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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.7

From Relative Compression to Hierarchical Compression

Authors: Philip Bille, Inge Li Gørtz, and Máximo Pérez-López

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 371, 24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026)

Abstract

We introduce a framework to use any relative compression algorithm as a subroutine for hierarchical relative compression. In a dataset consisting of n sequences, it consists of constructing a rooted tree on the sequences, using hashing and similarity techniques, and compressing the children of a node relative to their parent. We build up on previous techniques [Bille et al., 2023], and optimize them further for computational efficiency. We test our framework with three existing relative compression algorithms on six genomic datasets, and we show that in datasets that contain heterogeneous data, hierarchical relative compression improves the compression ratio by a factor 2 or more, when compared to relative compression to a single sequence. Apart from compression ratio, we also explore the trade-offs with respect to compression speed, dataset decompression speed, and average sequence decompression speed. With two of the surveyed algorithms, dataset decompression becomes faster and sequence decompression remains practical, at the cost of compression time, which remains competitive for the datasets with highest variability.

Cite as

Philip Bille, Inge Li Gørtz, and Máximo Pérez-López. From Relative Compression to Hierarchical Compression. In 24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 371, pp. 7:1-7:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{bille_et_al:LIPIcs.SEA.2026.7,
  author =	{Bille, Philip and G{\o}rtz, Inge Li and P\'{e}rez-L\'{o}pez, M\'{a}ximo},
  title =	{{From Relative Compression to Hierarchical Compression}},
  booktitle =	{24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026)},
  pages =	{7:1--7:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-422-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{371},
  editor =	{Aum\"{u}ller, Martin and Finocchi, Irene},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.7},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260117},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.7},
  annote =	{Keywords: Relative compression, RLZ, string collections, compressed representation, data structures, efficient algorithms}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.10

Compressing Highly Repetitive Binary Trees with an Application to Range Minimum Queries

Authors: Gabriel Carmona and Filippo Lari

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 371, 24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026)

Abstract

Tree compression is a well-studied area that aims at reducing the size of tree representations by exploiting different forms of repetition. While the underlying theory is well understood, there is still significant room for experimental investigation, particularly in the design of compressed representations that efficiently support navigational queries. In this work, we address the problem of designing, engineering, and experimentally evaluating a compression technique for unlabeled binary trees based on repeated subtrees, yielding the minimal Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) of the input tree. We show how this representation can be computed in linear time and space directly from a succinct encoding of the tree, and how it can be augmented with compact auxiliary data structures to support Lowest Common Ancestor (LCA) queries. When the input tree is the Cartesian tree of an array, LCA queries can be used to answer Range Minimum Queries (RMQs) on the underlying array. This is particularly relevant in the encoding model, where the array is not accessible at query time, and a space lower bound of 2n-O(log n) bits is known. Given the numerous applications of RMQs, we use this problem as a case study for our experimental evaluation, testing our implementation on 11 real-world datasets. Our experiments show that, on almost every dataset, our implementation is the most space-efficient, using as few as 0.11n bits, while still delivering practical query times.

Cite as

Gabriel Carmona and Filippo Lari. Compressing Highly Repetitive Binary Trees with an Application to Range Minimum Queries. In 24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 371, pp. 10:1-10:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{carmona_et_al:LIPIcs.SEA.2026.10,
  author =	{Carmona, Gabriel and Lari, Filippo},
  title =	{{Compressing Highly Repetitive Binary Trees with an Application to Range Minimum Queries}},
  booktitle =	{24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026)},
  pages =	{10:1--10:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-422-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{371},
  editor =	{Aum\"{u}ller, Martin and Finocchi, Irene},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.10},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260140},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.10},
  annote =	{Keywords: tree compression, range minimum query, compact data structures, algorithm engineering, experimental evaluation}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.11

Wavelet Forests Revisited

Authors: Eric Chiu and Dominik Kempa

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 371, 24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026)

Abstract

Rank and select queries are basic operations on sequences, with applications in compressed text indexes and other space-efficient data structures. One of the standard data structures supporting these queries is the wavelet tree. In this paper, we study wavelet forests, that is, wavelet-tree structures based on the fixed-block compression boosting technique. Such structures partition the input sequence into fixed-size blocks and build a separate wavelet tree for each block. Previous work showed that this approach yields strong practical performance for rank queries. We extend wavelet forests to support select queries. We show that select support can be added with little additional space overhead and that the resulting structures remain practically efficient. In experiments on a range of non-repetitive and repetitive inputs, wavelet forests are competitive with, and in most cases outperform, standalone wavelet-tree implementations. We also study the effect of internal parameters, including superblock size and navigational data, on select-query performance.

