18 Search Results for "Young, Neal E."


Document
Approximating q → p Norms of Non-Negative Matrices in Nearly-Linear Time

Authors: Etienne Objois and Adrian Vladu

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 364, 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)


Abstract
We provide the first nearly-linear time algorithm for approximating 𝓁_{q → p}-norms of non-negative matrices, for q ≥ p ≥ 1. Our algorithm returns a (1-ε)-approximation to the matrix norm in time Õ(1/(q ε) ⋅ nnz(A)), where A is the input matrix, and improves upon the previous state of the art, which either proved convergence only in the limit [Boyd '74], or had very high polynomial running times [Bhaskara-Vijayraghavan, SODA '11]. Our algorithm is extremely simple, and is largely inspired from the coordinate-scaling approach used for positive linear program solvers. Our algorithm can readily be used in the [Englert-Räcke, FOCS '09] to improve the running time of constructing O(log n)-competitive 𝓁_p-oblivious routings.

Cite as

Etienne Objois and Adrian Vladu. Approximating q → p Norms of Non-Negative Matrices in Nearly-Linear Time. In 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 364, pp. 69:1-69:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{objois_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2026.69,
  author =	{Objois, Etienne and Vladu, Adrian},
  title =	{{Approximating q → p Norms of Non-Negative Matrices in Nearly-Linear Time}},
  booktitle =	{43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)},
  pages =	{69:1--69:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-412-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{364},
  editor =	{Mahajan, Meena and Manea, Florin and McIver, Annabelle and Thắng, Nguy\~{ê}n Kim},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.69},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-255585},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.69},
  annote =	{Keywords: matrix norm, Perron-Frobenius theory, oblivious routings, input-sparsity time, lp norm}
}
Document
Maximum Reachability Orientation of Mixed Graphs

Authors: Florian Hörsch

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 364, 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)


Abstract
We aim to find orientations of mixed graphs optimizing the total reachability, a problem that has applications in causality and biology. For given a digraph D, we use P(D) for the set of ordered pairs of distinct vertices in V(D) and we define κ_D:P(D) → {0,1} by κ_D(u,v) = 1 if v is reachable from u in D, and κ_D(u,v) = 0, otherwise. We use R(D) = ∑_{(u,v) ∈ P(D)}κ_D(u,v). Now, given a mixed graph G, we aim to find an orientation x⃑{G} of G that maximizes R(x⃑{G}). Hakimi, Schmeichel, and Young proved that the problem can be solved in polynomial time when restricted to undirected inputs. They inquired about the complexity in mixed graphs. We answer this question by showing that this problem is NP-hard, and, moreover, APX-hard. We then develop a finer understanding of how quickly the problem becomes difficult when going from undirected to mixed graphs. To this end, we consider the parameterized complexity of the problem with respect to the number k of preoriented arcs of G, a poorly studied form of parameterization. We show that the problem can be solved in time n^{O(k)} and that a (1-ε)-approximation can be computed in time f(k,ε)n^{O(1)} for any ε > 0.

Cite as

Florian Hörsch. Maximum Reachability Orientation of Mixed Graphs. In 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 364, pp. 53:1-53:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{horsch:LIPIcs.STACS.2026.53,
  author =	{H\"{o}rsch, Florian},
  title =	{{Maximum Reachability Orientation of Mixed Graphs}},
  booktitle =	{43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)},
  pages =	{53:1--53:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-412-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{364},
  editor =	{Mahajan, Meena and Manea, Florin and McIver, Annabelle and Thắng, Nguy\~{ê}n Kim},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.53},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-255421},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.53},
  annote =	{Keywords: orientations, mixed graphs, reachability, parameterized complexity, approximation}
}
Document
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}
}
Document
Dimension-Free Correlated Sampling for the Hypersimplex

Authors: Joseph (Seffi) Naor, Nitya Raju, Abhishek Shetty, Aravind Srinivasan, Renata Valieva, and David Wajc

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


Abstract
Sampling from multiple distributions so as to maximize overlap has been studied by statisticians since the 1950s. Since the 2000s, such correlated sampling from the probability simplex has been a powerful building block in disparate areas of theoretical computer science. We study a generalization of this problem to sampling sets from given vectors in the hypersimplex, i.e., outputting sets of size (at most) k ∈ [n], while maximizing the overlap of the sampled sets. Specifically, the expected difference between two output sets should be at most α times their input vectors' 𝓁₁ distance. A value of α = O(log n) is known to be achievable, due to Chen et al. (ICALP'17). We improve this factor to O(log k), independent of the ambient dimension n. Our algorithm satisfies other desirable properties, including (up to a log^* n factor) input-sparsity sampling time, logarithmic parallel depth and dynamic update time, as well as preservation of submodular objectives. Anticipating broader use of correlated sampling algorithms for the hypersimplex, we present applications of our algorithm to online paging, offline approximation of metric multi-labeling, and swift multi-scenario submodular welfare approximating reallocation.

