22
votes
Accepted
What is known about this TSP variant?
This is a special case of the Travelling Salesman with Neighborhoods (TSPN) problem. In the general version, the neighborhoods need not all be the same.
A paper by Dumitrescu and Mitchell, ...
- 4,493
15
votes
Accepted
Proof assistant usage in complexity theory research?
A general rule of thumb is that the more abstract/exotic the mathematics you want to mechanise, the easier it gets. Conversely, the more concrete/familiar the mathematics is, the harder it will be. So ...
- 31.6k
14
votes
Accepted
Why is complementary slackness important?
Complementary slackness is key in designing primal-dual algorithms. The basic idea is:
Start with a feasible dual solution $y$.
Attempt to find primal feasible $x$ such that $(x, y)$ satisfy ...
- 18k
14
votes
Accepted
Is the following graph optimization problem approximable within a constant factor?
The problem is very similar to Min Uncut. In Min Uncut, given a graph $G = (V, E)$, we need to find a subset of edges $E'$ s.t. $G - E'$ is bipartite; the objective is to minimize the size of $|E'|$. ...
- 3,844
12
votes
Accepted
Approximating #P-hard problems
We're interested in additive approximations to #3SAT. i.e. given a 3CNF $\phi$ on $n$ variables count the number of satisfying assignments (call this $a$) up to additive error $k$.
Here are some ...
- 2,743
11
votes
Accepted
Can we approximate the number of words accepted by an NFA?
There exists a FPRAS (Fully Polynomial Randomized Approximation Scheme) for the problem of counting the words of length $n$ accepted by a NFA in the general case (without restricting to the acyclic ...
- 521
11
votes
Accepted
Does Max Planar 3-SAT admit a PTAS?
Yes, a PTAS for Max-Planar-3-SAT can be constructed by using Brenda Baker's approach.
This has been observed, for instance, in Theorem 17 in
Pierluigi Crescenzi and LucaTrevisan:
"Max NP-...
- 5,712
10
votes
Bisecting a set of points into two optimal subsets
If you insist on precise partition, then you need to compute all the balanced partitions of a set of points in the plane by a line (the optimal partition is a Voronoi partition, so the two point sets ...
- 9,556
10
votes
Are there any interesting open questions having to do with submodularity, specially in the intersection of theoretical machine learning?
There are many open algorithmic problems. All problems below (other than the last bullet) are NP-hard, so we are interested in the best approximation ratio we can achieve in polynomial time. The ...
- 14.1k
10
votes
What is known about this TSP variant?
One relevant TSP version is "Group TSP". In this problem, the "cities" are divided into groups and the goal is to find a tour that visits each group at least once.
This has also been studied on the ...
- 3,094
10
votes
Accepted
Is the current best approximation ratio for Vertex Cover problem also a lower bound?
Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest and Stein say that this algorithm that achieves ratio of 2 is tight. They did not exclude the possibility of another algorithm achieving better.
Vertex Cover is NP-hard to ...
- 780
10
votes
Accepted
Find research partner (profession and beginner)
I don't know of such a page. Most researchers have specific problems that they are interested in working on, and would only want to collaborate on those. If you pick a particular area and focus on ...
- 6,997
9
votes
Accepted
Planted Clique in G(n,p), varying p
If $p$ is constant, then the size of the maximum clique in the $G(n,p)$ model is almost everywhere a constant multiple of $\log n$, with the constant proportional to $\log (1/p)$. (See Bollobás, p....
- 18.7k
9
votes
Accepted
Modifying Hopcroft-Karp algorithm to get approximate bipartite matching
This is a combination of comments from me and Chandra Chekuri above, elaborated a bit.
As background, if you have a partial matching then its symmetric difference with the optimal matching can be ...
- 50.2k
9
votes
Accepted
W[1]-hard problems with FPT time approximation algorithms
In the Directed Odd Cycle Transversal problem the input is a graph $G$ and the task is to find a smallest set $S$ of vertices such that $G-S$ has no (directed) cycles of odd length. In the ...
