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1. On Deleting Vertices to Reduce Density in Graphs and Supermodular Functions

   https://doi.org/10.4230/lipics.icalp.2025.43  

   Chandrasekaran, Karthekeyan; Chekuri, Chandra; Kulkarni, Shubhang (January 2025, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik)

   Censor-Hillel, Keren; Grandoni, Fabrizio; Ouaknine, Joel; Puppis, Gabriele (Ed.)

   We consider deletion problems in graphs and supermodular functions where the goal is to reduce density. In Graph Density Deletion (GraphDD), we are given a graph G = (V,E) with non-negative vertex costs and a non-negative parameter ρ ≥ 0 and the goal is to remove a minimum cost subset S of vertices such that the densest subgraph in G-S has density at most ρ. This problem has an underlying matroidal structure and generalizes several classical problems such as vertex cover, feedback vertex set, and pseudoforest deletion set for appropriately chosen ρ ≤ 1 and all of these classical problems admit a 2-approximation. In sharp contrast, we prove that for every fixed integer ρ > 1, GraphDD is hard to approximate to within a logarithmic factor via a reduction from SetCover, thus showing a phase transition phenomenon. Next, we investigate a generalization of GraphDD to monotone supermodular functions, termed Supermodular Density Deletion (SupmodDD). In SupmodDD, we are given a monotone supermodular function f:2^V → ℤ_{≥0} via an evaluation oracle with element costs and a non-negative integer ρ ≥ 0 and the goal is remove a minimum cost subset S ⊆ V such that the densest subset according to f in V-S has density at most ρ. We show that SupmodDD is approximation equivalent to the well-known Submodular Cover problem; this implies a tight logarithmic approximation and hardness for SupmodDD; it also implies a logarithmic approximation for GraphDD, thus matching our inapproximability bound. Motivated by these hardness results, we design bicriteria approximation algorithms for both GraphDD and SupmodDD. 

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2. Densest Subgraph: Supermodularity, Iterative Peeling, and Flow

   https://doi.org/10.1137/1.9781611977073.64  

   Chekuri, Chandra; Quanrud, Kent; Torres, Manuel (January 2022, Proceedings of the 2022 ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms)

   The densest subgraph problem in a graph (\dsg), in the simplest form, is the following. Given an undirected graph $G=(V,E)$ find a subset $$S \subseteq V$$ of vertices that maximizes the ratio $|E(S)|/|S|$ where $E(S)$ is the set of edges with both endpoints in $$S$$. \dsg and several of its variants are well-studied in theory and practice and have many applications in data mining and network analysis. In this paper we study fast algorithms and structural aspects of \dsg via the lens of \emph{supermodularity}. For this we consider the densest supermodular subset problem (\dssp): given a non-negative supermodular function $$f: 2^V \rightarrow \mathbb{R}_+$, maximize $f(S)/|S|$$. For \dsg we describe a simple flow-based algorithm that outputs a $$(1-\eps)$-approximation in deterministic $$\tilde{O}(m/\eps)$$ time where $$m$$ is the number of edges. Our algorithm is the first to have a near-linear dependence on $$m$$ and $$1/\eps$$ and improves previous methods based on an LP relaxation. It generalizes to hypergraphs, and also yields a faster algorithm for directed \dsg. Greedy peeling algorithms have been very popular for \dsg and several variants due to their efficiency, empirical performance, and worst-case approximation guarantees. We describe a simple peeling algorithm for \dssp and analyze its approximation guarantee in a fashion that unifies several existing results. Boob et al.\ \cite{bgpstww-20} developed an \emph{iterative} peeling algorithm for \dsg which appears to work very well in practice, and made a conjecture about its convergence to optimality. We affirmatively answer their conjecture, and in fact prove that a natural generalization of their algorithm converges to a $$(1-\eps)$$-approximation for \emph{any} supermodular function $$f$$; the key to our proof is to consider an LP formulation that is derived via the \Lovasz extension of a supermodular function. For \dsg the bound on the number of iterations we prove is $$O(\frac{\Delta \ln |V|}{\lambda^*}\cdot \frac{1}{\eps^2})$ where $$\Delta$$ is the maximum degree and $$\lambda^*$$ is the optimum value. Our work suggests that iterative peeling can be an effective heuristic for several objectives considered in the literature. Finally, we show that the $$2$$-approximation for densest-at-least-$$k$$ subgraph \cite{ks-09} extends to the supermodular setting. We also give a unified analysis of the peeling algorithm for this problem, and via this analysis derive an approximation guarantee for a generalization of \dssp to maximize $$f(S)/g(|S|)$ for a concave function $$g$$. 