Cite as

Joseph (Seffi) Naor, Nitya Raju, Abhishek Shetty, Aravind Srinivasan, Renata Valieva, and David Wajc. Dimension-Free Correlated Sampling for the Hypersimplex. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 104:1-104:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{naor_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.104,
  author =	{Naor, Joseph (Seffi) and Raju, Nitya and Shetty, Abhishek and Srinivasan, Aravind and Valieva, Renata and Wajc, David},
  title =	{{Dimension-Free Correlated Sampling for the Hypersimplex}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{104:1--104:20},
  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.2026.104},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253918},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.104},
  annote =	{Keywords: Correlated Rounding, Dependent Rounding}
}
Document
Conversational Agents: A Framework for Evaluation (CAFE) (Dagstuhl Perspectives Workshop 24352)

Authors: Christine Bauer, Li Chen, Nicola Ferro, Norbert Fuhr, Avishek Anand, Timo Breuer, Guglielmo Faggioli, Ophir Frieder, Hideo Joho, Jussi Karlgren, Johannes Kiesel, Bart P. Knijnenburg, Aldo Lipani, Lien Michiels, Andrea Papenmeier, Maria Soledad Pera, Mark Sanderson, Scott Sanner, Benno Stein, Johanne R. Trippas, Karin Verspoor, and Martijn C. Willemsen

Published in: Dagstuhl Manifestos, Volume 11, Issue 1 (2025)


Abstract
During the workshop, we deeply discussed what CONversational Information ACcess (CONIAC) is and its unique features, proposing a world model abstracting it, and defined the Conversational Agents Framework for Evaluation (CAFE) for the evaluation of CONIAC systems, consisting of six major components: 1) goals of the system’s stakeholders, 2) user tasks to be studied in the evaluation, 3) aspects of the users carrying out the tasks, 4) evaluation criteria to be considered, 5) evaluation methodology to be applied, and 6) measures for the quantitative criteria chosen.

Cite as

Christine Bauer, Li Chen, Nicola Ferro, Norbert Fuhr, Avishek Anand, Timo Breuer, Guglielmo Faggioli, Ophir Frieder, Hideo Joho, Jussi Karlgren, Johannes Kiesel, Bart P. Knijnenburg, Aldo Lipani, Lien Michiels, Andrea Papenmeier, Maria Soledad Pera, Mark Sanderson, Scott Sanner, Benno Stein, Johanne R. Trippas, Karin Verspoor, and Martijn C. Willemsen. Conversational Agents: A Framework for Evaluation (CAFE) (Dagstuhl Perspectives Workshop 24352). In Dagstuhl Manifestos, Volume 11, Issue 1, pp. 19-67, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@Article{bauer_et_al:DagMan.11.1.19,
  author =	{Bauer, Christine and Chen, Li and Ferro, Nicola and Fuhr, Norbert and Anand, Avishek and Breuer, Timo and Faggioli, Guglielmo and Frieder, Ophir and Joho, Hideo and Karlgren, Jussi and Kiesel, Johannes and Knijnenburg, Bart P. and Lipani, Aldo and Michiels, Lien and Papenmeier, Andrea and Pera, Maria Soledad and Sanderson, Mark and Sanner, Scott and Stein, Benno and Trippas, Johanne R. and Verspoor, Karin and Willemsen, Martijn C.},
  title =	{{Conversational Agents: A Framework for Evaluation (CAFE) (Dagstuhl Perspectives Workshop 24352)}},
  pages =	{19--67},
  journal =	{Dagstuhl Manifestos},
  ISSN =	{2193-2433},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{11},
  number =	{1},
  editor =	{Bauer, Christine and Chen, Li and Ferro, Nicola and Fuhr, Norbert and Anand, Avishek and Breuer, Timo and Faggioli, Guglielmo and Frieder, Ophir and Joho, Hideo and Karlgren, Jussi and Kiesel, Johannes and Knijnenburg, Bart P. and Lipani, Aldo and Michiels, Lien and Papenmeier, Andrea and Pera, Maria Soledad and Sanderson, Mark and Sanner, Scott and Stein, Benno and Trippas, Johanne R. and Verspoor, Karin and Willemsen, Martijn C.},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/DagMan.11.1.19},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-252722},
  doi =		{10.4230/DagMan.11.1.19},
  annote =	{Keywords: Conversational Agents, Evaluation, Information Access}
}
Document
Traffic-Oblivious Multi-Commodity Flow Network Design

