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Documents authored by Cassis, Alejandro

Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2025.10
Algorithm Engineering of SSSP with Negative Edge Weights

Authors: Alejandro Cassis, Andreas Karrenbauer, André Nusser, and Paolo Luigi Rinaldi

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 338, 23rd International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2025)

Abstract
Computing shortest paths is one of the most fundamental algorithmic graph problems. It is known since decades that this problem can be solved in near-linear time if all weights are nonnegative. A recent break-through by [Aaron Bernstein et al., 2022] presented a randomized near-linear time algorithm for this problem. A subsequent improvement in [Karl Bringmann et al., 2023] significantly reduced the number of logarithmic factors and thereby also simplified the algorithm. It is surprising and exciting that both of these algorithms are combinatorial and do not contain any fundamental obstacles for being practical. We launch the, to the best of our knowledge, first extensive investigation towards a practical implementation of [Karl Bringmann et al., 2023]. To this end, we give an accessible overview of the algorithm and discuss what adaptions are necessary to obtain a fast algorithm in practice. We manifest these adaptions in an efficient implementation. We test our implementation on a benchmark data set that is adapted to be more difficult for our implementation in order to allow for a fair comparison. As in [Karl Bringmann et al., 2023] as well as in our implementation there are multiple parameters to tune, we empirically evaluate their effect and thereby determine the best choices. Our implementation is then extensively compared to one of the state-of-the-art algorithms for this problem [Andrew V. Goldberg and Tomasz Radzik, 1993]. On the hardest instance type, we are faster by up to almost two orders of magnitude.
Cite as

Alejandro Cassis, Andreas Karrenbauer, André Nusser, and Paolo Luigi Rinaldi. Algorithm Engineering of SSSP with Negative Edge Weights. In 23rd International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 338, pp. 10:1-10:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{cassis_et_al:LIPIcs.SEA.2025.10,
  author =	{Cassis, Alejandro and Karrenbauer, Andreas and Nusser, Andr\'{e} and Rinaldi, Paolo Luigi},
  title =	{{Algorithm Engineering of SSSP with Negative Edge Weights}},
  booktitle =	{23rd International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2025)},
  pages =	{10:1--10:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-375-1},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{338},
  editor =	{Mutzel, Petra 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.SEA.2025.10},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-232486},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2025.10},
  annote =	{Keywords: Single Source Shortest Paths, Negative Weights, Near-Linear Time}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2023.24
Faster 0-1-Knapsack via Near-Convex Min-Plus-Convolution

Authors: Karl Bringmann and Alejandro Cassis

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 274, 31st Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2023)

Abstract
We revisit the classic 0-1-Knapsack problem, in which we are given n items with their weights and profits as well as a weight budget W, and the goal is to find a subset of items of total weight at most W that maximizes the total profit. We study pseudopolynomial-time algorithms parameterized by the largest profit of any item p_{max}, and the largest weight of any item w_max. Our main result are algorithms for 0-1-Knapsack running in time Õ(n w_max p_max^{2/3}) and Õ(n p_max w_max^{2/3}), improving upon an algorithm in time O(n p_max w_max) by Pisinger [J. Algorithms '99]. In the regime p_max ≈ w_max ≈ n (and W ≈ OPT ≈ n²) our algorithms are the first to break the cubic barrier n³. To obtain our result, we give an efficient algorithm to compute the min-plus convolution of near-convex functions. More precisely, we say that a function f : [n] ↦ ℤ is Δ-near convex with Δ ≥ 1, if there is a convex function f ̆ such that f ̆(i) ≤ f(i) ≤ f ̆(i) + Δ for every i. We design an algorithm computing the min-plus convolution of two Δ-near convex functions in time Õ(nΔ). This tool can replace the usage of the prediction technique of Bateni, Hajiaghayi, Seddighin and Stein [STOC '18] in all applications we are aware of, and we believe it has wider applicability.
Cite as

Karl Bringmann and Alejandro Cassis. Faster 0-1-Knapsack via Near-Convex Min-Plus-Convolution. In 31st Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2023). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 274, pp. 24:1-24:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023)

