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Volume

LIPIcs, Volume 101

16th Scandinavian Symposium and Workshops on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2018)

SWAT 2018, June 18-20, 2018, Malmö, Sweden

Editors: David Eppstein

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.14

K-Hole Separation in PEO‑Based ILP Treewidth Formulation

Authors: Andrea D'Ascenzo

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

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a family of valid inequalities for the strongest currently known integer programming formulation of treewidth based on perfect elimination orderings. These inequalities arise from the structure of induced chordless cycles (holes) and strengthen the canonical linear relaxation by enforcing constraints that every feasible chordal completion must satisfy. To handle the exponentially many such inequalities, we develop a dedicated separation routine capable of detecting violated k-hole constraints within a cutting-plane framework. Our computational results show that incorporating these inequalities substantially improves the quality of the lower bounds across a broad range of graph classes, in some cases nearly closing the integrality gap.

Cite as

Andrea D'Ascenzo. K-Hole Separation in PEO‑Based ILP Treewidth Formulation. In 24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 371, pp. 14:1-14:14, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{dascenzo:LIPIcs.SEA.2026.14,
  author =	{D'Ascenzo, Andrea},
  title =	{{K-Hole Separation in PEO‑Based ILP Treewidth Formulation}},
  booktitle =	{24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026)},
  pages =	{14:1--14:14},
  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.2026.14},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260186},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.14},
  annote =	{Keywords: Treewidth, Integer Linear Programming, Polyhedral Combinatorics, Chordal Completion, Induced Cycles}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.24

ZOR Filters: Fast and Smaller Than Fuse Filters

Authors: Antoine Limasset

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

Abstract

Probabilistic membership filters support fast approximate membership queries with controlled false-positive probability ε and are widely used across storage, analytics, networking, and bioinformatics [Chang et al., 2008; Niv Dayan et al., 2018; Broder and Mitzenmacher, 2004; Harris and Medvedev, 2020; Marchet and Limasset, 2023; Chikhi et al., 2025; Hernandez-Courbevoie et al., 2025]. In the static setting, low-overhead methods such as XOR, Fuse, and BuRR have been proposed [Graf and Lemire, 2020; Graf and Lemire, 2022; Dillinger et al., 2022; Ulrich and Renard, 2023]. Among these, Fuse filters are known for near-optimal query throughput. For XOR/Fuse-style peeling constructions, however, build success is only high probability, which complicates deterministic builds. We introduce ZOR filters, a deterministic continuation of XOR/Fuse-style constructions that guarantees termination while preserving the same XOR-based query mechanism. ZOR replaces restart-on-failure with deterministic peeling that abandons a small fraction of keys, and restores false-positive-only semantics by storing the remainder in a compact auxiliary structure. In our experiments, the abandoned fraction drops below 1% for moderate arity (e.g., N ≥ 5), so the auxiliary handles a negligible fraction of keys. As a result, ZOR filters can be substantially more memory-efficient than Fuse filters, with overhead below 1%, while not yet matching the near-optimal overhead of BuRR (below 0.1%). In query performance, ZOR-pure is close to Fuse and faster than BuRR on positive queries, while the complete interleaved variant trades additional negative-query latency for deterministic continuation. Relative to optimised Fuse/BuRR implementations [Graf and Lemire, 2022; Dillinger et al., 2022], the current ZOR prototype remains slower in construction because deterministic peeling requires explicit incidence handling; reducing this construction gap is an important direction for future work.

Cite as

Antoine Limasset. ZOR Filters: Fast and Smaller Than Fuse Filters. In 24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 371, pp. 24:1-24:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{limasset:LIPIcs.SEA.2026.24,
  author =	{Limasset, Antoine},
  title =	{{ZOR Filters: Fast and Smaller Than Fuse Filters}},
  booktitle =	{24th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2026)},
  pages =	{24:1--24:17},
  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.2026.24},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260281},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2026.24},
  annote =	{Keywords: Data structure, Approximate Set Membership, Static filter}
}