Cite as

Eric Chiu and Dominik Kempa. Wavelet Forests Revisited. In 24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 371, pp. 11:1-11:11, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{chiu_et_al:LIPIcs.SEA.2026.11,
  author =	{Chiu, Eric and Kempa, Dominik},
  title =	{{Wavelet Forests Revisited}},
  booktitle =	{24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026)},
  pages =	{11:1--11:11},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-422-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{371},
  editor =	{Aum\"{u}ller, Martin and Finocchi, Irene},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.11},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260152},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.11},
  annote =	{Keywords: wavelet tree, wavelet forest, select queries}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.19

Breaking 2-Cores for Invertible Bloom Lookup Tables by Structure Prediction

Authors: Vojtěch Gaďurek and Pavel Veselý

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 371, 24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026)

Abstract

Invertible Bloom Lookup Tables (IBLTs) provide a highly space-efficient way to reconstruct small sets resulting from a large number of insertions and deletions of elements, such as in streaming or distributed computation of the symmetric difference of similar sets. The set recovery process succeeds if the IBLT size is at least 1.22 times the size of the encoded set; otherwise, a 2-core occurs with high probability in the corresponding random hypergraph. However, the sets in practice often exhibit structure that allows for performance beyond worst-case bounds. Here, we demonstrate that structured sets - such as the k-mers in the symmetric difference of two closely related genomes - can be recovered with an IBLT of significantly smaller size. We achieve this by employing structure-aware predictors to break the 2-core whenever the recovery process gets stuck. Importantly, this approach modifies only the decoding procedure, leaving the IBLT data structure unchanged. We prove that even a weak matching-based predictor enables the recovery of 27% more elements than the nominal IBLT size. Equipped with simple predictors for k-mers of genomic datasets, we demonstrate that recovering a symmetric difference with high probability can be done with an IBLT of size only 66% of the encoded set size for k = 31, improving the space efficiency by almost a factor of two. Moreover, we design an improved method for k-mers with large k that combines subsampling with nearly perfect prediction via fingerprinting and achieves a scaling property, requiring only O(M log M) bits for recovering M k-mers, instead of Θ(k⋅M) bits of the standard IBLT. Overall, our results highlight the possibility of significant space-efficiency improvements for IBLTs on datasets with predictable structure.

Cite as

Vojtěch Gaďurek and Pavel Veselý. Breaking 2-Cores for Invertible Bloom Lookup Tables by Structure Prediction. In 24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 371, pp. 19:1-19:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{gadurek_et_al:LIPIcs.SEA.2026.19,
  author =	{Ga\v{d}urek, Vojt\v{e}ch and Vesel\'{y}, Pavel},
  title =	{{Breaking 2-Cores for Invertible Bloom Lookup Tables by Structure Prediction}},
  booktitle =	{24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026)},
  pages =	{19:1--19:24},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-422-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{371},
  editor =	{Aum\"{u}ller, Martin and Finocchi, Irene},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.19},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260237},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.19},
  annote =	{Keywords: Invertible Bloom Lookup Table, symmetric difference, k-mer sets}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.CPM.2026.8

Constant Multiplicative Sensitivity on the CDAWGs

Authors: Rikuya Hamai, Hiroto Fujimaru, and Shunsuke Inenaga

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 369, 37th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2026)