- 3,161
8
votes
Greedy MAX SAT approximation ratio
To complement the other answer: Costello, Shapira and Tetali showed that the expected approximation ration achieved by Johnson's algorithm on a random permutation of the variables is strictly better ...
- 18k
8
votes
Accepted
What is the fastest known algorithm for computing a 1.99-approximation of Vertex Cover?
I think for getting 1.99-approximation algorithm this paper by Manurangsi and Trevisan, has the current fastest algorithm.
- 387
8
votes
Why is the Greedy Conjecture so difficult?
Let me first try to summarize what is known about the Greedy Conjecture.
Blum, Jiang, Li, Tromp, Yannakakis prove that the Greedy Algorithm gives a 4-approximation, and Kaplan and Shafrir show that ...
- 2,143
7
votes
Accepted
Tight examples for approximating the feedback vertex set problem
I think you can make the classical local ratio algorithm by Bafna et al. give a $2-o(1)$ approximation on the following family of graphs:
Take $G_n$ to be a $K_{n,n}$ (the complete bipertite graph ...
- 9,348
7
votes
The Goemans-Williamson algorithm in the $SOS$ framework
Looking at the Goemans–Williamson algorithm in the SOS framework yields no technical advantages: it is exactly the same algorithm and the same ideas are used in the analysis.
The only advantages in ...
- 3,721
7
votes
Accepted
Additive versus multiplicative accuracy
Why is it sometimes easier to achieve $\epsilon$-additive accuracy than $\epsilon$-multiplicative?
Consider a problem where the objective value OPT is guaranteed to lie in a constant non-negative ...
- 8,133
6
votes
The number of integral points in a polytope
Check out
https://www.math.ucdavis.edu/~latte/
and the corresponding paper
Effective lattice point counting in rational convex polytopes. Jesús A. De Loera, Raymond Hemmecke, Jeremiah Tauzer, ...
- 1,713
6
votes
Is there a sensible notion of an approximation algorithm for an undecidable problem?
This is answering the title of the question more than its content, but you can also consider "approximations" of the halting problem as algorithms which will give you a correct answer on "almost all" ...
- 329
6
votes
What is the relationship between $\mathsf{PLS}$ and $\mathsf{APX}$?
If one wants to approximate the potential function, then yes, there even exists a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme (FPTAS). See
James B. Orlin, Abraham P. Punnen, Andreas S. Schulz: ...
- 1,713
6
votes
Accepted
Inapproximability of $(\alpha, \beta)$ bi-criteria approximation
This problem generalizes dominating set: given an unweighted graph, there exists a set of k centers such that all other vertices are at distance 1 from them if and only if there exists a dominating ...
- 3,094
6
votes
Accepted
Set cover in which some pairs of sets are forbidden
This problem is way harder than set cover. Here is why...
Intuitively, you can encode independent set as a problem of this type. Indeed, you are given an instance of independent set - a graph $G$ ...
- 9,556
6
votes
Accepted
What is the intuition behind "hardness of approximation"?
One important reason why problems that look equally hard to compute exactly might be very different to approximate relates to the fragility of NP-completeness reductions.
The simplest example I can ...
- 31.7k
6
votes
Coreset and VC dimension
Samples provides you only with statistical guarantees. For a fixed $\epsilon$ whatever you compute would hold for everything "except" $(1-\epsilon)$ fraction (I am being very informal here). Thus, ...
- 9,556
6
votes
What are some of the most ingenious linear programs developed for tackling hard combinatorial problems?
The relaxation of Calinescu, Karloff and Rabani for the undirected Multiway Cut problem is one my favorites. Had a big influence on subsequent work.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/...
6
votes
Accepted
The complexity of decomposing a bi-stochastic matrix
Summary. Using your favourite $O(n^d)$ algorithm for finding a matching in graphs on $O(n)$ vertices, there is a simple algorithm using $O(\max\{n^{d+2},n^4\})$ operations over the reals for ...
- 8,821
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