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.2026.27

Exploring the Gap Between LCS and LCStr

Authors: Shay Golan, Matan Kraus, Ely Porat, and B. Riva Shalom

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

Abstract

The Longest Common Subsequence (LCS) problem and the Longest Common Substring (LCStr) problem are classical string problems with broad theoretical and practical significance. The former has a quadratic conditional lower bound [FOCS, 2015], while the latter admits a linear-time solution. In this paper, we study a natural variation of these problems, the Longest Common Subsequence-Substring (LCSS) problem. The LCSS problem seeks the longest string that is simultaneously a subsequence of one input string and a substring of the other. This variant bridges LCS and LCStr, raising intriguing algorithmic questions: Does the complexity of computing LCSS interpolate between the linear time of LCStr and the quadratic time of LCS? What about approximability? We also examine a natural extension of LCSS to multiple strings, parameterizing the balance between subsequence and substring requirements. Our results reveal several insights. First, under the SETH conjecture, the inherent complexity of LCSS is quadratic, similar to LCS. In contrast, we provide a linear-time approximation for LCSS. Finally, for the multi-string variant, unlike both problems, we design a quadratic-time algorithm, uncovering deeper structural properties of the problem. By studying the complexity of the LCSS problem, we aim to gain some understanding of what influences whether a variant of the LCS problem behaves more like the standard LCS or like LCStr. Our findings suggest that hybrid constraints can create computational "sweet spots," where problems become more tractable than their pure counterparts. This opens a broader research direction in constraint-mediated algorithm design. Beyond LCSS itself, our work highlights unexpected connections between subsequence and substring constraints, advancing the theoretical understanding of string problems and laying the foundation for new algorithmic techniques and complexity-theoretic insights in the rich space between classical string comparison paradigms.

Cite as

Shay Golan, Matan Kraus, Ely Porat, and B. Riva Shalom. Exploring the Gap Between LCS and LCStr. In 37th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 369, pp. 27:1-27:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{golan_et_al:LIPIcs.CPM.2026.27,
  author =	{Golan, Shay and Kraus, Matan and Porat, Ely and Shalom, B. Riva},
  title =	{{Exploring the Gap Between LCS and LCStr}},
  booktitle =	{37th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2026)},
  pages =	{27:1--27:21},
  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.2026.27},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-259535},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CPM.2026.27},
  annote =	{Keywords: Longest Common Subsequence, Longest Common Substring, Conditional Lower Bound}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.20

Near-Linear and Parameterized Approximations for Maximum Cliques in Disk Graphs

Authors: Jie Gao, Paweł Gawrychowski, Panos Giannopoulos, Wolfgang Mulzer, Satyam Singh, Frank Staals, and Meirav Zehavi

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

Abstract

A disk graph is the intersection graph of (closed) disks in the plane. We consider the classic problem of finding a maximum clique in a disk graph. For general disk graphs, the complexity of this problem is still open, but for unit disk graphs, it is well known to be in P. The currently fastest algorithm runs in time O(n^{7/3+ o(1)}), where n denotes the number of disks [Jared Espenant et al., 2023; J. Mark Keil and Debajyoti Mondal, 2025]. Moreover, for the case of disk graphs with t distinct radii, the problem has also recently been shown to be in XP. More specifically, it is solvable in time O^*(n^{2t}) [J. Mark Keil and Debajyoti Mondal, 2025]. In this paper, we present algorithms with improved running times by allowing for approximate solutions and by using randomization: [(i)] 1) for unit disk graphs, we give an algorithm that, with constant success probability, computes a (1-ε)-approximate maximum clique in expected time Õ(n/ε²); and 2) for disk graphs with t distinct radii, we give a parameterized approximation scheme that, with a constant success probability, computes a (1-ε)-approximate maximum clique in expected time Õ(f(t)⋅ (1/ε)^{O(t)} ⋅ n), for some (exponential) function f(t).

