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1. A new 3/2-approximation algorithm for the b-edge cover problem

   https://doi.org/10.1137/1.9781611974690.ch6  

   Khan, Arif H. ; Pothen, Alex ( January 2016 , Proceedings of the Seventh SIAM Workshop on Combinatorial Scientific Computing)

   We describe a 3/2-approximation algorithm, \lse, for computing a b-edgecover of minimum weight in a graph with weights on the edges. The b-edgecover problem is a generalization of the better-known Edge Cover problem in graphs, where the objective is to choose a subset C of edges in the graph such that at least a specified number b(v) of edges in C are incident on each vertex v. In the weighted b-edgecover problem, we minimize the sum of the weights of the edges in C. We prove that the Locally Subdominant edge (LSE) algorithm computes the same b-edge cover as the one obtained by the Greedy algorithm for the problem. However, the Greedy algorithm requires edges to be sorted by their effective weights, and these weights need to be updated after each iteration. These requirements make the Greedy algorithm sequential and impractical for massive graphs. The LSE algorithm avoids the sorting step, and is amenable for parallelization. We implement the algorithm on a serial machine and compare its performance against a collection of approximation algorithms for the b-edge cover problem. Our results show that the algorithm is 3 to 5 times faster than the Greedy algorithm on a serial processor. Themore »approximate edge covers obtained by the LSE algorithm have weights greater by at most 17% of the optimal weight for problems where we could compute the latter. We also investigate the relationship between the b-edge cover and the b-matching problems, show that the latter has a faster implementation since edge weights are static in this algorithm, and obtain a heuristic solution for the former from the latter.« less
2. An O(n5/4) Time ∊-Approximation Algorithm for RMS Matching in a Plane

   https://doi.org/10.1137/1.9781611976465.55  

   Lahn, Nathaniel ; Raghvendra, Sharath ( January 2021 , Proceedings of the Annual ACMSIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms)

   The 2-Wasserstein distance (or RMS distance) is a useful measure of similarity between probability distributions with exciting applications in machine learning. For discrete distributions, the problem of computing this distance can be expressed in terms of finding a minimum-cost perfect matching on a complete bipartite graph given by two multisets of points A, B ⊂ ℝ2, with |A| = |B| = n, where the ground distance between any two points is the squared Euclidean distance between them. Although there is a near-linear time relative ∊-approximation algorithm for the case where the ground distance is Euclidean (Sharathkumar and Agarwal, JACM 2020), all existing relative ∊-approximation algorithms for the RMS distance take Ω(n3/2) time. This is primarily because, unlike Euclidean distance, squared Euclidean distance is not a metric. In this paper, for the RMS distance, we present a new ∊-approximation algorithm that runs in O(n^5/4 poly{log n, 1/∊}) time. Our algorithm is inspired by a recent approach for finding a minimum-cost perfect matching in bipartite planar graphs (Asathulla et al, TALG 2020). Their algorithm depends heavily on the existence of sublinear sized vertex separators as well as shortest path data structures that require planarity. Surprisingly, we are able to design a similarmore »algorithm for a complete geometric graph that is far from planar and does not have any vertex separators. Central components of our algorithm include a quadtree-based distance that approximates the squared Euclidean distance and a data structure that supports both Hungarian search and augmentation in sublinear time.« less
3. Generalized Stochastic Matching

   https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v36i9.21239  

   Farhadi, Alireza ; Gilbert, Jacob ; Hajiaghayi, MohammadTaghi ( June 2022 , Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence)

   In this paper, we generalize the recently studied stochastic matching problem to more accurately model a significant medical process, kidney exchange, and several other applications. Up until now the stochastic matching problem that has been studied was as follows: given a graph G= (V,E), each edge is included in the realized sub-graph of G independently with probability pe, and the goal is to find a degree-bounded sub-graph Q of G that has an expected maximum matching that approximates the expected maximum matching of G. This model does not account for possibilities of vertex dropouts, which can be found in several applications, e.g. in kidney exchange when donors or patients opt out of the exchange process as well as in online freelancing and online dating when online profiles are found to be faked. Thus, we will study a more generalized model of stochastic matching in which vertices and edges are both realized independently with some probabilities pv, pe, respectively, which more accurately fits important applications than the previously studied model. We will discuss the first algorithms and analysis for this generalization of the stochastic matching model and prove that they achieve good approximation ratios. In particular, we show that the approximationmore »factor of a natural algorithm for this problem is at least 0.6568 in unweighted graphs, and 1/2+ε in weighted graphs for some constant ε >0. We further improve our result for unweighted graphs to 2/3 using edge degree constrained sub-graphs (EDCS).« less
4. Bilu-Linial Stability, Certified Algorithms and the Independent Set Problem

