The Unique Games Conjecture has pinned down the approximability of all constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs), showing that a natural semidefinite programming relaxation offers the optimal worst-case approximation ratio for any CSP. This elegant picture, however, does not apply for CSP instances that are perfectly satisfiable, due to the imperfect completeness inherent in the Unique Games Conjecture

We study a variant of the k-server problem, the infinite server problem, in which infinitely many servers reside initially at a particular point of the metric space and serve a sequence of requests. In the framework of competitive analysis, we show a surprisingly tight connection between this problem and the resource augmentation version of the k-server problem, also known as the (h,k)-server problem

No abstract available.

Finding locally optimal solutions for MAX-CUT and MAX-k-CUT are well-known PLS-complete problems. An instinctive approach to finding such a locally optimum solution is the FLIP method. Even though FLIP requires exponential time in worst-case instances, it tends to terminate quickly in practical instances. To explain this discrepancy, the run-time of FLIP has been studied in the smoothed complexity

Convex relaxations have been instrumental in solvability of constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs), as well as in the three different generalisations of CSPs: valued CSPs, infinite-domain CSPs, and most recently promise CSPs. In this work, we extend an existing tractability result to the three generalisations of CSPs combined: We give a sufficient condition for the combined basic linear programming

A retraction is a homomorphism from a graph G to an induced subgraph H of G that is the identity on H. In a long line of research, retractions have been studied under various algorithmic settings. Recently, the problem of approximately counting retractions was considered. We give a complete trichotomy for the complexity of approximately counting retractions to all square-free graphs (graphs that do

In this article, we introduce the online service with delay problem. In this problem, there are n points in a metric space that issue service requests over time, and there is a server that serves these requests. The goal is to minimize the sum of distance traveled by the server and the total delay (or a penalty function thereof) in serving the requests. This problem models the fundamental tradeoff

Let V be a set of n points in mathcal Rd, called voters. A point p ∈ mathcal Rd is a plurality point for V when the following holds: For every q ∈ mathcal Rd, the number of voters closer to p than to q is at least the number of voters closer to q than to p. Thus, in a vote where each v∈ V votes for the nearest proposal (and voters for which the proposals are at equal distance abstain), proposal p will

The discrete Fréchet distance is a popular measure for comparing polygonal curves. An important variant is the discrete Fréchet distance under translation, which enables detection of similar movement patterns in different spatial domains. For polygonal curves of length n in the plane, the fastest known algorithm runs in time Õ(n5) [12]. This is achieved by constructing an arrangement of disks of size

Recently, Brand et al. [STOC 2018] gave a randomized mathcal O(4kmε-2-time exponential-space algorithm to approximately compute the number of paths on k vertices in a graph G up to a multiplicative error of 1 ± ε based on exterior algebra. Prior to our work, this has been the state-of-the-art. In this article, we revisit the algorithm by Alon and Gutner [IWPEC 2009, TALG 2010], and obtain the following

We consider node-weighted survivable network design (SNDP) in planar graphs and minor-closed families of graphs. The input consists of a node-weighted undirected graph G = (V, E) and integer connectivity requirements r(uv) for each unordered pair of nodes uv. The goal is to find a minimum weighted subgraph H of G such that H contains r(uv) disjoint paths between u and v for each node pair uv. Three

We consider a search problem on trees in which an agent starts at the root of a tree and aims to locate an adversarially placed treasure, by moving along the edges, while relying on local, partial information. Specifically, each node in the tree holds a pointer to one of its neighbors, termed advice. A node is faulty with probability q. The advice at a non-faulty node points to the neighbor that is

The Massively Parallel Computation (MPC) model is an emerging model that distills core aspects of distributed and parallel computation, developed as a tool to solve combinatorial (typically graph) problems in systems of many machines with limited space. Recent work has focused on the regime in which machines have sublinear (in n, the number of nodes in the input graph) space, with randomized algorithms

We develop randomized distributed algorithms for many of the most fundamental communication problems in wireless networks under the Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio (SINR) model of communication, including (multi-message) broadcast, local broadcast, coloring, Maximal Independent Set, and aggregation. The complexity of our algorithms is optimal up to polylogarithmic preprocessing time. It shows—contrary

We consider space-bounded computations on a random-access machine, where the input is given on a read-only random-access medium, the output is to be produced to a write-only sequential-access medium, and the available workspace allows random reads and writes but is of limited capacity. The length of the input is N elements, the length of the output is limited by the computation, and the capacity of