Authors: Markus Chimani and Max Ilsen

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 359, 36th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2025)


Abstract
We consider the Minimum Multi-Commodity Flow Subgraph (MMCFS) problem: given a directed graph G with edge capacities cap and a retention ratio α ∈ (0,1), find an edge-wise minimum subgraph G' ⊆ G such that for all traffic matrices T routable in G using a multi-commodity flow, α⋅ T is routable in G'. This natural yet novel problem is motivated by recent research that investigates how the power consumption in backbone computer networks can be reduced by turning off connections during times of low demand without compromising the quality of service. Since the actual traffic demands are generally not known beforehand, our approach must be traffic-oblivious, i.e., work for all possible sets of simultaneously routable traffic demands in the original network. In this paper we present the problem, relate it to other known problems in literature, and show several structural results, including a reformulation, maximum possible deviations from the optimum, and NP-hardness (as well as a certain inapproximability) already on very restricted instances. The most significant contribution is a max(1/α, 2)-approximation based on a surprisingly simple LP-rounding scheme. We also give instances where this worst-case approximation ratio is met and thus prove that our analysis is tight.

Cite as

Markus Chimani and Max Ilsen. Traffic-Oblivious Multi-Commodity Flow Network Design. In 36th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 359, pp. 19:1-19:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{chimani_et_al:LIPIcs.ISAAC.2025.19,
  author =	{Chimani, Markus and Ilsen, Max},
  title =	{{Traffic-Oblivious Multi-Commodity Flow Network Design}},
  booktitle =	{36th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2025)},
  pages =	{19:1--19:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-408-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{359},
  editor =	{Chen, Ho-Lin and Hon, Wing-Kai and Tsai, Meng-Tsung},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2025.19},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-249273},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2025.19},
  annote =	{Keywords: Multi-commodity flow, Digraphs, LP-rounding, Approximation algorithm}
}
Document
Incremental Maximization for a Broad Class of Objectives

Authors: Yann Disser and David Weckbecker

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 351, 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)


Abstract
We consider incremental maximization problems, where the solution has to be built up gradually by adding elements one after the other. In every step, the incremental solution must be competitive, compared against the optimum solution of the current cardinality. We prove that a competitive solution always exists when the objective function is monotone and β-accountable, by providing a scaling algorithm that guarantees a constant competitive ratio. This generalizes known results and, importantly, yields the first competitive algorithm for the natural class of monotone and subadditive objective functions.

Cite as

Yann Disser and David Weckbecker. Incremental Maximization for a Broad Class of Objectives. In 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 351, pp. 92:1-92:13, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{disser_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2025.92,
  author =	{Disser, Yann and Weckbecker, David},
  title =	{{Incremental Maximization for a Broad Class of Objectives}},
  booktitle =	{33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)},
  pages =	{92:1--92:13},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-395-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{351},
  editor =	{Benoit, Anne and Kaplan, Haim and Wild, Sebastian 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.2025.92},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-245613},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.92},
  annote =	{Keywords: incremental maximization, competitive analysis, subadditive functions}
}
Document
APPROX
Covering a Few Submodular Constraints and Applications

