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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.45

Local Computation Algorithms for Knapsack: Impossibility Results, and How to Avoid Them

Authors: Clément L. Canonne, Yun Li, and Seeun William Umboh

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 353, Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2025)

Abstract

Local Computation Algorithms (LCA), as introduced by Rubinfeld, Tamir, Vardi, and Xie (2011), are a type of ultra-efficient algorithms which, given access to a (large) input for a given computational task, are required to provide fast query access to a consistent output solution, without maintaining a state between queries. This paradigm of computation in particular allows for hugely distributed algorithms, where independent instances of a given LCA provide consistent access to a common output solution. The past decade has seen a significant amount of work on LCAs, by and large focusing on graph problems. In this paper, we initiate the study of Local Computation Algorithms for perhaps the archetypal combinatorial optimization problem, Knapsack. We first establish strong impossibility results, ruling out the existence of any non-trivial LCA for Knapsack as several of its relaxations. We then show how equipping the LCA with additional access to the Knapsack instance, namely, weighted item sampling, allows one to circumvent these impossibility results, and obtain sublinear-time and query LCAs. Our positive result draws on a connection to the recent notion of reproducibility for learning algorithms (Impagliazzo, Lei, Pitassi, and Sorrell, 2022), a connection we believe to be of independent interest for the design of LCAs.

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Clément L. Canonne, Yun Li, and Seeun William Umboh. Local Computation Algorithms for Knapsack: Impossibility Results, and How to Avoid Them. In Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 353, pp. 45:1-45:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{canonne_et_al:LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.45,
  author =	{Canonne, Cl\'{e}ment L. and Li, Yun and Umboh, Seeun William},
  title =	{{Local Computation Algorithms for Knapsack: Impossibility Results, and How to Avoid Them}},
  booktitle =	{Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2025)},
  pages =	{45:1--45:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-397-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{353},
  editor =	{Ene, Alina and Chattopadhyay, Eshan},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.45},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-244111},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.45},
  annote =	{Keywords: Local computation algorithms, Knapsack, algorithms, lower bounds}
}

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Local Computation Algorithms for Knapsack: Impossibility Results, and How to Avoid Them

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