Cite as

Jie Gao, Paweł Gawrychowski, Panos Giannopoulos, Wolfgang Mulzer, Satyam Singh, Frank Staals, and Meirav Zehavi. Near-Linear and Parameterized Approximations for Maximum Cliques in Disk Graphs. In 20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 370, pp. 20:1-20:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{gao_et_al:LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.20,
  author =	{Gao, Jie and Gawrychowski, Pawe{\l} and Giannopoulos, Panos and Mulzer, Wolfgang and Singh, Satyam and Staals, Frank and Zehavi, Meirav},
  title =	{{Near-Linear and Parameterized Approximations for Maximum Cliques in Disk Graphs}},
  booktitle =	{20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026)},
  pages =	{20:1--20:17},
  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.2026.20},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260563},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.20},
  annote =	{Keywords: Maximum Clique, Disk Graphs, Unit Disk Graphs, FPT Approximation}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.18

On Fréchet Traveling Salesmen Problems

Authors: Omrit Filtser, Tzalik Maimon, and Michal Moiseev

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

Abstract

The Fréchet distance is a well-studied distance measure between two curves. In this work, we demonstrate that the merit of Fréchet distance extends beyond evaluating similarity, and introduce a new setting in which it proves useful. Consider a situation where two agents are required to visit a given set of sites, while staying close to each other throughout their traversal. In this paper, we study problems where the goal is to construct two curves whose vertices are from a given set of points, under the constraint that the Fréchet distance between the curves is kept as small as possible. This problem can be viewed as a variant of the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), and thus may be of interest in routing, network planning and more. We present a near-linear algorithm for this problem under the discrete Fréchet distance, and explore several variants of the problem, including minimizing the lengths of the curves and balancing the number of sites assigned to each agent. Lastly, we prove that the problem is NP-hard under the continuous Fréchet Distance.

Cite as

Omrit Filtser, Tzalik Maimon, and Michal Moiseev. On Fréchet Traveling Salesmen Problems. In 20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 370, pp. 18:1-18:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{filtser_et_al:LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.18,
  author =	{Filtser, Omrit and Maimon, Tzalik and Moiseev, Michal},
  title =	{{On Fr\'{e}chet Traveling Salesmen Problems}},
  booktitle =	{20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026)},
  pages =	{18:1--18:17},
  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.2026.18},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260545},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.18},
  annote =	{Keywords: Fr\'{e}chet distance, traveling salesman problem}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.24

Cutwidth Versus BFS-Width with Applications to Graph Reconstruction from Distance Queries

Authors: Chirag Kaudan and Amir Nayyeri

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

Abstract

Eppstein, Goodrich, and Liu [ESA 2025] introduced a new graph parameter, called BFS-width, and gave polylogarithmic bounds on it for bounded bandwidth graphs. Their bounds naturally imply several applications, e.g. in graph reconstruction via shortest path distance queries, graph drawing, and matrix reordering. We study this parameter for a broader class of graphs, namely bounded cutwidth graphs. We prove a sublinear upper bound on the BFS-width of bounded cutwidth graphs and show that our bounds are asymptotically tight. Our upper bound implies the first deterministic algorithm for reconstructing a bounded cutwidth graph with a subquadratic number of shortest path distance queries.

Cite as

Chirag Kaudan and Amir Nayyeri. Cutwidth Versus BFS-Width with Applications to Graph Reconstruction from Distance Queries. In 20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 370, pp. 24:1-24:13, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{kaudan_et_al:LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.24,
  author =	{Kaudan, Chirag and Nayyeri, Amir},
  title =	{{Cutwidth Versus BFS-Width with Applications to Graph Reconstruction from Distance Queries}},
  booktitle =	{20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026)},
  pages =	{24:1--24:13},
  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.2026.24},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260600},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.24},
  annote =	{Keywords: Graph algorithms, graph theory, cutwidth, pathwidth, BFS-width}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.6

How Many Slopes Does Polynomial Area Cost?

Authors: Michael A. Bekos, Eleni Katsanou, Philipp Kindermann, and Maria Eleni Pavlidi

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

Abstract

In this work, we study the interplay between the number of slopes, the number of bends per edge, and the area requirements for planar drawings of bounded-degree graphs. Our motivation stems from the fact that, while numerous algorithms produce planar drawings with few slopes for graphs of relatively small degree in polynomial area, existing approaches for higher-degree graphs often require super-polynomial area. We address this gap in the literature by presenting new constructions that yield polynomial-area drawings with few bends per edge while slightly increasing the required number of slopes, thereby providing the first systematic study of slopes, bends and area trade-offs.

