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We consider scheduling monotonic moldable tasks on multiple platforms, where each platform contains a set of processors. A moldable task can be split into several pieces of equal size and processed simultaneously on multiple processors. Tasks are not allowed to be processed spanning over platforms. This scheduling model has many applications, ranging from parallel computing to the berth and quay crane allocation and the workforce assignment problem. We develop several approximation algorithms aiming at minimizing the makespan. More precisely, we provide a 2-approximation algorithm for identical platforms, a Fully Polynomial Time Approximation Scheme (FPATS) under the assumption of large processor counts and a 2-approximation algorithm for a fixed number of heterogeneous platforms. Most of the proposed algorithms combine a dual approximation scheme with a novel approach to improve the dual approximation algorithm. All results can be extended to the contiguous case, i.e., a task can only be executed by contiguously numbered processors.

Submodular function maximization is a central problem in combinatorial optimization, generalizing many important NP-hard problems including max cut in digraphs, graphs, and hypergraphs; certain constraint satisfaction problems; maximum entropy sampling; and maximum facility location problems. Our main result is that for any k ≥ 2 and any > 0, there is a natural local search algorithm that has approximation guarantee of 1/( k + ) for the problem of maximizing a monotone submodular function subject to k matroid constraints. This improves upon the 1/( k + 1)-approximation of Fisher, Nemhauser, and Wolsey obtained in 1978 [Fisher, M., G. Nemhauser, L. Wolsey. 1978. An analysis of approximations for maximizing submodular set functions-II. Math. Programming Stud. 8 73-87]. Also, our analysis can be applied to the problem of maximizing a linear objective function and even a general nonmonotone submodular function subject to k matroid constraints. We show that, in these cases, the approximation guarantees of our algorithms are 1/( k − 1 + ) and 1/( k + 1 + 1/( k − 1) + ), respectively. Our analyses are based on two new exchange properties for matroids. One is a generalization of the classical Rota exchange property for matroid bases, and another is an exchange property for two matroids based on the structure of matroid intersection.

In this paper, we propose new approximation algorithms for a NP-hard problem, i.e., weighted maximin dispersion problem. By using a uniformly distributed random sample method, we first propose a new random approximation algorithm for box constrained or ball constrained weighted maximin dispersion problems and analyze its approximation bound respectively. Moreover, we propose two improved approximation algorithms by combining our technique with an existing binary sample technique for both cases. To the best of our knowledge, they are the best approximation bounds for both box constrained and ball constrained weighted maximin dispersion problems respectively.

We introduce a class of reinforcement models where, at each time step t, one first chooses a random subset At of colours (independently of the past) from n colours of balls, and then chooses a colour i from this subset with probability proportional to the number of balls of colour i in the urn raised to the power α > 1. We consider stability of equilibria for such models and establish the existence of phase transitions in a number of examples, including when the colours are the edges of a graph; a context which is a toy model for the formation and reinforcement of neural connections. We conjecture that for any graph G and all α sufficiently large, the set of stable equilibria is supported on so-called whisker-forests, which are forests whose components have diameter between 1 and 3.

In this paper we develop a new approach for studying overlapping iterated function systems. This approach is inspired by a famous result due to Khintchine from Diophantine approximation which shows that for a family of limsup sets, their Lebesgue measure is determined by the convergence or divergence of naturally occurring volume sums. For many parameterised families of overlapping iterated function systems, we prove that a typical member will exhibit similar Khintchine like behaviour. Families of iterated function systems that our results apply to include those arising from Bernoulli convolutions, the For each Last of all, we introduce a property of an iterated function system that we call being consistently separated with respect to a measure. We prove that this property implies that the pushforward of the measure is absolutely continuous. We include several explicit examples of consistently separated iterated function systems.

A stochastic algorithm for the recursive approximation of the location θ of a maximum of a regression function was introduced by Kiefer and Wolfowitz [Ann. Math. Statist. 23 (1952) 462-466] in the univariate framework, and by Blum [Ann. Math. Statist. 25 (1954) 737-744] in the multivariate case. The aim of this paper is to provide a companion algorithm to the Kiefer-Wolfowitz-Blum algorithm, which allows one to simultaneously recursively approximate the size μ of the maximum of the regression function. A precise study of the joint weak convergence rate of both algorithms is given; it turns out that, unlike the location of the maximum, the size of the maximum can be approximated by an algorithm which converges at the parametric rate. Moreover, averaging leads to an asymptotically efficient algorithm for the approximation of the couple (θ, μ).