Abstract

Compact directed acyclic word graphs (CDAWGs) [Blumer et al. 1987] are a fundamental data structure on strings with applications in text pattern searching, data compression, and pattern discovery. Intuitively, the CDAWG of a string T is obtained by merging isomorphic subtrees of the suffix tree [Weiner 1973] of the same string T, and thus CDAWGs are a compact indexing structure. Indeed, the CDAWG size 𝖾 can be sublinear in n for some highly repetitive strings. Of its various applications, the CDAWG allows for computing pattern occurrences, maximal exact matches (MEMs), minimal absent words (MAWs), and minimal unique substrings (MUSs) in optimal time using O(𝖾) space. For designing space-efficient data storage, it is crucial that the underlying data structure is robust against data edits and errors. As a mathematical measure for this, the notion of compression sensitivity [Akagi et al. 2023] was introduced as the maximum of the size increase in the compressed data structures after edits operations. In this paper, we investigate the sensitivity of CDAWGs when a single character edit operation is performed at an arbitrary position in the input string T. We show that the size of the CDAWG after an edit operation on T is asymptotically at most 8 times larger than the original CDAWG before the edit. This O(1) upper bound significantly improves on the only known upper bound O(n/log n) for the problem.

Cite as

Rikuya Hamai, Hiroto Fujimaru, and Shunsuke Inenaga. Constant Multiplicative Sensitivity on the CDAWGs. In 37th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 369, pp. 8:1-8:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{hamai_et_al:LIPIcs.CPM.2026.8,
  author =	{Hamai, Rikuya and Fujimaru, Hiroto and Inenaga, Shunsuke},
  title =	{{Constant Multiplicative Sensitivity on the CDAWGs}},
  booktitle =	{37th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2026)},
  pages =	{8:1--8:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-420-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{369},
  editor =	{Bille, Philip and Prezza, Nicola},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CPM.2026.8},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-259345},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CPM.2026.8},
  annote =	{Keywords: string data structures, maximal repeats, data compression, compression sensitivity, CDAWGs}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.16

Online Hitting Set for Axis-Aligned Squares

Authors: Minati De, Satyam Singh, and Csaba D. Tóth

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 370, 20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026)

Abstract

Given a set P of n points in the plane and a sequence of axis-aligned squares that arrive in an online fashion, the online hitting set problem consists of maintaining, by adding new points from P if necessary, a hitting set H ⊆ P, which contains at least one point in every input square that has already arrived. We present an O(log n)-competitive deterministic algorithm for this problem. The competitive ratio is the best possible, apart from constant factors. In fact, this is the first O(log n)-competitive algorithm for the online hitting set problem that works for geometric objects of arbitrary sizes (i.e., unbounded scaling factors) in the plane. We further generalize this result to positive homothets of a polygon with k ≥ 3 vertices in the plane and provide an O(k²log n)-competitive algorithm.

Cite as

Minati De, Satyam Singh, and Csaba D. Tóth. Online Hitting Set for Axis-Aligned Squares. In 20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 370, pp. 16:1-16:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{de_et_al:LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.16,
  author =	{De, Minati and Singh, Satyam and T\'{o}th, Csaba D.},
  title =	{{Online Hitting Set for Axis-Aligned Squares}},
  booktitle =	{20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026)},
  pages =	{16:1--16:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-421-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{370},
  editor =	{Fraigniaud, Pierre},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.16},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260528},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.16},
  annote =	{Keywords: axis-aligned squares, hitting set, homothets of a polygon, online algorithm}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.CPM.2026.32

Balancing Two-Dimensional Straight-Line Programs

Authors: Itai Boneh, Estéban Gabory, Paweł Gawrychowski, and Adam Górkiewicz

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 369, 37th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2026)

