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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.45

Fairness in the k-Server Problem

Authors: Mohammadreza Daneshvaramoli, Mohammad Hajiesmaili, Shahin Kamali, Helia Karisani, and Cameron Musco

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 362, 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)

Abstract

We initiate a formal study of fairness for the k-server problem, where the objective is not only to minimize the total movement cost, but also to distribute the cost equitably among servers. We first define a general notion of (α,β)-fairness, where, for parameters α ≥ 1 and β ≥ 0, no server incurs more than an α/k-fraction of the total cost plus an additive term β. We then show that fairness can be achieved without a loss in competitiveness in both the offline and online settings. In the offline setting, we give a deterministic algorithm that, for any ε > 0, transforms any optimal solution into an (α,β)-fair solution for α = 1 + ε and β = O(diam ⋅ log k / ε), while increasing the cost of the solution by just an additive O(diam ⋅ k log k / ε) term. Here diam is the diameter of the underlying metric space. We give a similar result in the online setting, showing that any competitive algorithm can be transformed into a randomized online algorithm that is fair with high probability against an oblivious adversary and still competitive up to a small loss. The above results leave open a significant question: can fairness be achieved in the online setting, either with a deterministic algorithm or a randomized algorithm, against a fully adaptive adversary? We make progress towards answering this question, showing that the classic deterministic Double Coverage Algorithm (DCA) is fair on line metrics and on tree metrics when k = 2. However, we also show a negative result: DCA fails to be fair for any non-vacuous parameters on general tree metrics. We further show that on uniform metrics (i.e., the paging problem), the deterministic First-In First-Out (FIFO) algorithm is fair. We show that any "marking algorithm", including the Least Recently Used (LRU) algorithm, also satisfies a weaker, but still meaningful notion of fairness.

Cite as

Mohammadreza Daneshvaramoli, Mohammad Hajiesmaili, Shahin Kamali, Helia Karisani, and Cameron Musco. Fairness in the k-Server Problem. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 45:1-45:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{daneshvaramoli_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.45,
  author =	{Daneshvaramoli, Mohammadreza and Hajiesmaili, Mohammad and Kamali, Shahin and Karisani, Helia and Musco, Cameron},
  title =	{{Fairness in the k-Server Problem}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{45:1--45:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.45},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253328},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.45},
  annote =	{Keywords: k-server problem, online algorithms, fairness, competitive analysis}
}

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Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.48

Improved Streaming Edge Coloring

Authors: Shiri Chechik, Hongyi Chen, and Tianyi Zhang

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 334, 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)

Abstract

Given a graph, an edge coloring assigns colors to edges so that no pairs of adjacent edges share the same color. We are interested in edge coloring algorithms under the W-streaming model. In this model, the algorithm does not have enough memory to hold the entire graph, so the edges of the input graph are read from a data stream one by one in an unknown order, and the algorithm needs to print a valid edge coloring in an output stream. The performance of the algorithm is measured by the amount of space and the number of different colors it uses. This streaming edge coloring problem has been studied by several works in recent years. When the input graph contains n vertices and has maximum vertex degree Δ, it is known that in the W-streaming model, an O(Δ²)-edge coloring can be computed deterministically with Õ(n) space [Ansari, Saneian, and Zarrabi-Zadeh, 2022], or an O(Δ^{1.5})-edge coloring can be computed by a Õ(n)-space randomized algorithm [Behnezhad, Saneian, 2024] [Chechik, Mukhtar, Zhang, 2024]. In this paper, we achieve polynomial improvement over previous results. Specifically, we show how to improve the number of colors to Õ(Δ^{4/3+ε}) using space Õ(n) deterministically, for any constant ε > 0. This is the first deterministic result that bypasses the quadratic bound on the number of colors while using near-linear space.

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Shiri Chechik, Hongyi Chen, and Tianyi Zhang. Improved Streaming Edge Coloring. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 334, pp. 48:1-48:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{chechik_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.48,
  author =	{Chechik, Shiri and Chen, Hongyi and Zhang, Tianyi},
  title =	{{Improved Streaming Edge Coloring}},
  booktitle =	{52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)},
  pages =	{48:1--48:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-372-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{334},
  editor =	{Censor-Hillel, Keren and Grandoni, Fabrizio and Ouaknine, Jo\"{e}l and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.48},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-234257},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.48},
  annote =	{Keywords: edge coloring, streaming}
}

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Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.64

Fully Scalable MPC Algorithms for Euclidean k-Center

Authors: Artur Czumaj, Guichen Gao, Mohsen Ghaffari, and Shaofeng H.-C. Jiang

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 334, 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)