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@InProceedings{bringmann_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2023.24,
  author =	{Bringmann, Karl and Cassis, Alejandro},
  title =	{{Faster 0-1-Knapsack via Near-Convex Min-Plus-Convolution}},
  booktitle =	{31st Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2023)},
  pages =	{24:1--24:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-295-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2023},
  volume =	{274},
  editor =	{G{\o}rtz, Inge Li and Farach-Colton, Martin and Puglisi, Simon J. and Herman, Grzegorz},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2023.24},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-186776},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2023.24},
  annote =	{Keywords: Knapsack, Fine-Grained Complexity, Min-Plus Convolution}
}
Document
Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.30
A Structural Investigation of the Approximability of Polynomial-Time Problems

Authors: Karl Bringmann, Alejandro Cassis, Nick Fischer, and Marvin Künnemann

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 229, 49th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2022)

Abstract
An extensive research effort targets optimal (in)approximability results for various NP-hard optimization problems. Notably, the works of (Creignou'95) as well as (Khanna, Sudan, Trevisan, Williamson'00) establish a tight characterization of a large subclass of MaxSNP, namely Boolean MaxCSPs and further variants, in terms of their polynomial-time approximability. Can we obtain similarly encompassing characterizations for classes of polynomial-time optimization problems? To this end, we initiate the systematic study of a recently introduced polynomial-time analogue of MaxSNP, which includes a large number of well-studied problems (including Nearest and Furthest Neighbor in the Hamming metric, Maximum Inner Product, optimization variants of k-XOR and Maximum k-Cover). Specifically, for each k, MaxSP_k denotes the class of O(m^k)-time problems of the form max_{x_1,… , x_k} #{y : ϕ(x_1,… ,x_k,y)} where ϕ is a quantifier-free first-order property and m denotes the size of the relational structure. Assuming central hypotheses about clique detection in hypergraphs and exact Max-3-SAT}, we show that for any MaxSP_k problem definable by a quantifier-free m-edge graph formula φ, the best possible approximation guarantee in faster-than-exhaustive-search time O(m^{k-δ})falls into one of four categories: - optimizable to exactness in time O(m^{k-δ}), - an (inefficient) approximation scheme, i.e., a (1+ε)-approximation in time O(m^{k-f(ε)}), - a (fixed) constant-factor approximation in time O(m^{k-δ}), or - a nm^ε-approximation in time O(m^{k-f(ε)}). We obtain an almost complete characterization of these regimes, for MaxSP_k as well as for an analogously defined minimization class MinSP_k. As our main technical contribution, we show how to rule out the existence of approximation schemes for a large class of problems admitting constant-factor approximations, under a hypothesis for exact Sparse Max-3-SAT algorithms posed by (Alman, Vassilevska Williams'20). As general trends for the problems we consider, we observe: (1) Exact optimizability has a simple algebraic characterization, (2) only few maximization problems do not admit a constant-factor approximation; these do not even have a subpolynomial-factor approximation, and (3) constant-factor approximation of minimization problems is equivalent to deciding whether the optimum is equal to 0.
Cite as

Karl Bringmann, Alejandro Cassis, Nick Fischer, and Marvin Künnemann. A Structural Investigation of the Approximability of Polynomial-Time Problems. In 49th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 229, pp. 30:1-30:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)

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@InProceedings{bringmann_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.30,
  author =	{Bringmann, Karl and Cassis, Alejandro and Fischer, Nick and K\"{u}nnemann, Marvin},
  title =	{{A Structural Investigation of the Approximability of Polynomial-Time Problems}},
  booktitle =	{49th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2022)},
  pages =	{30:1--30:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-235-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{229},
  editor =	{Boja\'{n}czyk, Miko{\l}aj and Merelli, Emanuela and Woodruff, David P.},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.30},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-163713},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.30},
  annote =	{Keywords: Classification Theorems, Hardness of Approximation in P, Fine-grained Complexity Theory}
}
Document
Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.31
Faster Knapsack Algorithms via Bounded Monotone Min-Plus-Convolution

Authors: Karl Bringmann and Alejandro Cassis

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 229, 49th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2022)

