2$. In this paper, we narrow the gap significantly by proposing a $(4+delta)$-approximation algorithm where $delta$ can be any positive constant. The approximation ratio is with respect to the optimal value of the configuration LP, and the running time is $mathit{poly}(m,n)cdot n^{mathit{poly}(frac{1}{delta})}$ where $n$ is the number of players and $m$ is the number of resources. We also improve the upper bound for the integrality gap of the configuration LP to $3 + frac{21}{26} approx 3.808$.
The max-min fair allocation problem seeks an allocation of resources to players that maximizes the minimum total value obtained by any player. Each player $p$ has a non-negative value $v_{pr}$ on resource $r$. In the restricted case, we have $v_{pr}in {v_r, 0}$. That is, a resource $r$ is worth value $v_r$ for the players who desire it and value 0 for the other players. In this paper, we consider the configuration LP, a linear programming relaxation for the restricted problem. The integrality gap of the configuration LP is at least $2$. Asadpour, Feige, and Saberi proved an upper bound of $4$. We improve the upper bound to $23/6$ using the dual of the configuration LP. Since the configuration LP can be solved to any desired accuracy $delta$ in polynomial time, our result leads to a polynomial-time algorithm which estimates the optimal value within a factor of $23/6+delta$.
In this paper we present a new data structure for double ended priority queue, called min-max fine heap, which combines the techniques used in fine heap and traditional min-max heap. The standard operations on this proposed structure are also presented, and their analysis indicates that the new structure outperforms the traditional one.
The restricted max-min fair allocation problem seeks an allocation of resources to players that maximizes the minimum total value obtained by any player. It is NP-hard to approximate the problem to a ratio less than 2. Comparing the current best algorithm for estimating the optimal value with the current best for constructing an allocation, there is quite a gap between the ratios that can be achieved in polynomial time: roughly 4 for estimation and roughly $6 + 2sqrt{10}$ for construction. We propose an algorithm that constructs an allocation with value within a factor of $6 + delta$ from the optimum for any constant $delta > 0$. The running time is polynomial in the input size for any constant $delta$ chosen.
In the ${-1,0,1}$-APSP problem the goal is to compute all-pairs shortest paths (APSP) on a directed graph whose edge weights are all from ${-1,0,1}$. In the (min,max)-product problem the input is two $ntimes n$ matrices $A$ and $B$, and the goal is to output the (min,max)-product of $A$ and $B$. This paper provides a new algorithm for the ${-1,0,1}$-APSP problem via a simple reduction to the target-(min,max)-product problem where the input is three $ntimes n$ matrices $A,B$, and $T$, and the goal is to output a Boolean $ntimes n$ matrix $C$ such that the $(i,j)$ entry of $C$ is 1 if and only if the $(i,j)$ entry of the (min,max)-product of $A$ and $B$ is exactly the $(i,j)$ entry of the target matrix $T$. If (min,max)-product can be solved in $T_{MM}(n) = Omega(n^2)$ time then it is straightforward to solve target-(min,max)-product in $O(T_{MM}(n))$ time. Thus, given the recent result of Bringmann, Kunnemann, and Wegrzycki [STOC 2019], the ${-1,0,1}$-APSP problem can be solved in the same time needed for solving approximate APSP on graphs with positive weights. Moreover, we design a simple algorithm for target-(min,max)-product when the inputs are restricted to the family of inputs generated by our reduction. Using fast rectangular matrix multiplication, the new algorithm is faster than the current best known algorithm for (min,max)-product.