Cite as

Michael A. Bekos, Eleni Katsanou, Philipp Kindermann, and Maria Eleni Pavlidi. How Many Slopes Does Polynomial Area Cost?. In 20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 370, pp. 6:1-6:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{bekos_et_al:LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.6,
  author =	{Bekos, Michael A. and Katsanou, Eleni and Kindermann, Philipp and Pavlidi, Maria Eleni},
  title =	{{How Many Slopes Does Polynomial Area Cost?}},
  booktitle =	{20th Scandinavian Symposium on Algorithm Theory (SWAT 2026)},
  pages =	{6:1--6:18},
  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.2026.6},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-260424},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SWAT.2026.6},
  annote =	{Keywords: k-bend planar drawings, planar slope number, area requirements}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.10

Packing Compact Subgraphs with Applications to Districting

Authors: Ho-Lin Chen, Po-Yu Chou, Prathamesh Dharangutte, Jie Gao, Shang-En Huang, and Fang-Yi Yu

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

Abstract

Packing disjoint subgraphs in a given graph is a fundamental problem with many applications. Motivated by political districting, we focus on connected subgraphs that are compact (e.g., having constant radius from a single center vertex) and that satisfy additional composition requirements, such as a minimum population/weight threshold or balanced weight types (e.g., political affiliations). We aim to maximize coverage by disjoint districts that meet these requirements. In this work, we present new results that substantially improve the previously known bounds on balanced star districts for planar and minor-free graphs [Prathamesh Dharangutte et al., 2025]. In particular, we improve the approximation factor from O(log n) to O(1) for packing balanced star districts using the exact same algorithm, but with a refined analysis. We also extend the results beyond planar graphs to minor-free graphs and an even broader family of graphs of bounded expansion. Additionally, we obtain an O(1) approximation for packing radius-k districts (with a constant k) in planar and apex-minor-free graphs. In order to get a (1+ε) approximation on the max coverage, we show that this can be achieved if we allow a slight relaxation of the balancedness parameters (by a factor that can be made arbitrarily close to 1), for bounded radius-k districts on planar and apex-minor-free graphs. We show that all of these results can also be obtained if we enforce a minimum weight threshold for each district as the composition requirement, rather than balancedness. We present various results on hardness and hardness of approximation for this variant, by graph and district types.

Cite as

Ho-Lin Chen, Po-Yu Chou, Prathamesh Dharangutte, Jie Gao, Shang-En Huang, and Fang-Yi Yu. Packing Compact Subgraphs with Applications to Districting. In 7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 368, pp. 10:1-10:25, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{chen_et_al:LIPIcs.FORC.2026.10,
  author =	{Chen, Ho-Lin and Chou, Po-Yu and Dharangutte, Prathamesh and Gao, Jie and Huang, Shang-En and Yu, Fang-Yi},
  title =	{{Packing Compact Subgraphs with Applications to Districting}},
  booktitle =	{7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026)},
  pages =	{10:1--10:25},
  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.2026.10},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-259820},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.10},
  annote =	{Keywords: Approximation algorithms, algorithmic fairness}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.24

Single-Criteria Metric r-Dominating Set Problem via Minor-Preserving Support

Authors: Reilly Browne and Hsien-Chih Chang

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

Abstract

Given an unweighted graph G, the minimum r-dominating set problem asks for a subset of vertices S of the smallest cardinality, such that every vertex in G is within radius r to some vertex in S. While the r-dominating set problem on planar graph admits PTAS from Baker’s shifting/layering technique when r is a constant, the problem becomes significantly harder when r can depend on n. In fact, under Exponential-Time Hypothesis, Fox-Epstein ηl [SODA 2019] observed that no efficient PTAS can exist for the unbounded r-dominating set problem on planar graphs. One may consider even harder weighted-variant known as the vertex-weighted metric r-dominating set, where edges are associated with lengths, and every vertex is associated with a positive-valued weight, and the goal is to compute an r-dominating set with minimum total weight. As a result, people resorted to bicriteria algorithms by allowing the returned solution to use radius-(1+ε)r balls instead, in addition to the total weight being a 1+ε approximation to the optimal value. We establish the first single-criteria polynomial-time O(1)-approximation algorithm for the vertex-weighted metric r-dominating set problem on planar graphs when r is part of the input, and can be arbitrarily large compared to n. Our new (single-criteria) O(1)-approximation algorithm uses the quasi-uniformity sampling technique of Chan et al. [SODA 2012] by bounding the shallow cell complexity of the (unbounded) radius-r ball system to be linear in n. To this end we have two technical innovations: 1) The discrete ball system on planar graphs are neither pseudodisks nor have well-defined boundaries for standard union-complexity arguments. We construct a support graph for arbitrary distance ball systems as contractions of Voronoi cells; the sparseness comes as a byproduct. 2) We present an assignment of each depth-(≥3) cell to a unique 3-tuple of ball centers. This allows us to use standard Clarkson-Shor techniques to reduce the counting to cells of depth exactly 3, which we prove to be size O(n) by a novel geometric argument based on our support being a Voronoi contraction.

