Search

In this paper we discuss the complexity and approximability of the minimum corridor connection problem where, given a rectilinear decomposition of a rectilinear polygon into "rooms", one has to find the minimum length tree along the edges of the decomposition such that every room is incident to a vertex of the tree. We show that the problem is strongly NP-hard and give an subexponential time exact algorithm. For the special case of k-outerplanar graphs the running time becomes O(n3). We develop a polynomial time approximation scheme for the case when all rooms are fat and have nearly the same size. When rooms are fat but are of varying size we give a polynomial time constant factor approximation algorithm. Keywords: minimum corridor connection, generalized geometric problems, complexity, exact algorithms, approximations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the problem of pricing items so as to maximize the profit made from selling these items. An instance is given by a set E of n items and a set of m clients, where each client is specified by one subset of E (the bundle of items he/she wants to buy), and a budget (valuation), which is the maximum price he is willing to pay for that subset. We restrict our attention to the model where the subsets can be arranged such that they form intervals of a line graph. Assuming an unlimited supply of any item, this problem is known as the highway problem and so far only an O(logn)-approximation algorithm is known. We show that a PTAS is likely to exist by presenting a quasi-polynomial time approximation scheme. We also combine our ideas with a recently developed quasi-PTAS for the unsplittable flow problem on line graphs to extend this approximation scheme to the limited supply version of the pricing problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a profit maximization problem where we are asked to price a set of m items that are to be assigned to a set of n customers. The items can be represented as the edges of an undirected (multi)graph G, where an edge multiplicity larger than one corresponds to multiple copies of the same item. Each customer is interested in purchasing a bundle of edges of G, and we assume that each bundle forms a simple path in G. Each customer has a known budget for her respective bundle, and is interested only in that particular bundle. The goal is to determine item prices and a feasible assignment of items to customers in order to maximize the total profit. When the underlying graph G is a path, we derive a fully polynomial time approximation scheme, complementing a recent NP-hardness result. If the underlying graph is a tree, and edge multiplicities are one, we show that the problem is polynomially solvable, contrasting its APX-hardness for the case of unlimited availability of items. However, if the underlying graph is a grid, and edge multiplicities are one, we show that it is even NP-complete to approximate the maximum profit to within a factor n1-ε. Keywords: Pricing problems, tollbooth problem, highway problem, computational complexity, dynamic programming, fully polynomial time approximation scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Euclidean group Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), we are given a set of points P in the plane and a set of m connected regions, each containing at least one point of P. We want to find a tour of minimum length that visits at least one point in each region. This unifies the TSP with Neighborhoods and the Group Steiner Tree problem. We give a (9.1α+1)-approximation algorithm for the case when the regions are disjoint α-fat objects with possibly varying size. This considerably improves the best results known, in this case, for both the group Steiner tree problem and the TSP with Neighborhoods problem. We also give the first O(1)-approximation algorithm for the problem with intersecting regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present hardness and approximation results for the problem of scheduling n independent jobs on m identical parallel machines subject to a migration delay d so as to minimize the makespan. We give a sharp threshold on the value of d for which the complexity of the problem changes from polynomial time solvable to -hard. We give initial results supporting a conjecture that there always exists an optimal schedule in which at most m - 1 jobs migrate. Further, we give a O(n) time O(1+1/log2n)-approximation algorithm for m = 2, and show that there is a polynomial time approximation scheme for arbitrary m. Keywords: scheduling, identical machines, preemption, migration delay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]