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3. Algorithms for covering multiple submodular constraints and applications

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10878-022-00874-x  

   Chekuri, Chandra; Inamdar, Tanmay; Quanrud, Kent; Varadarajan, Kasturi; Zhang, Zhao (June 2022, Journal of Combinatorial Optimization)

   Abstract We consider the problem of covering multiple submodular constraints. Given a finite ground set N , a weight function $$w: N \rightarrow \mathbb {R}_+$$ w : N → R + , r monotone submodular functions $$f_1,f_2,\ldots ,f_r$$ f 1 , f 2 , … , f r over N and requirements $$k_1,k_2,\ldots ,k_r$$ k 1 , k 2 , … , k r the goal is to find a minimum weight subset $$S \subseteq N$$ S ⊆ N such that $$f_i(S) \ge k_i$$ f i ( S ) ≥ k i for $$1 \le i \le r$$ 1 ≤ i ≤ r . We refer to this problem as Multi-Submod-Cover and it was recently considered by Har-Peled and Jones (Few cuts meet many point sets. CoRR. arxiv:abs1808.03260 Har-Peled and Jones 2018) who were motivated by an application in geometry. Even with $$r=1$$ r = 1 Multi-Submod-Cover generalizes the well-known Submodular Set Cover problem ( Submod-SC ), and it can also be easily reduced to Submod-SC . A simple greedy algorithm gives an $$O(\log (kr))$$ O ( log ( k r ) ) approximation where $$k = \sum _i k_i$$ k = ∑ i k i and this ratio cannot be improved in the general case. In this paper, motivated by several concrete applications, we consider two ways to improve upon the approximation given by the greedy algorithm. First, we give a bicriteria approximation algorithm for Multi-Submod-Cover that covers each constraint to within a factor of $$(1-1/e-\varepsilon )$$ ( 1 - 1 / e - ε ) while incurring an approximation of $$O(\frac{1}{\epsilon }\log r)$$ O ( 1 ϵ log r ) in the cost. Second, we consider the special case when each $$f_i$$ f i is a obtained from a truncated coverage function and obtain an algorithm that generalizes previous work on partial set cover ( Partial-SC ), covering integer programs ( CIPs ) and multiple vertex cover constraints Bera et al. (Theoret Comput Sci 555:2–8 Bera et al. 2014). Both these algorithms are based on mathematical programming relaxations that avoid the limitations of the greedy algorithm. We demonstrate the implications of our algorithms and related ideas to several applications ranging from geometric covering problems to clustering with outliers. Our work highlights the utility of the high-level model and the lens of submodularity in addressing this class of covering problems. 

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4. A Local Search Algorithm for the Min-Sum Submodular Cover Problem

   https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2022.3  

   Hellerstein, Lisa; Lidbetter, Thomas; Witter, R Teal (January 2022, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik)

   Bae, Sang Won; Park, Heejin (Ed.)

   We consider the problem of solving the Min-Sum Submodular Cover problem using local search. The Min-Sum Submodular Cover problem generalizes the NP-complete Min-Sum Set Cover problem, replacing the input set cover instance with a monotone submodular set function. A simple greedy algorithm achieves an approximation factor of 4, which is tight unless P=NP [Streeter and Golovin, NeurIPS, 2008]. We complement the greedy algorithm with analysis of a local search algorithm. Building on work of Munagala et al. [ICDT, 2005], we show that, using simple initialization, a straightforward local search algorithm achieves a (4+ε)-approximate solution in time O(n³log(n/ε)), provided that the monotone submodular set function is also second-order supermodular. Second-order supermodularity has been shown to hold for a number of submodular functions of practical interest, including functions associated with set cover, matching, and facility location. We present experiments on two special cases of Min-Sum Submodular Cover and find that the local search algorithm can outperform the greedy algorithm on small data sets. 

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5. Covering a Few Submodular Constraints and Applications

   https://doi.org/10.4230/lipics.approx/random.2025.25  

   Bajpai, Tanvi; Chekuri, Chandra; Kulkarni, Pooja (January 2025, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik)

   Ene, Alina; Chattopadhyay, Eshan (Ed.)

   We consider the problem of covering multiple submodular constraints. Given a finite ground set N, a cost function c: N → ℝ_+, r monotone submodular functions f_1,f_2,…,f_r over N and requirements b_1,b_2,…,b_r the goal is to find a minimum cost subset S ⊆ N such that f_i(S) ≥ b_i for 1 ≤ i ≤ r. When r = 1 this is the well-known Submodular Set Cover problem. Previous work [Chekuri et al., 2022] considered the setting when r is large and developed bi-criteria approximation algorithms, and approximation algorithms for the important special case when each f_i is a weighted coverage function. These are fairly general models and capture several concrete and interesting problems as special cases. The approximation ratios for these problem are at least Ω(log r) which is unavoidable when r is part of the input. In this paper, motivated by some recent applications, we consider the problem when r is a fixed constant and obtain two main results. When the f_i are weighted coverage functions from a deletion-closed set system we obtain a (1+ε)(e/(e-1))(1+β)-approximation where β is the approximation ratio for the underlying set cover instances via the natural LP. Second, for covering multiple submodular constraints we obtain a randomized bi-criteria approximation algorithm that for any given integer α ≥ 1 outputs a set S such that f_i(S) ≥ (1-1/e^α-ε)b_i for each i ∈ [r] and 𝔼[c(S)] ≤ (1+ε)α ⋅ OPT. These results show that one can obtain nearly as good an approximation for any fixed r as what one would achieve for r = 1. We also demonstrate applications of our results to implicit covering problems such as fair facility location. 

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