Authors: Tanvi Bajpai, Chandra Chekuri, and Pooja Kulkarni

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


Abstract
We consider the problem of covering multiple submodular constraints. Given a finite ground set N, a cost function c: N → ℝ_+, r monotone submodular functions f_1,f_2,…,f_r over N and requirements b_1,b_2,…,b_r the goal is to find a minimum cost subset S ⊆ N such that f_i(S) ≥ b_i for 1 ≤ i ≤ r. When r = 1 this is the well-known Submodular Set Cover problem. Previous work [Chekuri et al., 2022] considered the setting when r is large and developed bi-criteria approximation algorithms, and approximation algorithms for the important special case when each f_i is a weighted coverage function. These are fairly general models and capture several concrete and interesting problems as special cases. The approximation ratios for these problem are at least Ω(log r) which is unavoidable when r is part of the input. In this paper, motivated by some recent applications, we consider the problem when r is a fixed constant and obtain two main results. When the f_i are weighted coverage functions from a deletion-closed set system we obtain a (1+ε)(e/(e-1))(1+β)-approximation where β is the approximation ratio for the underlying set cover instances via the natural LP. Second, for covering multiple submodular constraints we obtain a randomized bi-criteria approximation algorithm that for any given integer α ≥ 1 outputs a set S such that f_i(S) ≥ (1-1/e^α-ε)b_i for each i ∈ [r] and 𝔼[c(S)] ≤ (1+ε)α ⋅ OPT. These results show that one can obtain nearly as good an approximation for any fixed r as what one would achieve for r = 1. We also demonstrate applications of our results to implicit covering problems such as fair facility location.

Cite as

Tanvi Bajpai, Chandra Chekuri, and Pooja Kulkarni. Covering a Few Submodular Constraints and Applications. In Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 353, pp. 25:1-25:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{bajpai_et_al:LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.25,
  author =	{Bajpai, Tanvi and Chekuri, Chandra and Kulkarni, Pooja},
  title =	{{Covering a Few Submodular Constraints and Applications}},
  booktitle =	{Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2025)},
  pages =	{25:1--25:22},
  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.2025.25},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-243917},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.25},
  annote =	{Keywords: covering, linear programming, rounding, fairness}
}
Document
Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games
Deterministic k-Median Clustering in Near-Optimal Time

Authors: Martín Costa and Ermiya Farokhnejad

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


Abstract
The metric k-median problem is a textbook clustering problem. As input, we are given a metric space V of size n and an integer k, and our task is to find a subset S ⊆ V of at most k "centers" that minimizes the total distance from each point in V to its nearest center in S. Mettu and Plaxton [UAI'02] gave a randomized algorithm for k-median that computes a O(1)-approximation in Õ(nk) time. They also showed that any algorithm for this problem with a bounded approximation ratio must have a running time of Ω(nk). Thus, the running time of their algorithm is optimal up to polylogarithmic factors. For deterministic k-median, Guha et al. [FOCS'00] gave an algorithm that computes a poly(log (n/k))-approximation in Õ(nk) time, where the degree of the polynomial in the approximation is unspecified. To the best of our knowledge, this remains the state-of-the-art approximation of any deterministic k-median algorithm with this running time. This leads us to the following natural question: What is the best approximation of a deterministic k-median algorithm with near-optimal running time? We make progress in answering this question by giving a deterministic algorithm that computes a O(log(n/k))-approximation in Õ(nk) time. We also provide a lower bound showing that any deterministic algorithm with this running time must have an approximation ratio of Ω(log n/(log k + log log n)), establishing a gap between the randomized and deterministic settings for k-median.

Cite as

Martín Costa and Ermiya Farokhnejad. Deterministic k-Median Clustering in Near-Optimal Time. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 334, pp. 62:1-62:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{costa_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.62,
  author =	{Costa, Mart{\'\i}n and Farokhnejad, Ermiya},
  title =	{{Deterministic k-Median Clustering in Near-Optimal Time}},
  booktitle =	{52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)},
  pages =	{62:1--62:20},
  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.2025.62},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-234395},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.62},
  annote =	{Keywords: k-clustering, k-median, deterministic algorithms, approximation algorithms}
}
Document
Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games
New and Improved Bounds for Markov Paging

Authors: Chirag Pabbaraju and Ali Vakilian

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


Abstract
In the Markov paging model, one assumes that page requests are drawn from a Markov chain over the pages in memory, and the goal is to maintain a fast cache that suffers few page faults in expectation. While computing the optimal online algorithm (OPT) for this problem naively takes time exponential in the size of the cache, the best-known polynomial-time approximation algorithm is the dominating distribution algorithm due to Lund, Phillips and Reingold (FOCS 1994), who showed that the algorithm is 4-competitive against OPT. We substantially improve their analysis and show that the dominating distribution algorithm is in fact 2-competitive against OPT. We also show a lower bound of 1.5907-competitiveness for this algorithm - to the best of our knowledge, no such lower bound was previously known.