The problem of the definition and estimation of generative models based on deformable templates from raw data is of particular importance for modeling non-aligned data affected by various types of geometric variability. This is especially true in shape modeling in the computer vision community or in probabilistic atlas building in computational anatomy. A first coherent statistical framework modeling geometric variability as hidden variables was described in Allassonnière, Amit and Trouvé [J. R. Stat. Soc. Ser. B Stat. Methodol. 69 (2007) 3-29]. The present paper gives a theoretical proof of convergence of effective stochastic approximation expectation strategies to estimate such models and shows the robustness of this approach against noise through numerical experiments in the context of handwritten digit modeling.

We present a multiexchange local search algorithm for approximating the capacitated facility location problem (CFLP), where a new local improvement operation is introduced that possibly exchanges multiple facilities simultaneously. We give a tight analysis for our algorithm and show that the performance guarantee of the algorithm is between 3 + 2 2 – and 3 + 2 2 + for any given constant > 0. The previously known best approximation ratio for the CFLP is 7.88, as shown by Mahdian and Pál (2003. Universal facility location. Proc. 11th Annual Eur. Sympos. Algorithms (ESA) , 409–421), based on the operations proposed by Pál et al. (2001. Facility location with hard capacities. Proc. 42nd IEEE Sympos. Foundations Comput. Sci. (FOCS) , 329–338). Our upper bound 3+2 2+ also matches the best-known ratio, obtained by Chudak and Williamson (1999. Improved approximation algorithm for capacitated facility location problems. Proc. 7th Conf. Integer Programming Combin. Optim. (IPCO) , 99–113), for the CFLP with uniform capacities. In order to obtain the tight bound of our new algorithm, we make interesting use of the notion of exchange graph of Pál et al. and techniques from the area of parallel machine scheduling.

In this paper, we study the robust and stochastic versions of the two-stage min-cut and shortest path problems introduced in Dhamdhere et al. (in How to pay, come what may: approximation algorithms for demand-robust covering problems. In: FOCS, pp 367–378,  2005 ), and give approximation algorithms with improved approximation factors. Specifically, we give a 2-approximation for the robust min-cut problem and a 4-approximation for the stochastic version. For the two-stage shortest path problem, we give a 3.39 -approximation for the robust version and 6.78 -approximation for the stochastic version. Our results significantly improve the previous best approximation factors for the problems. In particular, we provide the first constant-factor approximation for the stochastic min-cut problem. Our algorithms are based on a guess and prune strategy that crucially exploits the nature of the robust and stochastic objective. In particular, we guess the worst-case second stage cost and based on the guess, select a subset of costly scenarios for the first-stage solution to address. The second-stage solution for any scenario is simply the min-cut (or shortest path) problem in the residual graph. The key contribution is to show that there is a near-optimal first-stage solution that completely satisfies the subset of costly scenarios that are selected by our procedure. While the guess and prune strategy is not directly applicable for the stochastic versions, we show that using a novel LP formulation, we can adapt a guess and prune algorithm for the stochastic versions. Our algorithms based on the guess and prune strategy provide insights about the applicability of this approach for more general robust and stochastic versions of combinatorial problems.

Let $f:2^X \\rightarrow \\cal R_+$ be a monotone submodular set function, and let $(X,\\cal I)$ be a matroid. We consider the problem ${\\rm max}_{S \\in \\cal I} f(S)$. It is known that the greedy algorithm yields a $1/2$-approximation [M. L. Fisher, G. L. Nemhauser, and L. A. Wolsey, Math. Programming Stud., no. 8 (1978), pp. 73-87] for this problem. For certain special cases, e.g., ${\\rm max}_{|S| \\leq k} f(S)$, the greedy algorithm yields a $(1-1/e)$-approximation. It is known that this is optimal both in the value oracle model (where the only access to f is through a black box returning $f(S)$ for a given set S) [G. L. Nemhauser and L. A. Wolsey, Math. Oper. Res., 3 (1978), pp. 177-188] and for explicitly posed instances assuming $P \\neq NP$ [U. Feige, J. ACM, 45 (1998), pp. 634-652]. In this paper, we provide a randomized $(1-1/e)$-approximation for any monotone submodular function and an arbitrary matroid. The algorithm works in the value oracle model. Our main tools are a variant of the pipage rounding technique of Ageev and Sviridenko [J. Combin. Optim., 8 (2004), pp. 307-328], and a continuous greedy process that may be of independent interest. As a special case, our algorithm implies an optimal approximation for the submodular welfare problem in the value oracle model [J. Vondrák, Proceedings of the $38$th ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, 2008, pp. 67-74]. As a second application, we show that the generalized assignment problem (GAP) is also a special case; although the reduction requires $|X|$ to be exponential in the original problem size, we are able to achieve a $(1-1/e-o(1))$-approximation for GAP, simplifying previously known algorithms. Additionally, the reduction enables us to obtain approximation algorithms for variants of GAP with more general constraints. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]