Abstract
We present new exact and approximation algorithms for 0-1-Knapsack and Unbounded Knapsack: - Exact Algorithm for 0-1-Knapsack: 0-1-Knapsack has known algorithms running in time Õ(n + min{n ⋅ OPT, n ⋅ W, OPT², W²}) [Bellman '57], where n is the number of items, W is the weight budget, and OPT is the optimal profit. We present an algorithm running in time Õ(n + (W + OPT)^{1.5}). This improves the running time in case n,W,OPT are roughly equal. - Exact Algorithm for Unbounded Knapsack: Unbounded Knapsack has known algorithms running in time Õ(n + min{n ⋅ p_max, n ⋅ w_max, p_max², w_max²}) [Axiotis, Tzamos '19, Jansen, Rohwedder '19, Chan, He '22], where n is the number of items, w_{max} is the largest weight of any item, and p_max is the largest profit of any item. We present an algorithm running in time Õ(n + (p_max + w_max)^{1.5}), giving a similar improvement as for 0-1-Knapsack. - Approximating Unbounded Knapsack with Resource Augmentation: Unbounded Knapsack has a known FPTAS with running time Õ(min{n/ε, n + 1/ε²}) [Jansen, Kraft '18]. We study weak approximation algorithms, which approximate the optimal profit but are allowed to overshoot the weight constraint (i.e. resource augmentation). We present the first approximation scheme for Unbounded Knapsack in this setting, achieving running time Õ(n + 1/ε^{1.5}). Along the way, we also give a simpler FPTAS with lower order improvement in the standard setting. For all of these problem settings the previously known results had matching conditional lower bounds. We avoid these lower bounds in the approximation setting by allowing resource augmentation, and in the exact setting by analyzing the time complexity in terms of weight and profit parameters (instead of only weight or only profit parameters). Our algorithms can be seen as reductions to Min-Plus-Convolution on monotone sequences with bounded entries. These structured instances of Min-Plus-Convolution can be solved in time O(n^1.5) [Chi, Duan, Xie, Zhang '22] (in contrast to the conjectured n^{2-o(1)} lower bound for the general case). We complement our results by showing reductions in the opposite direction, that is, we show that achieving our results with the constant 1.5 replaced by any constant < 2 implies subquadratic algorithms for Min-Plus-Convolution on monotone sequences with bounded entries.
Cite as

Karl Bringmann and Alejandro Cassis. Faster Knapsack Algorithms via Bounded Monotone Min-Plus-Convolution. In 49th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 229, pp. 31:1-31:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)

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@InProceedings{bringmann_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.31,
  author =	{Bringmann, Karl and Cassis, Alejandro},
  title =	{{Faster Knapsack Algorithms via Bounded Monotone Min-Plus-Convolution}},
  booktitle =	{49th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2022)},
  pages =	{31:1--31:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-235-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{229},
  editor =	{Boja\'{n}czyk, Miko{\l}aj and Merelli, Emanuela and Woodruff, David P.},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.31},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-163727},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.31},
  annote =	{Keywords: Knapsack, Approximation Schemes, Fine-Grained Complexity, Min-Plus Convolution}
}
Document
Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.32
Improved Sublinear-Time Edit Distance for Preprocessed Strings

Authors: Karl Bringmann, Alejandro Cassis, Nick Fischer, and Vasileios Nakos

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 229, 49th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2022)

Abstract
We study the problem of approximating the edit distance of two strings in sublinear time, in a setting where one or both string(s) are preprocessed, as initiated by Goldenberg, Rubinstein, Saha (STOC '20). Specifically, in the (k, K)-gap edit distance problem, the goal is to distinguish whether the edit distance of two strings is at most k or at least K. We obtain the following results: - After preprocessing one string in time n^{1+o(1)}, we can solve (k, k ⋅ n^o(1))-gap-gap edit distance in time (n/k + k) ⋅ n^o(1). - After preprocessing both strings separately in time n^{1+o(1)}, we can solve (k, k ⋅ n^o(1))-gap edit distance in time kn^o(1). Both results improve upon some previously best known result, with respect to either the gap or the query time or the preprocessing time. Our algorithms build on the framework by Andoni, Krauthgamer and Onak (FOCS '10) and the recent sublinear-time algorithm by Bringmann, Cassis, Fischer and Nakos (STOC '22). We replace many complicated parts in their algorithm by faster and simpler solutions which exploit the preprocessing.
Cite as