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Reilly Browne and Hsien-Chih Chang. Single-Criteria Metric r-Dominating Set Problem via Minor-Preserving Support. In 42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 367, pp. 24:1-24:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{browne_et_al:LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.24,
  author =	{Browne, Reilly and Chang, Hsien-Chih},
  title =	{{Single-Criteria Metric r-Dominating Set Problem via Minor-Preserving Support}},
  booktitle =	{42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026)},
  pages =	{24:1--24:17},
  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.2026.24},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-258300},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.24},
  annote =	{Keywords: Minimum dominating set, planar graphs, shallow cell complexity}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.27

The Squishy Grid Problem

Authors: Zixi Cai, Kuowen Chen, Shengquan Du, Arnold Filtser, Seth Pettie, and Daniel Skora

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

Abstract

In this paper we consider the problem of approximating Euclidean distances by the infinite integer grid graph. Although the topology of the graph is fixed, we have control over the edge-weight assignment w : E → ℝ_{≥ 0}, and hope to have grid distances be asymptotically isometric to Euclidean distances, that is: For all grid points u,v, dist_w(u,v) = (1± o(1))‖u-v‖₂. We give three methods for solving this problem, each attractive in its own way. - Our first construction is based on an embedding of the recursive, non-periodic pinwheel tiling of Radin and Conway [Charles Radin, 1994; Radin and Sadun, 1996; John H. Conway and Charles Radin, 1998] into the integer grid. Distances in the pinwheel graph are asymptotically isometric to Euclidean distances, but no explicit bound on the rate of convergence was known. We prove that the multiplicative distortion of the pinwheel graph is (1 + 1/Θ(log^ξ log D)), where D is the Euclidean distance and ξ = Θ(1). The pinwheel tiling approach is conceptually simple, but can be improved quantitatively. - Our second construction is based on a hierarchical arrangement of highways. It is simple, achieving stretch (1 + 1/Θ(D^{1/9})), which converges doubly exponentially faster than the pinwheel tiling approach. - The first two methods are deterministic, with rigorous guarantees. An even simpler approach is to sample the edge weights independently and randomly from a common distribution D. Whether there exists a distribution D^* that makes grid distances Euclidean, asymptotically and in expectation, is major open problem in the theory of first passage percolation. Previous experiments show that when D is a Fisher distribution (which is continuous), grid distances are within 1% of Euclidean distances. We demonstrate experimentally that this level of accuracy can be achieved by a simple 2-point distribution that assigns weights 0.41 or 4.75 with probability 44% and 56%, respectively.

Cite as

Zixi Cai, Kuowen Chen, Shengquan Du, Arnold Filtser, Seth Pettie, and Daniel Skora. The Squishy Grid Problem. In 42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 367, pp. 27:1-27:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{cai_et_al:LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.27,
  author =	{Cai, Zixi and Chen, Kuowen and Du, Shengquan and Filtser, Arnold and Pettie, Seth and Skora, Daniel},
  title =	{{The Squishy Grid Problem}},
  booktitle =	{42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026)},
  pages =	{27:1--27:16},
  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.2026.27},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-258333},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.27},
  annote =	{Keywords: grid graph, Euclidean distance, metric embedding, first passage percolation}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.28