A tournament is a directed graph T such that every pair of vertices is connected by an arc. A feedback vertex set is a set S of vertices in T such that T − S is acyclic. We consider the Feedback Vertex Set problem in tournaments. Here, the input is a tournament T and a weight function w : V(T) → N, and the task is to find a feedback vertex set S in T minimizing w(S) = ∑v∈S w(v). Rounding optimal solutions

The Directed Steiner Network (DSN) problem takes as input a directed graph G=(V, E) with non-negative edge-weights and a set D⊆ V × V of k demand pairs. The aim is to compute the cheapest network N⊆ G for which there is an s\rightarrow t path for each (s, t)∈ D. It is known that this problem is notoriously hard, as there is no k1/4−o(1)-approximation algorithm under Gap-ETH, even when parametrizing

An odd hole in a graph is an induced cycle with odd length greater than 3. In an earlier paper (with Sophie Spirkl), solving a longstanding open problem, we gave a polynomial-time algorithm to test if a graph has an odd hole. We subsequently showed that, for every t, there is a polynomial-time algorithm to test whether a graph contains an odd hole of length at least t. In this article, we give an algorithm

Abasi et al. (2014) introduced the following two problems. In the r-Simple k-Path problem, given a digraph G on n vertices and positive integers r, k, decide whether G has an r-simple k-path, which is a walk where every vertex occurs at most r times and the total number of vertex occurrences is k. In the (r, k)-Monomial Detection problem, given an arithmetic circuit that succinctly encodes some polynomial

The Lovász Local Lemma (LLL) shows that, for a collection of “bad” events B in a probability space that are not too likely and not too interdependent, there is a positive probability that no events in B occur. Moser and Tardos (2010) gave sequential and parallel algorithms that transformed most applications of the variable-assignment LLL into efficient algorithms. A framework of Harvey and Vondrák

We show how to solve all-pairs shortest paths on n nodes in deterministic n3>/2>Ω ( √ log n) time, and how to count the pairs of orthogonal vectors among n 0−1 vectors in d = clog n dimensions in deterministic n2−1/O(log c) time. These running times essentially match the best known randomized algorithms of Williams [46] and Abboud, Williams, and Yu [8], respectively, and the ability to count was open

We consider the online traveling salesperson problem (TSP), where requests appear online over time on the real line and need to be visited by a server initially located at the origin. We distinguish between closed and open online TSP, depending on whether the server eventually needs to return to the origin or not. While online TSP on the line is a very natural online problem that was introduced more

We present fully polynomial-time (deterministic or randomised) approximation schemes for Holant problems, defined by a non-negative constraint function satisfying a generalised second-order recurrence modulo in a couple of exceptional cases. As a consequence, any non-negative Holant problem on cubic graphs has an efficient approximation algorithm unless the problem is equivalent to approximately counting

We analyze two classic variants of the TRAVELING SALESMAN PROBLEM (TSP) using the toolkit of fine-grained complexity. Our first set of results is motivated by the BITONIC TSP problem: given a set of n points in the plane, compute a shortest tour consisting of two monotone chains. It is a classic dynamic-programming exercise to solve this problem in O(n2) time. While the near-quadratic dependency of

We show an algorithm that, given an n-vertex graph G and a parameter k, in time 2O(k log k) nO(1) finds a tree decomposition of G with the following properties: — every adhesion of the tree decomposition is of size at most k, and — every bag of the tree decomposition is (i,i)-unbreakable in G for every 1 ⩽ i ⩽ k. Here, a set X ⊆ V(G) is (a,b)-unbreakable in G if for every separation (A,B) of order

We consider the problem of encoding a string of length n from an integer alphabet of size σ so access, substring equality, and Longest Common Extension (LCE) queries can be answered efficiently. We describe a new space-optimal data structure supporting logarithmic-time queries. Access and substring equality query times can furthermore be improved to the optimal O(1) if O(log n) additional precomputed

We describe the first self-indexes able to count and locate pattern occurrences in optimal time within a space bounded by the size of the most popular dictionary compressors. To achieve this result, we combine several recent findings, including string attractors—new combinatorial objects encompassing most known compressibility measures for highly repetitive texts—and grammars based on locally consistent

Let P be a set of n points in R d. For a parameter α ∈ (0,1), an α-centerpoint of P is a point p ∈ R d such that all closed halfspaces containing P also contain at least α n points of P. We revisit an algorithm of Clarkson et al. [1996] that computes (roughly) a 1/(4d2)-centerpoint in Õ(d9) randomized time, where Õ hides polylogarithmic terms. We present an improved algorithm that can compute centerpoints