Karl Bringmann, Alejandro Cassis, Nick Fischer, and Vasileios Nakos. Improved Sublinear-Time Edit Distance for Preprocessed Strings. In 49th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 229, pp. 32:1-32:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)

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@InProceedings{bringmann_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.32,
  author =	{Bringmann, Karl and Cassis, Alejandro and Fischer, Nick and Nakos, Vasileios},
  title =	{{Improved Sublinear-Time Edit Distance for Preprocessed Strings}},
  booktitle =	{49th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2022)},
  pages =	{32:1--32:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-235-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{229},
  editor =	{Boja\'{n}czyk, Miko{\l}aj and Merelli, Emanuela and Woodruff, David P.},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.32},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-163734},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.32},
  annote =	{Keywords: Edit Distance, Property Testing, Preprocessing, Precision Sampling}
}
Document
APPROX
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2021.9
Fine-Grained Completeness for Optimization in P

Authors: Karl Bringmann, Alejandro Cassis, Nick Fischer, and Marvin Künnemann

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 207, Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2021)

Abstract
We initiate the study of fine-grained completeness theorems for exact and approximate optimization in the polynomial-time regime. Inspired by the first completeness results for decision problems in P (Gao, Impagliazzo, Kolokolova, Williams, TALG 2019) as well as the classic class MaxSNP and MaxSNP-completeness for NP optimization problems (Papadimitriou, Yannakakis, JCSS 1991), we define polynomial-time analogues MaxSP and MinSP, which contain a number of natural optimization problems in P, including Maximum Inner Product, general forms of nearest neighbor search and optimization variants of the k-XOR problem. Specifically, we define MaxSP as the class of problems definable as max_{x₁,… ,x_k} #{(y₁,… ,y_𝓁) : ϕ(x₁,… ,x_k, y₁,… ,y_𝓁)}, where ϕ is a quantifier-free first-order property over a given relational structure (with MinSP defined analogously). On m-sized structures, we can solve each such problem in time O(m^{k+𝓁-1}). Our results are: - We determine (a sparse variant of) the Maximum/Minimum Inner Product problem as complete under deterministic fine-grained reductions: A strongly subquadratic algorithm for Maximum/Minimum Inner Product would beat the baseline running time of O(m^{k+𝓁-1}) for all problems in MaxSP/MinSP by a polynomial factor. - This completeness transfers to approximation: Maximum/Minimum Inner Product is also complete in the sense that a strongly subquadratic c-approximation would give a (c+ε)-approximation for all MaxSP/MinSP problems in time O(m^{k+𝓁-1-δ}), where ε > 0 can be chosen arbitrarily small. Combining our completeness with (Chen, Williams, SODA 2019), we obtain the perhaps surprising consequence that refuting the OV Hypothesis is equivalent to giving a O(1)-approximation for all MinSP problems in faster-than-O(m^{k+𝓁-1}) time. - By fine-tuning our reductions, we obtain mild algorithmic improvements for solving and approximating all problems in MaxSP and MinSP, using the fastest known algorithms for Maximum/Minimum Inner Product.
Cite as

Karl Bringmann, Alejandro Cassis, Nick Fischer, and Marvin Künnemann. Fine-Grained Completeness for Optimization in P. In Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2021). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 207, pp. 9:1-9:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2021)

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@InProceedings{bringmann_et_al:LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2021.9,
  author =	{Bringmann, Karl and Cassis, Alejandro and Fischer, Nick and K\"{u}nnemann, Marvin},
  title =	{{Fine-Grained Completeness for Optimization in P}},
  booktitle =	{Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2021)},
  pages =	{9:1--9:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-207-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2021},
  volume =	{207},
  editor =	{Wootters, Mary and Sanit\`{a}, Laura},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2021.9},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-147024},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2021.9},
  annote =	{Keywords: Fine-grained Complexity \& Algorithm Design, Completeness, Hardness of Approximation in P, Dimensionality Reductions}
}
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