Cite as

Chirag Pabbaraju and Ali Vakilian. New and Improved Bounds for Markov Paging. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 334, pp. 123:1-123:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{pabbaraju_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.123,
  author =	{Pabbaraju, Chirag and Vakilian, Ali},
  title =	{{New and Improved Bounds for Markov Paging}},
  booktitle =	{52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)},
  pages =	{123:1--123:20},
  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.2025.123},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-235005},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.123},
  annote =	{Keywords: Beyond Worst-case Analyis, Online Paging, Markov Paging}
}
Document
Approximating Klee’s Measure Problem and a Lower Bound for Union Volume Estimation

Authors: Karl Bringmann, Kasper Green Larsen, André Nusser, Eva Rotenberg, and Yanheng Wang

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 332, 41st International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2025)


Abstract
Union volume estimation is a classical algorithmic problem. Given a family of objects O₁,…,O_n ⊂ ℝ^d, we want to approximate the volume of their union. In the special case where all objects are boxes (also called hyperrectangles) this is known as Klee’s measure problem. The state-of-the-art (1+ε)-approximation algorithm [Karp, Luby, Madras '89] for union volume estimation as well as Klee’s measure problem in constant dimension d uses a total of O(n/ε²) queries of three types: (i) determine the volume of O_i; (ii) sample a point uniformly at random from O_i; and (iii) ask whether a given point is contained in O_i. First, we show that if an algorithm learns about the objects only through these types of queries, then Ω(n/ε²) queries are necessary. In this sense, the complexity of [Karp, Luby, Madras '89] is optimal. Our lower bound holds even if the objects are equiponderous axis-aligned polygons in ℝ², if the containment query allows arbitrary (not necessarily sampled) points, and if the algorithm can spend arbitrary time and space examining the query responses. Second, we provide a more efficient approximation algorithm for Klee’s measure problem, which improves the running time from O(n/ε²) to O((n+1/ε²) ⋅ log^{O(d)} (n)). We circumvent our lower bound by exploiting the geometry of boxes in various ways: (1) We sort the boxes into classes of similar shapes after inspecting their corner coordinates. (2) With orthogonal range searching, we show how to sample points from the union of boxes in each class, and how to merge samples from different classes. (3) We bound the amount of wasted work by arguing that most pairs of classes have a small intersection.

Cite as

Karl Bringmann, Kasper Green Larsen, André Nusser, Eva Rotenberg, and Yanheng Wang. Approximating Klee’s Measure Problem and a Lower Bound for Union Volume Estimation. In 41st International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 332, pp. 25:1-25:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{bringmann_et_al:LIPIcs.SoCG.2025.25,
  author =	{Bringmann, Karl and Larsen, Kasper Green and Nusser, Andr\'{e} and Rotenberg, Eva and Wang, Yanheng},
  title =	{{Approximating Klee’s Measure Problem and a Lower Bound for Union Volume Estimation}},
  booktitle =	{41st International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2025)},
  pages =	{25:1--25:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-370-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{332},
  editor =	{Aichholzer, Oswin and Wang, Haitao},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2025.25},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-231778},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2025.25},
  annote =	{Keywords: approximation, volume of union, union of objects, query complexity}
}
Document
Hardness and Approximation Algorithms for Balanced Districting Problems

Authors: Prathamesh Dharangutte, Jie Gao, Shang-En Huang, and Fang-Yi Yu

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 329, 6th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2025)