We study the task of estimating the number of edges in a graph, where the access to the graph is provided via an independent set oracle. Independent set queries draw motivation from group testing and have applications to the complexity of decision versus counting problems. We give two algorithms to estimate the number of edges in an n-vertex graph, using (i) polylog(n) bipartite independent set queries

The fuzzy K-means problem is a popular generalization of the well-known K-means problem to soft clusterings. In this article, we present the first algorithmic study of the problem going beyond heuristics. Our main result is that, assuming a constant number of clusters, there is a polynomial time approximation scheme for the fuzzy K-means problem. As a part of our analysis, we also prove the existence

The complexity of (unbounded-arity) Max-CSPs under structural restrictions is poorly understood. The two most general hypergraph properties known to ensure tractability of Max-CSPs, β-acyclicity and bounded (incidence) MIM-width, are incomparable and lead to very different algorithms. We introduce the framework of point decompositions for hypergraphs and use it to derive a new sufficient condition

Given a simple polygon P on n vertices, two points x, y in P are said to be visible to each other if the line segment between x and y is contained in P. The Point Guard Art Gallery problem asks for a minimum set S such that every point in P is visible from a point in S. The Vertex Guard Art Gallery problem asks for such a set S subset of the vertices of P. A point in the set S is referred to as a guard

Online models that allow recourse can be highly effective in situations where classical online models are too pessimistic. One such problem is the online machine covering problem on identical machines. In this setting, jobs arrive one by one and must be assigned to machines with the objective of maximizing the minimum machine load. When a job arrives, we are allowed to reassign some jobs as long as

Let G=(V,E) be an n-vertices m-edges directed graph with edge weights in the range [1,W] for some parameter W, and sϵ V be a designated source. In this article, we address several variants of the problem of maintaining the (1+ε)-approximate shortest path from s to each vϵ V{s} in the presence of a failure of an edge or a vertex. From the graph theory perspective, we show that G has a subgraph H with

Fixed-parameter algorithms and kernelization are two powerful methods to solve NP-hard problems. Yet so far those algorithms have been largely restricted to static inputs. In this article, we provide fixed-parameter algorithms and kernelizations for fundamental NP-hard problems with dynamic inputs. We consider a variety of parameterized graph and hitting set problems that are known to have f(k)n1+o(1)

In this article, we introduce and study the Non-Uniform k-Center (NUkC) problem. Given a finite metric space (X, d) and a collection of balls of radii { r1 ≥ … ≥ rk}, the NUkC problem is to find a placement of their centers in the metric space and find the minimum dilation α, such that the union of balls of radius α ⋅ ri around the ith center covers all the points in X. This problem naturally arises

Given a set of obstacles and two points in the plane, is there a path between the two points that does not cross more than k different obstacles? Equivalently, can we remove k obstacles so that there is an obstacle-free path between the two designated points? This is a fundamental NP-hard problem that has undergone a tremendous amount of research work. The problem can be formulated and generalized

The edit distance between two rooted ordered trees with n nodes labeled from an alphabet Ʃ is the minimum cost of transforming one tree into the other by a sequence of elementary operations consisting of deleting and relabeling existing nodes, as well as inserting new nodes. Tree edit distance is a well-known generalization of string edit distance. The fastest known algorithm for tree edit distance

Consider a two-stage matching problem, where edges of an input graph are revealed in two stages (batches) and in each stage we have to immediately and irrevocably extend our matching using the edges from that stage. The natural greedy algorithm is half competitive. Even though there is a huge literature on online matching in adversarial vertex arrival model, no positive results were previously known

Given a text T of length n, we propose a deterministic online algorithm computing the sparse suffix array and the sparse longest common prefix array of T in O(c √ lg n + m lg m lg n lg* n) time with O(m) words of space under the premise that the space of T is rewritable, where m ≤ n is the number of suffixes to be sorted (provided online and arbitrarily), and c is the number of characters with m ≤

For a family of graphs ℱ, the Weighted ℱ Vertex Deletion problem, is defined as follows: given an n-vertex undirected graph G and a weight function w: V(G)࢐ ℝ, find a minimum weight subset S⊆ V(G) such that G-S belongs to ℱ. We devise a recursive scheme to obtain O(logO(1) n)-approximation algorithms for such problems, building upon the classical technique of finding balanced separators. We obtain

