Promise Constraint Satisfaction Problems (PCSPs) are a generalization of Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs) where each predicate has a strong and a weak form and given a CSP instance, the objective is to distinguish if the strong form can be sat
isfied vs. even the weak form cannot be satisfied. Since their formal introduction by Austrin, Guruswami, and Haa stad, there has been a flurry of works on PCSPs [BBKO19,KO19,WZ20]. The key tool in studying PCSPs is the algebraic framework developed in the context of CSPs where the closure properties of the satisfying solutions known as the polymorphisms are analyzed. The polymorphisms of PCSPs are much richer than CSPs. In the Boolean case, we still do not know if dichotomy for PCSPs exists analogous to Schaefers dichotomy result for CSPs. In this paper, we study a special case of Boolean PCSPs, namely Boolean Ordered PCSPs where the Boolean PCSPs have the predicate $x leq y$. In the algebraic framework, this is the special case of Boolean PCSPs when the polymorphisms are monotone functions. We prove that Boolean Ordered PCSPs exhibit a computational dichotomy assuming the Rich 2-to-1 Conjecture [BKM21] which is a perfect completeness surrogate of the Unique Games Conjecture. Assuming the Rich 2-to-1 Conjecture, we prove that a Boolean Ordered PCSP can be solved in polynomial time if for every $epsilon>0$, it has polymorphisms where each coordinate has Shapley value at most $epsilon$, else it is NP-hard. The algorithmic part of our dichotomy is based on a structural lemma that Boolean monotone functions with each coordinate having low Shapley value have arbitrarily large threshold functions as minors. The hardness part proceeds by showing that the Shapley value is consistent under a uniformly random 2-to-1 minor. Of independent interest, we show that the Shapley value can be inconsistent under an adversarial 2-to-1 minor.
Multidimensional packing problems generalize the classical packing problems such as Bin Packing, Multiprocessor Scheduling by allowing the jobs to be $d$-dimensional vectors. While the approximability of the scalar problems is well understood, there
has been a significant gap between the approximation algorithms and the hardness results for the multidimensional variants. In this paper, we close this gap by giving almost tight hardness results for these problems. 1. We show that Vector Bin Packing has no polynomial time $Omega( log d)$ factor asymptotic approximation algorithm when $d$ is a large constant, assuming $textsf{P} eq textsf{NP}$. This matches the $ln d + O(1)$ factor approximation algorithms (Chekuri, Khanna SICOMP 2004, Bansal, Caprara, Sviridenko SICOMP 2009, Bansal, Eli{a}s, Khan SODA 2016) upto constants. 2. We show that Vector Scheduling has no polynomial time algorithm with an approximation ratio of $Omegaleft( (log d)^{1-epsilon}right)$ when $d$ is part of the input, assuming $textsf{NP} subseteq textsf{ZPTIME}left( n^{(log n)^{O(1)}}right)$. This almost matches the $Oleft( frac{log d}{log log d}right)$ factor algorithms(Harris, Srinivasan JACM 2019, Im, Kell, Kulkarni, Panigrahi SICOMP 2019). We also show that the problem is NP-hard to approximate within $(log log d)^{omega(1)}$. 3. We show that Vector Bin Covering is NP-hard to approximate within $Omegaleft( frac{log d}{log log d}right)$ when $d$ is part of the input, almost matching the $O(log d)$ factor algorithm (Alon et al., Algorithmica 1998). Previously, no hardness results that grow with $d$ were known for Vector Scheduling and Vector Bin Covering when $d$ is part of the input and for Vector Bin Packing when $d$ is a fixed constant.
A famous conjecture of Tuza states that the minimum number of edges needed to cover all the triangles in a graph is at most twice the maximum number of edge-disjoint triangles. This conjecture was couched in a broader setting by Aharoni and Zerbib wh
o proposed a hypergraph version of this conjecture, and also studied its implied fraction
In the classical Online Metric Matching problem, we are given a metric space with $k$ servers. A collection of clients arrive in an online fashion, and upon arrival, a client should irrevocably be matched to an as-yet-unmatched server. The goal is to
find an online matching which minimizes the total cost, i.e., the sum of distances between each client and the server it is matched to. We know deterministic algorithms~cite{KP93,khuller1994line} that achieve a competitive ratio of $2k-1$, and this bound is tight for deterministic algorithms. The problem has also long been considered in specialized metrics such as the line metric or metrics of bounded doubling dimension, with the current best result on a line metric being a deterministic $O(log k)$ competitive algorithm~cite{raghvendra2018optimal}. Obtaining (or refuting) $O(log k)$-competitive algorithms in general metrics and constant-competitive algorithms on the line metric have been long-standing open questions in this area. In this paper, we investigate the robustness of these lower bounds by considering the Online Metric Matching with Recourse problem where we are allowed to change a small number of previous assignments upon arrival of a new client. Indeed, we show that a small logarithmic amount of recourse can significantly improve the quality of matchings we can maintain. For general metrics, we show a simple emph{deterministic} $O(log k)$-competitive algorithm with $O(log k)$-amortized recourse, an exponential improvement over the $2k-1$ lower bound when no recourse is allowed. We next consider the line metric, and present a deterministic algorithm which is $3$-competitive and has $O(log k)$-recourse, again a substantial improvement over the best known $O(log k)$-competitive algorithm when no recourse is allowed.