Abstract

The k-center problem is a fundamental optimization problem with numerous applications in machine learning, data analysis, data mining, and communication networks. The k-center problem has been extensively studied in the classical sequential setting for several decades, and more recently there have been some efforts in understanding the problem in parallel computing, on the Massively Parallel Computation (MPC) model. For now, we have a good understanding of k-center in the case where each local MPC machine has sufficient local memory to store some representatives from each cluster, that is, when one has Ω(k) local memory per machine. While this setting covers the case of small values of k, for a large number of clusters these algorithms require undesirably large local memory, making them poorly scalable. The case of large k has been considered only recently for the fully scalable low-local-memory MPC model for the Euclidean instances of the k-center problem. However, the earlier works have been considering only the constant dimensional Euclidean space, required a super-constant number of rounds, and produced only k(1+o(1)) centers whose cost is a super-constant approximation of k-center. In this work, we significantly improve upon the earlier results for the k-center problem for the fully scalable low-local-memory MPC model. In the low dimensional Euclidean case in ℝ^d, we present the first constant-round fully scalable MPC algorithm for (2+ε)-approximation. We push the ratio further to (1 + ε)-approximation albeit using slightly more (1 + ε)k centers. All these results naturally extends to slightly super-constant values of d. In the high-dimensional regime, we provide the first fully scalable MPC algorithm that in a constant number of rounds achieves an O(log n/ log log n)-approximation for k-center.

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Artur Czumaj, Guichen Gao, Mohsen Ghaffari, and Shaofeng H.-C. Jiang. Fully Scalable MPC Algorithms for Euclidean k-Center. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 334, pp. 64:1-64:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{czumaj_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.64,
  author =	{Czumaj, Artur and Gao, Guichen and Ghaffari, Mohsen and Jiang, Shaofeng H.-C.},
  title =	{{Fully Scalable MPC Algorithms for Euclidean k-Center}},
  booktitle =	{52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)},
  pages =	{64:1--64:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-372-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{334},
  editor =	{Censor-Hillel, Keren and Grandoni, Fabrizio and Ouaknine, Jo\"{e}l and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.64},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-234416},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.64},
  annote =	{Keywords: Massively Parallel Computing, Euclidean Spaces, k-Center Clustering}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.83

Adaptive Massively Parallel Constant-Round Tree Contraction

Authors: MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi, Marina Knittel, Hamed Saleh, and Hsin-Hao Su

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 215, 13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022)

Abstract

Miller and Reif’s FOCS'85 [Gary L. Miller and John H. Reif, 1989] classic and fundamental tree contraction algorithm is a broadly applicable technique for the parallel solution of a large number of tree problems. Additionally it is also used as an algorithmic design technique for a large number of parallel graph algorithms. In all previously explored models of computation, however, tree contractions have only been achieved in Ω(log n) rounds of parallel run time. In this work, we not only introduce a generalized tree contraction method but also show it can be computed highly efficiently in O(1/ε³) rounds in the Adaptive Massively Parallel Computing (AMPC) setting, where each machine has O(n^ε) local memory for some 0 < ε < 1. AMPC is a practical extension of Massively Parallel Computing (MPC) which utilizes distributed hash tables [MohammadHossein Bateni et al., 2017; Behnezhad et al., 2019; Raimondas Kiveris et al., 2014]. In general, MPC is an abstract model for MapReduce, Hadoop, Spark, and Flume which are currently widely used across industry and has been studied extensively in the theory community in recent years. Last but not least, we show that our results extend to multiple problems on trees, including but not limited to maximum and maximal matching, maximum and maximal independent set, tree isomorphism testing, and more.

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MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi, Marina Knittel, Hamed Saleh, and Hsin-Hao Su. Adaptive Massively Parallel Constant-Round Tree Contraction. In 13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 215, pp. 83:1-83:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)

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@InProceedings{hajiaghayi_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.83,
  author =	{Hajiaghayi, MohammadTaghi and Knittel, Marina and Saleh, Hamed and Su, Hsin-Hao},
  title =	{{Adaptive Massively Parallel Constant-Round Tree Contraction}},
  booktitle =	{13th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2022)},
  pages =	{83:1--83:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-217-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{215},
  editor =	{Braverman, Mark},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.83},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-156790},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2022.83},
  annote =	{Keywords: Adaptive Massively Parallel Computation, Tree Contraction, Matching, Independent Set, Tree Isomorphism}
}

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Brief Announcement

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2019.36

Brief Announcement: Streaming and Massively Parallel Algorithms for Edge Coloring

Authors: Soheil Behnezhad, Mahsa Derakhshan, MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi, Marina Knittel, and Hamed Saleh

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 146, 33rd International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2019)