Abstract
We introduce and study the problem of balanced districting, where given an undirected graph with vertices carrying two types of weights (different population, resource types, etc) the goal is to maximize the total weights covered in vertex disjoint districts such that each district is a star or (in general) a connected induced subgraph with the two weights to be balanced. This problem is strongly motivated by political redistricting, where contiguity, population balance, and compactness are essential. We provide hardness and approximation algorithms for this problem. In particular, we show NP-hardness for an approximation better than n^{1/2-δ} for any constant δ > 0 in general graphs even when the districts are star graphs, as well as NP-hardness on complete graphs, tree graphs, planar graphs and other restricted settings. On the other hand, we develop an algorithm for balanced star districting that gives an O(√n)-approximation on any graph (which is basically tight considering matching hardness of approximation results), an O(log n) approximation on planar graphs with extensions to minor-free graphs. Our algorithm uses a modified Whack-a-Mole algorithm [Bhattacharya, Kiss, and Saranurak, SODA 2023] to find a sparse solution of a fractional packing linear program (despite exponentially many variables) which requires a new design of a separation oracle specific for our balanced districting problem. To turn the fractional solution to a feasible integer solution, we adopt the randomized rounding algorithm by [Chan and Har-Peled, SoCG 2009]. To get a good approximation ratio of the rounding procedure, a crucial element in the analysis is the balanced scattering separators for planar graphs and minor-free graphs - separators that can be partitioned into a small number of k-hop independent sets for some constant k - which may find independent interest in solving other packing style problems. Further, our algorithm is versatile - the very same algorithm can be analyzed in different ways on various graph classes, which leads to class-dependent approximation ratios. We also provide a FPTAS algorithm for complete graphs and tree graphs, as well as greedy algorithms and approximation ratios when the district cardinality is bounded, the graph has bounded degree or the weights are binary. We refer the readers to the full version of the paper for complete set of results and proofs.

Cite as

Prathamesh Dharangutte, Jie Gao, Shang-En Huang, and Fang-Yi Yu. Hardness and Approximation Algorithms for Balanced Districting Problems. In 6th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 329, pp. 4:1-4:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{dharangutte_et_al:LIPIcs.FORC.2025.4,
  author =	{Dharangutte, Prathamesh and Gao, Jie and Huang, Shang-En and Yu, Fang-Yi},
  title =	{{Hardness and Approximation Algorithms for Balanced Districting Problems}},
  booktitle =	{6th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2025)},
  pages =	{4:1--4:24},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-367-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{329},
  editor =	{Bun, Mark},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2025.4},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-231310},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2025.4},
  annote =	{Keywords: Approximation algorithms, algorithmic fairness}
}
Document
Online Disjoint Set Covers: Randomization Is Not Necessary

Authors: Marcin Bienkowski, Jarosław Byrka, and Łukasz Jeż

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 327, 42nd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2025)


Abstract
In the online disjoint set covers problem, the edges of a hypergraph are revealed online, and the goal is to partition them into a maximum number of disjoint set covers. That is, n nodes of a hypergraph are given at the beginning, and then a sequence of hyperedges (subsets of [n]) is presented to an algorithm. For each hyperedge, an online algorithm must assign a color (an integer). Once an input terminates, the gain of the algorithm is the number of colors that correspond to valid set covers (i.e., the union of hyperedges that have that color contains all n nodes). We present a deterministic online algorithm that is O(log² n)-competitive, exponentially improving on the previous bound of O(n) and matching the performance of the best randomized algorithm by Emek et al. [ESA 2019]. For color selection, our algorithm uses a novel potential function, which can be seen as an online counterpart of the derandomization method of conditional probabilities and pessimistic estimators. There are only a few cases where derandomization has been successfully used in the field of online algorithms. In contrast to previous approaches, our result extends to the following new challenges: (i) the potential function derandomizes not only the Chernoff bound, but also the coupon collector’s problem, (ii) the value of Opt of the maximization problem is not bounded a priori, and (iii) we do not produce a fractional solution first, but work directly on the input.

Cite as

Marcin Bienkowski, Jarosław Byrka, and Łukasz Jeż. Online Disjoint Set Covers: Randomization Is Not Necessary. In 42nd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 327, pp. 18:1-18:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{bienkowski_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2025.18,
  author =	{Bienkowski, Marcin and Byrka, Jaros{\l}aw and Je\.{z}, {\L}ukasz},
  title =	{{Online Disjoint Set Covers: Randomization Is Not Necessary}},
  booktitle =	{42nd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2025)},
  pages =	{18:1--18:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-365-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{327},
  editor =	{Beyersdorff, Olaf and Pilipczuk, Micha{\l} and Pimentel, Elaine and Thắng, Nguy\~{ê}n Kim},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2025.18},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-228433},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2025.18},
  annote =	{Keywords: Disjoint Set Covers, Derandomization, pessimistic Estimator, potential Function, online Algorithms, competitive Analysis}
}
Document
Online Balanced Allocation of Dynamic Components

Authors: Rajmohan Rajaraman and Omer Wasim

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 325, 16th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2025)