Abstract

We consider building, given a straight-line program (SLP) consisting of g productions deriving a two-dimensional string T of size N× N, a structure capable of providing random access to any character of T. For one-dimensional strings, it is now known how to build a structure of size 𝒪(g) that provides random access in 𝒪(log N) time. In fact, it is known that this can be obtained by building an equivalent SLP of size 𝒪(g) and depth 𝒪(log N) [Ganardi, Jeż, Lohrey, JACM 2021]. We consider the analogous question for two-dimensional strings: can we build an equivalent SLP of roughly the same size and small depth? We show that the answer is negative: there exists an infinite family of two-dimensional strings of size N× N described by a 2D SLP of size g such that any 2D SLP of depth 𝒪(log N) describing the same string must be of size Ω(g⋅ N/log³N). We complement this with an upper bound showing how to construct such a 2D SLP of size 𝒪(g⋅ N). Next, we observe that one can naturally define a generalization of 2D SLP, which we call 2D SLP with holes. We show that a known general balancing theorem by [Ganardi, Jeż, Lohrey, JACM 2021] immediately implies that, given a 2D SLP of size g deriving a string of size N× N, we can construct a 2D SLP with holes of depth 𝒪(log N) and size 𝒪(g). This allows us to conclude that there is a structure of size 𝒪(g) providing random access in 𝒪(log N) time for such a 2D SLP. Further, this can be extended (analogously as for a 1D SLP) to obtain a structure of size 𝒪(g log^ε N) providing random access in 𝒪(log N/log log N) time, for any ε > 0. The same (optimal) random access time was very recently achieved by [De and Kempa, SODA 2026], but with a significantly larger structure of size 𝒪(g log^{2+ε} N).

Cite as

Itai Boneh, Estéban Gabory, Paweł Gawrychowski, and Adam Górkiewicz. Balancing Two-Dimensional Straight-Line Programs. In 37th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 369, pp. 32:1-32:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{boneh_et_al:LIPIcs.CPM.2026.32,
  author =	{Boneh, Itai and Gabory, Est\'{e}ban and Gawrychowski, Pawe{\l} and G\'{o}rkiewicz, Adam},
  title =	{{Balancing Two-Dimensional Straight-Line Programs}},
  booktitle =	{37th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2026)},
  pages =	{32:1--32:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-420-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{369},
  editor =	{Bille, Philip and Prezza, Nicola},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CPM.2026.32},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-259582},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CPM.2026.32},
  annote =	{Keywords: Two-dimensional string, straight-line program, random access}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.19

Constant-Factor Approximations for Doubly Constrained Fair k-Center, k-Median and k-Means

Authors: Nicole Funk, Annika Hennes, Johanna Hillebrand, and Sarah Sturm

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 370, 20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026)

Abstract

We study discrete k-clustering problems in general metric spaces that are constrained by a combination of two different fairness conditions within the demographic fairness model. Given a metric space (P,d), where every point in P is equipped with a protected attribute, and a number k, the goal is to partition P into k clusters with a designated center each, such that a center-based objective function is minimized and the attributes are fairly distributed with respect to the following two fairness concepts: 1) group fairness: We aim for clusters with balanced numbers of attributes by specifying lower and upper bounds for the desired attribute proportions. 2) diverse center selection: Clusters have natural representatives, i.e., their centers. We ask for a balanced set of representatives by specifying the desired number of centers to choose from each attribute. Dickerson, Esmaeili, Morgenstern, and Pena [John P. Dickerson et al., 2023] denote the combination of these two constraints as doubly constrained fair clustering. They present algorithms whose guarantees depend on the best known approximation factors for either of these problems. Currently, this implies an 8-approximation with a small additive violation on the group fairness constraint. For k-center, we improve this approximation factor to 4 with a small additive violation. This guarantee also depends on the currently best algorithm for DS-fair k-center given by Jones, Nguyen and Nguyen [Matthew Jones et al., 2020]. For k-median and k-means, we propose the first constant-factor approximation algorithms. Our algorithms transform a solution that satisfies diverse center selection into a doubly constrained fair clustering using an LP-based approach. Furthermore, our results are generalizable to other center-selection constraints, such as matroid k-clustering and knapsack constraints.

Cite as

Nicole Funk, Annika Hennes, Johanna Hillebrand, and Sarah Sturm. Constant-Factor Approximations for Doubly Constrained Fair k-Center, k-Median and k-Means. In 20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 370, pp. 19:1-19:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{funk_et_al:LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.19,
  author =	{Funk, Nicole and Hennes, Annika and Hillebrand, Johanna and Sturm, Sarah},
  title =	{{Constant-Factor Approximations for Doubly Constrained Fair k-Center, k-Median and k-Means}},
  booktitle =	{20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026)},
  pages =	{19:1--19:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-421-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{370},
  editor =	{Fraigniaud, Pierre},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.19},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260551},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.19},
  annote =	{Keywords: Clustering, Fairness, Approximation Algorithms, k-center, k-median, k-means}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.26

