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We consider the problem of maximizing a monotone submodular function subject to a knapsack constraint. Our main contribution is an algorithm that achieves a nearly-optimal, 1 - 1/e - epsilon approximation, using (1/epsilon)^{O(1/epsilon^4)} n log^2{n} function evaluations and arithmetic operations. Our algorithm is impractical but theoretically interesting, since it overcomes a fundamental running time bottleneck of the multilinear extension relaxation framework. This is the main approach for obtaining nearly-optimal approximation guarantees for important classes of constraints but it leads to Omega(n^2) running times, since evaluating the multilinear extension is expensive. Our algorithm maintains a fractional solution with only a constant number of entries that are strictly fractional, which allows us to overcome this obstacle.
@InProceedings{ene_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2019.53,
author = {Ene, Alina and Nguyen, Huy L.},
title = {{A Nearly-Linear Time Algorithm for Submodular Maximization with a Knapsack Constraint}},
booktitle = {46th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2019)},
pages = {53:1--53:12},
series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
ISBN = {978-3-95977-109-2},
ISSN = {1868-8969},
year = {2019},
volume = {132},
editor = {Baier, Christel and Chatzigiannakis, Ioannis and Flocchini, Paola and Leonardi, Stefano},
publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
address = {Dagstuhl, Germany},
URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2019.53},
URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-106290},
doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2019.53},
annote = {Keywords: submodular maximization, knapsack constraint, fast algorithms}
}