Triangulating a Polygon with Holes in Optimal (Deterministic) Time

Authors: Timothy M. Chan

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

Abstract

We consider the problem of triangulating a polygon with n vertices and h holes, or relatedly the problem of computing the trapezoidal decomposition of a collection of h disjoint simple polygonal chains with n vertices total. Clarkson, Cole, and Tarjan (1992) and Seidel (1991) gave randomized algorithms running in O(nlog^*n + hlog h) time, while Bar-Yehuda and Chazelle (1994) described deterministic algorithms running in O(n+hlog^{1+ε}h) or O((n+hlog h)log log h) time, for an arbitrarily small positive constant ε. No improvements have been reported since. We describe a new O(n+hlog h)-time algorithm, which is optimal and deterministic. More generally, when the given polygonal chains are not necessarily simple and may intersect each other, we show how to compute their trapezoidal decomposition (and in particular, compute all intersections) in optimal O(n+hlog h) deterministic time when the number of intersections is at most n^{1-ε}. To obtain these results, Chazelle’s linear-time algorithm for triangulating a simple polygon is used as a black box.

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Timothy M. Chan. Triangulating a Polygon with Holes in Optimal (Deterministic) Time. In 42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 367, pp. 28:1-28:13, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{chan:LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.28,
  author =	{Chan, Timothy M.},
  title =	{{Triangulating a Polygon with Holes in Optimal (Deterministic) Time}},
  booktitle =	{42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026)},
  pages =	{28:1--28:13},
  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.2026.28},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-258348},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.28},
  annote =	{Keywords: Polygons, triangulation, intersection, derandomization}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.55

Linear Time Single-Source Shortest Path Algorithms in Euclidean Graph Classes

Authors: Joachim Gudmundsson, Yuan Sha, and Sampson Wong

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

Abstract

In the celebrated paper of Henzinger, Klein, Rao and Subramanian (1997), it was shown that planar graphs admit a linear time single-source shortest path algorithm. Their algorithm unfortunately does not extend to Euclidean graph classes. We give criteria and prove that any Euclidean graph class satisfying the criteria admits a linear time single-source shortest path algorithm. As a main ingredient, we show that the contracted graphs of these Euclidean graph classes admit sublinear separators.

Cite as

Joachim Gudmundsson, Yuan Sha, and Sampson Wong. Linear Time Single-Source Shortest Path Algorithms in Euclidean Graph Classes. In 42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 367, pp. 55:1-55:14, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{gudmundsson_et_al:LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.55,
  author =	{Gudmundsson, Joachim and Sha, Yuan and Wong, Sampson},
  title =	{{Linear Time Single-Source Shortest Path Algorithms in Euclidean Graph Classes}},
  booktitle =	{42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026)},
  pages =	{55:1--55:14},
  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.2026.55},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-258618},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.55},
  annote =	{Keywords: Graph algorithms, Single-Source Shortest Path, Euclidean Graphs, Recursive Division}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.80

Hardness of High-Dimensional Linear Classification

Authors: Alexander Munteanu, Simon Omlor, and Jeff M. Phillips

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

Abstract

We establish new exponential in dimension lower bounds for the Maximum Halfspace Discrepancy problem, which models linear classification. Both are fundamental problems in computational geometry and machine learning in their exact and approximate forms. However, only O(n^d) and respectively Õ(1/ε^d) upper bounds are known and complemented by polynomial lower bounds that do not support the exponential in dimension dependence. We close this gap up to polylogarithmic terms by reduction from widely-believed hardness conjectures for Affine Degeneracy testing and k-Sum problems. Our reductions yield matching lower bounds of Ω̃(n^d) and respectively Ω̃(1/ε^d) based on Affine Degeneracy testing, and Ω̃(n^{d/2}) and respectively Ω̃(1/ε^{d/2}) conditioned on k-Sum. The first bound also holds unconditionally if the computational model is restricted to make sidedness queries, which corresponds to a widely spread setting implemented and optimized in many contemporary algorithms and computing paradigms.

Cite as

Alexander Munteanu, Simon Omlor, and Jeff M. Phillips. Hardness of High-Dimensional Linear Classification. In 42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 367, pp. 80:1-80:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{munteanu_et_al:LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.80,
  author =	{Munteanu, Alexander and Omlor, Simon and Phillips, Jeff M.},
  title =	{{Hardness of High-Dimensional Linear Classification}},
  booktitle =	{42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026)},
  pages =	{80:1--80:16},
  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.2026.80},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-258871},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.80},
  annote =	{Keywords: Conditional Hardness, k-Sum, Affine Degeneracy, Halfspace Discrepancy, Classification}
}

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