On the Parameterized Complexity of Min-Sum-Radii

Authors: Pankaj Kumar, Haiko Müller, Sebastian Ordyniak, and Melanie Schmidt

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 370, 20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026)

Abstract

In the Min-Sum-Radii (MSR) clustering problem, we are given a finite set X of n points in a metric space. The objective is to find at most k clusters centered at a subset of these points such that every point of X is assigned to one of the clusters, minimizing the sum of the radii of the clusters. The problem is known to be NP-hard even on metrics induced by weighted planar graphs and metrics with constant doubling dimension, as shown by Gibson et al. (SWAT 2008). In this work, we investigate the parameterized complexity of MSR on metrics induced by undirected graphs. We distinguish between weighted graph metrics (with positive edge weights) and unweighted graph metrics (where all edges have unit weight). Weighted Graph Metrics. We show that MSR is W[1]-hard on metrics induced by weighted bipartite graphs, when parameterized by the combined parameter k the number of clusters and Δ the cost of the clustering. We then investigate the structural parameterized complexity of the problem. Drexler et al. [doi:10.48550/arXiv.2310.02130] showed that the MSR problem admits an XP algorithm on metrics induced by weighted graphs when parameterized by treewidth, and asked whether this can be improved to fixed-parameter tractability. We first answer their question in the negative, and more strongly show that MSR stays W[1]-hard on metrics induced by undirected weighted bipartite graphs when parameterized by the vertex cover number plus k. We then turn our attention to parameters for dense graphs and show that MSR remains W[1]-hard when parameterized by k+Δ even on cliques and complete bipartite graphs. On the positive side, we employ the known XP algorithm parameterized by treewidth, to show that the MSR problem is FPT when parameterized by the parameter treewidth plus Δ. Together, these results provide a complete picture of the parameterized complexity of MSR with respect to any combination of parameters k, Δ, as well as structural parameters for sparse graphs above vertex cover and known parameters for dense graphs (such as neighborhood diversity and modular width). Unweighted Graph Metrics. The story is rather different for unweighted graphs, since it is a long standing open question whether MSR on metrics induced by undirected graphs is solvable in polynomial-time. Although we cannot answer this question, we provide classical and parameterized hardness results for two very closely related problems, namely Exact-MSR (MSR and one wants to find exactly k clusters) and Allowed-Centers-MSR (MSR with an additional set of allowed cluster centers). We also show that MSR as well as these two problems are fixed-parameter tractable parameterized by the treedepth of the input graph.

Cite as

Pankaj Kumar, Haiko Müller, Sebastian Ordyniak, and Melanie Schmidt. On the Parameterized Complexity of Min-Sum-Radii. In 20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 370, pp. 26:1-26:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{kumar_et_al:LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.26,
  author =	{Kumar, Pankaj and M\"{u}ller, Haiko and Ordyniak, Sebastian and Schmidt, Melanie},
  title =	{{On the Parameterized Complexity of Min-Sum-Radii}},
  booktitle =	{20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026)},
  pages =	{26:1--26:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-421-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{370},
  editor =	{Fraigniaud, Pierre},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.26},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260623},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.26},
  annote =	{Keywords: Parameterized complexity, Min-Sum-Radii clustering}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.32

Semirandom Planted Bipartite Subgraphs

Authors: Anand Louis and Kirtan Vora

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 370, 20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026)

Abstract

There have been many recent works studying planted subgraphs problems. The semirandom planted bipartite subgraph problem is defined as follows. Starting with a vertex set V, an arbitrary subset S ⊂ V of size k is chosen, then an arbitrary bipartite graph is added on S. After this between each pair of vertices in S × (V ⧵ S) an edge is added independently with probability p, then an arbitrary graph is added on V⧵ S. The analogous semirandom planted clique problem, where S forms a clique, has been studied starting with the work of Fiege and Kilian [Uriel Feige and Joe Kilian, 2001]; recent work by [Blasiok et al., 2024; Venkatesan Guruswami and Hsin-Po Wang, 2025] gave an algorithm for this problem when k = Ω(√{n log n}). We give an algorithm for semirandom planted bipartite subgraph problem when k = Ω(√{n log n}) and the two color classes are roughly balanced. Our algorithms are essentially the same as the elegant greedy algorithm of [Blasiok et al., 2024]. We generalize their idea to our setting. Handling the arbitrary nature of the bipartite graph requires some new technical ideas and is our main technical contribution.