Abstract

A valid edge-coloring of a graph is an assignment of "colors" to its edges such that no two incident edges receive the same color. The goal is to find a proper coloring that uses few colors. In this paper, we revisit this problem in two models of computation specific to massive graphs, the Massively Parallel Computations (MPC) model and the Graph Streaming model: Massively Parallel Computation. We give a randomized MPC algorithm that w.h.p., returns a (1+o(1))Delta edge coloring in O(1) rounds using O~(n) space per machine and O(m) total space. The space per machine can also be further improved to n^{1-Omega(1)} if Delta = n^{Omega(1)}. This is, to our knowledge, the first constant round algorithm for a natural graph problem in the strongly sublinear regime of MPC. Our algorithm improves a previous result of Harvey et al. [SPAA 2018] which required n^{1+Omega(1)} space to achieve the same result. Graph Streaming. Since the output of edge-coloring is as large as its input, we consider a standard variant of the streaming model where the output is also reported in a streaming fashion. The main challenge is that the algorithm cannot "remember" all the reported edge colors, yet has to output a proper edge coloring using few colors. We give a one-pass O~(n)-space streaming algorithm that always returns a valid coloring and uses 5.44 Delta colors w.h.p., if the edges arrive in a random order. For adversarial order streams, we give another one-pass O~(n)-space algorithm that requires O(Delta^2) colors.

Cite as

Soheil Behnezhad, Mahsa Derakhshan, MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi, Marina Knittel, and Hamed Saleh. Brief Announcement: Streaming and Massively Parallel Algorithms for Edge Coloring. In 33rd International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2019). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 146, pp. 36:1-36:3, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2019)

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@InProceedings{behnezhad_et_al:LIPIcs.DISC.2019.36,
  author =	{Behnezhad, Soheil and Derakhshan, Mahsa and Hajiaghayi, MohammadTaghi and Knittel, Marina and Saleh, Hamed},
  title =	{{Brief Announcement: Streaming and Massively Parallel Algorithms for Edge Coloring}},
  booktitle =	{33rd International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2019)},
  pages =	{36:1--36:3},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-126-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2019},
  volume =	{146},
  editor =	{Suomela, Jukka},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2019.36},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-113438},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2019.36},
  annote =	{Keywords: Massively Parallel Computation, Streaming, Edge Coloring}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2019.15

Streaming and Massively Parallel Algorithms for Edge Coloring

Authors: Soheil Behnezhad, Mahsa Derakhshan, MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi, Marina Knittel, and Hamed Saleh

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 144, 27th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2019)

Abstract

A valid edge-coloring of a graph is an assignment of "colors" to its edges such that no two incident edges receive the same color. The goal is to find a proper coloring that uses few colors. (Note that the maximum degree, Delta, is a trivial lower bound.) In this paper, we revisit this fundamental problem in two models of computation specific to massive graphs, the Massively Parallel Computations (MPC) model and the Graph Streaming model: - Massively Parallel Computation: We give a randomized MPC algorithm that with high probability returns a Delta+O~(Delta^(3/4)) edge coloring in O(1) rounds using O(n) space per machine and O(m) total space. The space per machine can also be further improved to n^(1-Omega(1)) if Delta = n^Omega(1). Our algorithm improves upon a previous result of Harvey et al. [SPAA 2018]. - Graph Streaming: Since the output of edge-coloring is as large as its input, we consider a standard variant of the streaming model where the output is also reported in a streaming fashion. The main challenge is that the algorithm cannot "remember" all the reported edge colors, yet has to output a proper edge coloring using few colors. We give a one-pass O~(n)-space streaming algorithm that always returns a valid coloring and uses 5.44 Delta colors with high probability if the edges arrive in a random order. For adversarial order streams, we give another one-pass O~(n)-space algorithm that requires O(Delta^2) colors.

Cite as

Soheil Behnezhad, Mahsa Derakhshan, MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi, Marina Knittel, and Hamed Saleh. Streaming and Massively Parallel Algorithms for Edge Coloring. In 27th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2019). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 144, pp. 15:1-15:14, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2019)

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@InProceedings{behnezhad_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2019.15,
  author =	{Behnezhad, Soheil and Derakhshan, Mahsa and Hajiaghayi, MohammadTaghi and Knittel, Marina and Saleh, Hamed},
  title =	{{Streaming and Massively Parallel Algorithms for Edge Coloring}},
  booktitle =	{27th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2019)},
  pages =	{15:1--15:14},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-124-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2019},
  volume =	{144},
  editor =	{Bender, Michael A. and Svensson, Ola 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.2019.15},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-111361},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2019.15},
  annote =	{Keywords: Massively Parallel Computation, Streaming, Edge Coloring}
}

6 Search Results for "Knittel, Marina"

Fairness in the k-Server Problem

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Improved Streaming Edge Coloring

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Fully Scalable MPC Algorithms for Euclidean k-Center

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Adaptive Massively Parallel Constant-Round Tree Contraction

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Brief Announcement: Streaming and Massively Parallel Algorithms for Edge Coloring

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Streaming and Massively Parallel Algorithms for Edge Coloring

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