# Tag Info

11

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 $|E'|$. For brevity, let me call you problem $\cal P$ and Min Uncut $\cal U$. Observation. An instance $G$ of $\cal P$ has a solution of cost 0 if and only if $G$ is ...

11

An actual factual reference is K. Ko. Some observations on the probabilistic algorithms and NP-hard problems. Information Processing Letters, 14(1):39–43, 1982. (When I first saw this result --- I don't remember where it was now --- it was called "Ko's Theorem". Googling suggests that another theorem has that name as well...)

6

A very good question! While I think a feasible solution which is 4000 times worse than the optimum is often not very practical, if you have several approximation algorithms to choose from, I would rather implement the one with a better performance guarantee. Well, maybe not always. At the very least, the feasible solutions found are often of much better ...

4

What about something like minimum vertex cover vs. minimum fractional vertex cover (i.e., optimal solution of the LP relaxation of the vertex cover problem) in bipartite graphs? These two problems have the same optimal value. However, if I give you a black-box algorithm that finds a $(1+\epsilon)$-approximation of the minimum fractional vertex cover, this ...

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