Cite as

Anand Louis and Kirtan Vora. Semirandom Planted Bipartite Subgraphs. In 20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 370, pp. 32:1-32:13, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{louis_et_al:LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.32,
  author =	{Louis, Anand and Vora, Kirtan},
  title =	{{Semirandom Planted Bipartite Subgraphs}},
  booktitle =	{20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026)},
  pages =	{32:1--32:13},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-421-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{370},
  editor =	{Fraigniaud, Pierre},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.32},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260681},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.32},
  annote =	{Keywords: Semirandom Models, Spectral Algorithms, Planted Subgraphs, Random Graphs, Approximate Recovery Algorithms}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.36

Exact Subquadratic Algorithm for Many-To-Many Matching on Planar Point Sets with Integer Coordinates

Authors: Seongbin Park and Eunjin Oh

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 370, 20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026)

Abstract

In this paper, we study the many-to-many matching problem on planar point sets with integer coordinates: Given two disjoint sets R,B ⊂ [Δ]² with |R|+|B| = n, the goal is to select a set of edges between R and B so that every point is incident to at least one edge and the total Euclidean length is minimized. In the general case that R and B are point sets in the plane, the best-known algorithm for the many-to-many matching problem takes Õ(n²) time. We present an exact Õ(n^{1.5} log Δ) time algorithm for point sets in [Δ]². To the best of our knowledge, this is the first subquadratic exact algorithm for planar many-to-many matching under bounded integer coordinates.

Cite as

Seongbin Park and Eunjin Oh. Exact Subquadratic Algorithm for Many-To-Many Matching on Planar Point Sets with Integer Coordinates. In 20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 370, pp. 36:1-36:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{park_et_al:LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.36,
  author =	{Park, Seongbin and Oh, Eunjin},
  title =	{{Exact Subquadratic Algorithm for Many-To-Many Matching on Planar Point Sets with Integer Coordinates}},
  booktitle =	{20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026)},
  pages =	{36:1--36:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-421-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{370},
  editor =	{Fraigniaud, Pierre},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.36},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260728},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.36},
  annote =	{Keywords: Edge cover, many-to-many matching, similarity, geometric matching}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.9

Serving Clients Fairly: On Facility Location and k-Median with Fair Outliers

Authors: Rajni Dabas, Samir Khuller, and Emilie Rivkin

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 368, 7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026)

Abstract

Classical clustering problems such as Facility Location and k-Median aim to efficiently serve a set of clients from a subset of facilities - minimizing the total cost of facility openings and client assignments in Facility Location, and minimizing assignment (service) cost under a facility count constraint in k-Median. These problems are highly sensitive to outliers, and therefore researchers have studied variants that allow excluding a small number of clients as outliers to reduce cost. However, in many real-world settings, clients belong to different demographic or functional groups, and unconstrained outlier removal can disproportionately exclude certain groups, raising fairness concerns, especially when the facilities correspond to critically needed facilities for emergencies such as fire stations, hospitals and other emergency services. We study Facility Location with Fair Outliers, where each group is allowed a specified number of outliers, and the objective is to minimize total cost while respecting group-wise fairness constraints. We present a bicriteria approximation with a O(1/ε) approximation factor and (1+ 2ε) factor violation in outliers per group. For k-Median with Fair Outliers, we design a bicriteria approximation with a 4(1+ω/ε) approximation factor and (ω + ε) violation in outliers per group improving on prior work by avoiding dependence on k in outlier violations. We also prove that the problems are W[1]-hard parameterized by ω. We complement our algorithmic contributions with a detailed empirical analysis, demonstrating that fairness can be achieved with negligible increase in cost and that the integrality gap of the standard LP is small in practice.