Abstract
We introduce Online Balanced Allocation of Dynamic Components (OBADC), a problem motivated by the practical challenge of dynamic resource allocation for large-scale distributed applications. In OBADC, we need to allocate a dynamic set of at most k𝓁 vertices (representing processes) in 𝓁 > 0 clusters. We consider an over-provisioned setup in which each cluster can hold at most k(1+ε) vertices, for an arbitrary constant ε > 0. The communication requirements among the vertices are modeled by the notion of a dynamically changing component, which is a subset of vertices that need to be co-located in the same cluster. At each time t, a request r_t of one of the following types arrives: 1) insertion of a vertex v forming a singleton component v at unit cost. 2) merge of (u,v) requiring that the components containing u and v be merged and co-located thereafter. 3) deletion of an existing vertex v at zero cost. Before serving any request, an algorithm can migrate vertices from one cluster to another, at a unit migration cost per vertex. We seek an online algorithm to minimize the total migration cost incurred for an arbitrary request sequence σ = (r_t)_{t > 0}, while simultaneously minimizing the number of clusters utilized. We analyze competitiveness with respect to an optimal clairvoyant offline algorithm with identical (over-provisioned) capacity constraints. We give an O(log k)-competitive algorithm for OBADC, and a matching lower-bound. The number of clusters utilized by our algorithm is always within a (2+ε) factor of the minimum. Furthermore, in a resource augmented setting where the optimal offline algorithm is constrained to capacity k per cluster, our algorithm obtains O(log k) competitiveness and utilizes a number of clusters within (1+ε) factor of the minimum. We also consider OBADC in the context of machine-learned predictions, where for each newly inserted vertex v at time t: i) with probability η > 0, the set of vertices (that exist at time t) in the component of v is revealed and, ii) with probability 1-η, no information is revealed. For OBADC with predictions, we give a O(1)-consistent and O(min(log 1/(η), log k))-robust algorithm.

Cite as

Rajmohan Rajaraman and Omer Wasim. Online Balanced Allocation of Dynamic Components. In 16th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 325, pp. 81:1-81:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{rajaraman_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2025.81,
  author =	{Rajaraman, Rajmohan and Wasim, Omer},
  title =	{{Online Balanced Allocation of Dynamic Components}},
  booktitle =	{16th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2025)},
  pages =	{81:1--81:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-361-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{325},
  editor =	{Meka, Raghu},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2025.81},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-227090},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2025.81},
  annote =	{Keywords: online algorithms, competitive ratio, algorithms with predictions}
}
Document
Hash & Adjust: Competitive Demand-Aware Consistent Hashing

Authors: Arash Pourdamghani, Chen Avin, Robert Sama, Maryam Shiran, and Stefan Schmid

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 324, 28th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2024)


Abstract
Distributed systems often serve dynamic workloads and resource demands evolve over time. Such a temporal behavior stands in contrast to the static and demand-oblivious nature of most data structures used by these systems. In this paper, we are particularly interested in consistent hashing, a fundamental building block in many large distributed systems. Our work is motivated by the hypothesis that a more adaptive approach to consistent hashing can leverage structure in the demand, and hence improve storage utilization and reduce access time. We initiate the study of demand-aware consistent hashing. Our main contribution is H&A, a constant-competitive online algorithm (i.e., it comes with provable performance guarantees over time). H&A is demand-aware and optimizes its internal structure to enable faster access times, while offering a high utilization of storage. We further evaluate H&A empirically.

Cite as

Arash Pourdamghani, Chen Avin, Robert Sama, Maryam Shiran, and Stefan Schmid. Hash & Adjust: Competitive Demand-Aware Consistent Hashing. In 28th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 324, pp. 24:1-24:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)


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@InProceedings{pourdamghani_et_al:LIPIcs.OPODIS.2024.24,
  author =	{Pourdamghani, Arash and Avin, Chen and Sama, Robert and Shiran, Maryam and Schmid, Stefan},
  title =	{{Hash \& Adjust: Competitive Demand-Aware Consistent Hashing}},
  booktitle =	{28th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2024)},
  pages =	{24:1--24:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-360-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{324},
  editor =	{Bonomi, Silvia and Galletta, Letterio and Rivi\`{e}re, Etienne and Schiavoni, Valerio},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.OPODIS.2024.24},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-225607},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.OPODIS.2024.24},
  annote =	{Keywords: Consistent hashing, demand-awareness, online algorithms}
}
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