It was recently found that there are very close connections between the existence of additive spanners (subgraphs where all distances are preserved up to an additive stretch), distance preservers (subgraphs in which demand pairs have their distance preserved exactly), and pairwise spanners (subgraphs in which demand pairs have their distance preserved up to a multiplicative or additive stretch) [Abboud-Bodwin

The STEINER TREE problem is one of the most fundamental NP-complete problems, as it models many network design problems. Recall that an instance of this problem consists of a graph with edge weights and a subset of vertices (often called terminals); the goal is to find a subtree of the graph of minimum total weight that connects all terminals. A seminal paper by Erickson et al. [Math. Oper. Res., 1987{

An unceasing problem of our prevailing society is the fair division of goods. The problem of proportional cake cutting focuses on dividing a heterogeneous and divisible resource, the cake, among n players who value pieces according to their own measure function. The goal is to assign each player a not necessarily connected part of the cake that the player evaluates at least as much as her proportional

Let [n{ = {1, …, n} and let Ωn be the set of all mappings from [n{ to itself. Let f be a random uniform element of Ωn and let T(f) and B(f) denote, respectively, the least common multiple and the product of the length of the cycles of f. Harris proved in 1973 that T converges in distribution to a standard normal distribution and, in 2011, Schmutz obtained an asymptotic estimate on the logarithm of

The problem of online checkpointing is a classical problem with numerous applications that has been studied in various forms for almost 50 years. In the simplest version of this problem, a user has to maintain k memorized checkpoints during a long computation, where the only allowed operation is to move one of the checkpoints from its old time to the current time, and his goal is to keep the checkpoints

We present two new combinatorial tools for the design of parameterized algorithms. The first is a simple linear time randomized algorithm that given as input a d-degenerate graph G and an integer k, outputs an independent set Y, such that for every independent set X in G of size at most k, the probability that X is a subset of Y is at least (((d+1)kk) . k(d+1))-1. The second is a new (deterministic)

We give a new FPT algorithm testing isomorphism of n-vertex graphs of tree-width k in time 2kpolylog(k)n3, improving the FPT algorithm due to Lokshtanov, Pilipczuk, Pilipczuk, and Saurabh (FOCS 2014), which runs in time 2O(k5 log k)n5. Based on an improved version of the isomorphism-invariant graph decomposition technique introduced by Lokshtanov et al., we prove restrictions on the structure of the

The many-visits traveling salesperson problem (MV-TSP) asks for an optimal tour of n cities that visits each city c a prescribed number kc of times. Travel costs may be asymmetric, and visiting a city twice in a row may incur a non-zero cost. The MV-TSP problem finds applications in scheduling, geometric approximation, and Hamiltonicity of certain graph families.

We study the following structure learning problem for H-colorings. For a fixed (and known) constraint graph H with q colors, given access to uniformly random H-colorings of an unknown graph G=(V,E), how many samples are required to learn the edges of G? We give a characterization of the constraint graphs H for which the problem is identifiable for every G and show that there are identifiable constraint

We study the mixing time of random walks on small-world networks modelled as follows: starting with the 2-dimensional periodic grid, each pair of vertices {u,v} with distance d> 1 is added as a “long-range” edge with probability proportional to d-r, where r≥ 0 is a parameter of the model. Kleinberg [33{ studied a close variant of this network model and proved that the (decentralised) routing time is

In the Traveling Salesperson Problem with Neighborhoods (TSPN), we are given a collection of geometric regions in some space. The goal is to output a tour of minimum length that visits at least one point in each region. Even in the Euclidean plane, TSPN is known to be APX-hard [27{, which gives rise to studying more tractable special cases of the problem. In this article, we focus on the fundamental

It is a long-standing open problem whether the minimal dominating sets of a graph can be enumerated in output-polynomial time. In this article we investigate this problem in graph classes defined by forbidding an induced subgraph. In particular, we provide output-polynomial time algorithms for Kt-free graphs and for several related graph classes. This answers a question of Kanté et al. about enumeration

We study the problem of clustering the vertices of a weighted hypergraph such that on average the vertices of each edge can be covered by a small number of clusters. This problem has many applications, such as for designing medical tests, clustering files on disk servers, and placing network services on servers. The edges of the hypergraph model groups of items that are likely to be needed together

This article studies the fundamental problem of graph coloring in fully dynamic graphs. Since the problem of computing an optimal coloring, or even approximating it to within n1-ε for any ε > 0, is NP-hard in static graphs, there is no hope to achieve any meaningful computational results for general graphs in the dynamic setting. It is therefore only natural to consider the combinatorial aspects of

No abstract available.