Cite as

Rajni Dabas, Samir Khuller, and Emilie Rivkin. Serving Clients Fairly: On Facility Location and k-Median with Fair Outliers. In 7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 368, pp. 9:1-9:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{dabas_et_al:LIPIcs.FORC.2026.9,
  author =	{Dabas, Rajni and Khuller, Samir and Rivkin, Emilie},
  title =	{{Serving Clients Fairly: On Facility Location and k-Median with Fair Outliers}},
  booktitle =	{7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026)},
  pages =	{9:1--9:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-419-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{368},
  editor =	{Lin, Huijia (Rachel)},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.9},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-259812},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.9},
  annote =	{Keywords: Approximation algorithms, fairness}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.29

Charting the Diameter Computation Landscape of Intersection Graphs in 3D and Above

Authors: Timothy M. Chan, Hsien-Chih Chang, Jie Gao, Sándor Kisfaludi-Bak, Hung Le, and Da Wei Zheng

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 367, 42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026)

Abstract

Recent research on computing the diameter of geometric intersection graphs has made significant strides, primarily focusing on the 2D case [Duraj et al., 2024; Hsien-Chih Chang et al., 2024; Chan et al., 2025] where truly subquadratic-time algorithms were given for simple objects such as unit-disks and (axis-aligned) squares. However, in three or higher dimensions, there is no known truly subquadratic-time algorithm for any intersection graph of non-trivial objects, even basic ones such as unit balls or (axis-aligned) unit cubes. This was partially explained by the pioneering work of Bringmann et al. [Karl Bringmann et al., 2022] which gave several truly subquadratic lower bounds, notably for unit balls or unit cubes in 3D when the graph diameter Δ is at least Ω(log n), hinting at a pessimistic outlook for the complexity of the diameter problem in higher dimensions. In this paper, we substantially extend the landscape of diameter computation for objects in three and higher dimensions, giving a few positive results. Our highlighted findings include: 1) A truly subquadratic-time algorithm for deciding if the diameter of unit cubes in 3D is at most 3 (Diameter-3 hereafter), the first algorithm of its kind for objects in 3D or higher dimensions. Our algorithm is based on a novel connection to pseudolines, which is of independent interest. 2) A truly subquadratic time lower bound for Diameter-3 of unit balls in 3D under the Orthogonal Vector (OV) hypothesis, giving the first separation between unit balls and unit cubes in the small diameter regime. Previously, computing the diameter for both objects was known to be quadratic hard when the diameter is Ω(log n) [Karl Bringmann et al., 2022]. 3) A near-linear-time algorithm for Diameter-2 of unit cubes in 3D, generalizing the previous result for unit squares in 2D [Karl Bringmann et al., 2022]. 4) A truly subquadratic-time algorithm and lower bound for Diameter-2 and Diameter-3 of rectangular boxes (of arbitrary dimension and sizes), respectively.

Cite as

Timothy M. Chan, Hsien-Chih Chang, Jie Gao, Sándor Kisfaludi-Bak, Hung Le, and Da Wei Zheng. Charting the Diameter Computation Landscape of Intersection Graphs in 3D and Above. In 42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 367, pp. 29:1-29:15, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{chan_et_al:LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.29,
  author =	{Chan, Timothy M. and Chang, Hsien-Chih and Gao, Jie and Kisfaludi-Bak, S\'{a}ndor and Le, Hung and Zheng, Da Wei},
  title =	{{Charting the Diameter Computation Landscape of Intersection Graphs in 3D and Above}},
  booktitle =	{42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026)},
  pages =	{29:1--29:15},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-418-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{367},
  editor =	{Ahn, Hee-Kap and Hoffmann, Michael and Nayyeri, Amir},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.29},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-258357},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.29},
  annote =	{Keywords: Graph Diameter, Geometric Intersection Graphs, Unit Ball Graphs}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.33

Near-Optimal Bounds for Parameterized Euclidean k-Means

Authors: Vincent Cohen-Addad, Karthik C. S., David Saulpic, and Chris Schwiegelshohn

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 367, 42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026)