   Angelidakis, H ; Awasthi, P. ; Blum, A. ; Chatziafratis, V. ; Dan, C. ( September 2019 , 27th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2019))

   We study the classic Maximum Independent Set problem under the notion of stability introduced by Bilu and Linial (2010): a weighted instance of Independent Set is γ-stable if it has a unique optimal solution that remains the unique optimal solution under multiplicative perturbations of the weights by a factor of at most γ ≥ 1. The goal then is to efficiently recover this “pronounced” optimal solution exactly. In this work, we solve stable instances of Independent Set on several classes of graphs: we improve upon previous results by solving \tilde{O}(∆/sqrt(log ∆))-stable instances on graphs of maximum degree ∆, (k − 1)-stable instances on k-colorable graphs and (1 + ε)-stable instances on planar graphs (for any fixed ε > 0), using both combinatorial techniques as well as LPs and the Sherali-Adams hierarchy. For general graphs, we give an algorithm for (εn)-stable instances, for any fixed ε > 0, and lower bounds based on the planted clique conjecture. As a by-product of our techniques, we give algorithms as well as lower bounds for stable instances of Node Multiway Cut (a generalization of Edge Multiway Cut), by exploiting its connections to Vertex Cover. Furthermore, we prove a general structural result showing that themore »integrality gap of convex relaxations of several maximization problems reduces dramatically on stable instances. Moreover, we initiate the study of certified algorithms for Independent Set. The notion of a γ-certified algorithm was introduced very recently by Makarychev and Makarychev (2018) and it is a class of γ-approximation algorithms that satisfy one crucial property: the solution returned is optimal for a perturbation of the original instance, where perturbations are again multiplicative up to a factor of γ ≥ 1 (hence, such algorithms not only solve γ-stable instances optimally, but also have guarantees even on unstable instances). Here, we obtain ∆-certified algorithms for Independent Set on graphs of maximum degree ∆, and (1 + ε)-certified algorithms on planar graphs. Finally, we analyze the algorithm of Berman and Fürer (1994) and prove that it is a ((∆+1)/3 + ε)-certified algorithm for Independent Set on graphs of maximum degree ∆ where all weights are equal to 1.« less
5. Parallel Algorithms through Approximation: b-Edge cover

   https://doi.org/10.1109/IPDPS.2018.00013  

   Khan, Arif ; Pothen, Alex ; Ferdous, SM ( January 2018 , 2018 IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium)

   We describe a paradigm for designing parallel algorithms via approximation, and illustrate it on the b-edgecover problem. A b-edgecover of minimum weight in a graph is a subset $C$ of its edges such that at least a specified number $b(v)$ of edges in $C$ is incident on each vertex $v$, and the sum of the edge weights in $C$ is minimum. The Greedy algorithm and a variant, the LSE algorithm, provide $3/2$-approximation guarantees in the worst-case for this problem, but these algorithms have limited parallelism. Hence we design two new $2$-approximation algorithms with greater concurrency. The MCE algorithm reduces the computation of a b-edgecover to that of finding a b'-matching, by exploiting the relationship between these subgraphs in an approximation context. The LSE-NW is derived from the LSEalgorithm using static edge weights rather than dynamically computing effective edge weights. This relaxation gives LSE a worse approximation guarantee but makes it more amenable to parallelization. We prove that both the MCE and LSE-NW algorithms compute the same b-edgecover with at most twice the weight of the minimum weight edge cover. In practice, the $2$-approximation and $3/2$-approximation algorithms compute edge covers of weight within $10\%$ the optimal. We implement three of themore »approximation algorithms, MCE, LSE, and LSE-NW on shared memory multi-core machines, including an Intel Xeon and an IBM Power8 machine with 8 TB memory. The MCE algorithm is the fastest of these by an order of magnitude or more. It computes an edge cover in a graph with billions of edges in $20$ seconds using two hundred threads on the IBM Power8. We also show that the parallel depth and work can be bounded for the Suitor and b-Suitor algorithms when edge weights are random.« less