Abstract

The k-means problem is a classic objective for modeling clustering in a metric space. Given a set of points in a metric space, the goal is to find k representative points so as to minimize the sum of the squared distances from each point to its closest representative. In this work, we study the approximability of k-means in Euclidean spaces parameterized by the number of clusters, k. In seminal works, de la Vega, Karpinski, Kenyon, and Rabani [STOC'03] and Kumar, Sabharwal, and Sen [JACM'10] showed how to obtain a (1+ε)-approximation for high-dimensional Euclidean k-means in time 2^{(k/ε)^O(1)} ⋅ dn^O(1). In this work, we introduce a new fine-grained hypothesis called Exponential Time for Expanders Hypothesis (XXH) which roughly asserts that there are no non-trivial exponential time approximation algorithms for the vertex cover problem on near perfect vertex expanders. Assuming XXH, we close the above long line of work on approximating Euclidean k-means by showing that there is no 2^{(k/ε)^{1-o(1)}} ⋅ n^O(1) time algorithm achieving a (1+ε)-approximation for k-means in Euclidean space. This lower bound is tight as it matches the algorithm given by Feldman, Monemizadeh, and Sohler [SoCG'07] whose runtime is 2^O(k/ε) + O(ndk). Furthermore, assuming XXH, we show that the seminal O(n^{kd+1}) runtime exact algorithm of Inaba, Katoh, and Imai [SoCG'94] for k-means is optimal for small values of k.

Cite as

Vincent Cohen-Addad, Karthik C. S., David Saulpic, and Chris Schwiegelshohn. Near-Optimal Bounds for Parameterized Euclidean k-Means. In 42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 367, pp. 33:1-33:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{cohenaddad_et_al:LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.33,
  author =	{Cohen-Addad, Vincent and C. S., Karthik and Saulpic, David and Schwiegelshohn, Chris},
  title =	{{Near-Optimal Bounds for Parameterized Euclidean k-Means}},
  booktitle =	{42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026)},
  pages =	{33:1--33:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-418-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{367},
  editor =	{Ahn, Hee-Kap and Hoffmann, Michael and Nayyeri, Amir},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.33},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-258391},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.33},
  annote =	{Keywords: k-means clustering, Euclidean space, Fine-Grained Complexity}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.34

Almost-Optimal Upper and Lower Bounds for Clustering in Low Dimensional Euclidean Spaces

Authors: Vincent Cohen-Addad, Karthik C. S., David Saulpic, and Chris Schwiegelshohn

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 367, 42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026)

Abstract

The k-median and k-means clustering objectives are classic objectives for modeling clustering in a metric space. Given a set of points in a metric space, the goal of the k-median (resp. k-means) problem is to find k representative points so as to minimize the sum of the distances (resp. sum of squared distances) from each point to its closest representative. Cohen-Addad, Feldmann, and Saulpic [JACM'21] showed how to obtain a (1+ε)-factor approximation in low-dimensional Euclidean metric for both the k-median and k-means problems in near-linear time 2^{(1/ε)^O(d²)} n ⋅ polylog(n) (where d is the dimension and n is the number of input points). We improve this running time to 2^{O(1/ε)^{d-1}} ⋅ n ⋅ polylog(n), and show an almost matching lower bound: under the Gap Exponential Time Hypothesis for 3-SAT, there is no 2^o(1/ε^{d-1}) n^O(1) algorithm achieving a (1+ε)-approximation for k-means.

Cite as

Vincent Cohen-Addad, Karthik C. S., David Saulpic, and Chris Schwiegelshohn. Almost-Optimal Upper and Lower Bounds for Clustering in Low Dimensional Euclidean Spaces. In 42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 367, pp. 34:1-34:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{cohenaddad_et_al:LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.34,
  author =	{Cohen-Addad, Vincent and Karthik C. S. and Saulpic, David and Schwiegelshohn, Chris},
  title =	{{Almost-Optimal Upper and Lower Bounds for Clustering in Low Dimensional Euclidean Spaces}},
  booktitle =	{42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026)},
  pages =	{34:1--34:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-418-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{367},
  editor =	{Ahn, Hee-Kap and Hoffmann, Michael and Nayyeri, Amir},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.34},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-258404},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.34},
  annote =	{Keywords: k-means clustering, k-median clustering, Euclidean space, Fine-Grained Complexity}
}

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