Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
skip to main content
10.1145/780542.780628acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesstocConference Proceedingsconference-collections
Article

Polylogarithmic inapproximability

Published: 09 June 2003 Publication History

Abstract

We provide the first hardness result of a polylogarithmic approximation ratio for a natural NP-hard optimization problem. We show that for every fixed ε>0, the GROUP-STEINER-TREE problem admits no efficient log2-ε k approximation, where k denotes the number of groups (or, alternatively, the input size), unless NP has quasi polynomial Las-Vegas algorithms. This hardness result holds even for input graphs which are Hierarchically Well-Separated Trees, introduced by Bartal [FOCS, 1996]. For these trees (and also for general trees), our bound is nearly tight with the log-squared approximation currently known. Our results imply that for every fixed ε>0, the DIRECTED-STEINER TREE problem admits no log2-ε n--approximation, where n is the number of vertices in the graph, under the same complexity assumption.

References

[1]
S. Arora and C. Lund. Hardness of approximations. In D. Hochbaum, editor, Approximation Algorithms for NP-Hard Problems. PWS Publishing Company, 1996.
[2]
S. Arora, C. Lund, R. Motwani, M. Sudan, and M. Szegedy. Proof verification and the hardness of approximation problems. J. ACM, 45(3):501--555, 1998.
[3]
Y. Bartal. On approximating arbitrary metrics by tree metrics. In 30th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, pages 161--168. ACM, 1998.
[4]
Y. Bartal and M. Mendel. Multi-embeddings and path approximation of metric spaces. In 14th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, pages 424--433, 2003.
[5]
M. Charikar, C. Chekuri, T. Cheung, Z. Dai, A. Goel, S. Guha, and M. Li. Approximation algorithms for directed Steiner problems. J. Algorithms, 33(1):73--91, 1999.
[6]
M. Charikar, C. Chekuri, A. Goel, and S. Guha. Rounding via trees: deterministic approximation algorithms for group Steiner trees and k-median. In 30th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, pages 114--123. ACM, New York, 1998.
[7]
C. Chekuri, G. Even, and G. Kortsarz. An approximation algorithm for the group Steiner problem. Manuscript. (Preliminary version appeared in SODA 2002), 2002.
[8]
G. Even, J. Naor, S. Rao, and B. Schieber. Divide-and-conquer approximation algorithms via spreading metrics. J. ACM, 47(4):585--616, 2000.
[9]
G. Even, J. Naor, B. Schieber, and M. Sudan. Approximating minimum feedback sets and multicuts in directed graphs. Algorithmica, 20(2):151--174, 1998.
[10]
J. Fakcharoenphol, S. Rao, and K. Talwar. A tight bound on approximating arbitrary metrics by tree metrics. To appear in 35th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, 2003.
[11]
U. Feige. A threshold of ln n for approximating set cover. J. ACM, 45(4):634--652, 1998.
[12]
U. Feige, M. M. Halldórsson, G. Kortsarz, and A. Srinivasan. Approximating the domatic number. SIAM J. Comput., 2002. To appear.
[13]
N. Garg, G. Konjevod, and R. Ravi. A polylogarithmic approximation algorithm for the group Steiner tree problem. J. Algorithms, 37(1):66--84, 2000.
[14]
A. Gupta, E. Halperin, G. Kortsarz, R. Krauthgamer, R. Ravi, A. Srinivasan, and N. Wang. Private communication. 2002.
[15]
E. Halperin, G. Kortsarz, R. Krauthgamer, A. Srinivasan, and N. Wang. Integrality ratio for group Steiner trees and directed Steiner trees. In 14th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, pages 275--284, Jan. 2003.
[16]
S. Khanna, M. Sudan, L. Trevisan, and D. P. Williamson. The approximability of constraint satisfaction problems. SIAM J. Comput., 30(6):1863--1920, 2001.
[17]
C. Lund and M. Yannakakis. On the hardness of approximating minimization problems. J. ACM, 41(5):960--981, 1994.
[18]
S. Rao and A. W. Richa. New approximation techniques for some ordering problems. In 9h Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, pages 211--218, New York, 1998. ACM.
[19]
R. Raz. A parallel repetition theorem. SIAM J. Comput., 27(3):763--803, 1998.
[20]
R. Raz and S. Safra. A sub-constant error-probability low-degree test, and a sub-constant error-probability PCP characterization of NP. In 29th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, pages 475--484. ACM, 1997.
[21]
S. Safra and O. Schwartz. On the complexity of approximating TSP with neighborhoods and related problems. Manuscript, June 2002.
[22]
P. D. Seymour. Packing directed circuits fractionally. Combinatorica, 15(2):281--288, 1995.
[23]
A. Srinivasan. New approaches to covering and packing problems. In 12th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, pages 567--576, 2001.
[24]
L. Zosin and S. Khuller. On directed Steiner trees. In 13th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, pages 59--63, 2002.

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Approximating Sparsest Cut in Low-treewidth Graphs via Combinatorial DiameterACM Transactions on Algorithms10.1145/363262320:1(1-20)Online publication date: 22-Jan-2024
  • (2024)A Fast Hop-Biased Approximation Algorithm for the Quadratic Group Steiner Tree ProblemProceedings of the ACM Web Conference 202410.1145/3589334.3645325(312-321)Online publication date: 13-May-2024
  • (2024)End-to-End Risk-Aware Reinforcement Learning to Detect Asymptomatic Cases in Healthcare Facilities2024 IEEE 12th International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI)10.1109/ICHI61247.2024.00019(83-92)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2024
  • Show More Cited By

Index Terms

  1. Polylogarithmic inapproximability

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Conferences
    STOC '03: Proceedings of the thirty-fifth annual ACM symposium on Theory of computing
    June 2003
    740 pages
    ISBN:1581136749
    DOI:10.1145/780542
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

    Sponsors

    Publisher

    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 09 June 2003

    Permissions

    Request permissions for this article.

    Check for updates

    Author Tags

    1. Steiner tree
    2. approximation algorithms
    3. hardness of approximation
    4. integrality ratio
    5. polylogarithmic approximation

    Qualifiers

    • Article

    Conference

    STOC03
    Sponsor:

    Acceptance Rates

    STOC '03 Paper Acceptance Rate 80 of 270 submissions, 30%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 1,469 of 4,586 submissions, 32%

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)52
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)6
    Reflects downloads up to 15 Oct 2024

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2024)Approximating Sparsest Cut in Low-treewidth Graphs via Combinatorial DiameterACM Transactions on Algorithms10.1145/363262320:1(1-20)Online publication date: 22-Jan-2024
    • (2024)A Fast Hop-Biased Approximation Algorithm for the Quadratic Group Steiner Tree ProblemProceedings of the ACM Web Conference 202410.1145/3589334.3645325(312-321)Online publication date: 13-May-2024
    • (2024)End-to-End Risk-Aware Reinforcement Learning to Detect Asymptomatic Cases in Healthcare Facilities2024 IEEE 12th International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI)10.1109/ICHI61247.2024.00019(83-92)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2024
    • (2024)On Rooted k-Connectivity Problems in Quasi-Bipartite DigraphsOperations Research Forum10.1007/s43069-023-00285-65:1Online publication date: 17-Jan-2024
    • (2023)Better Trees for Santa ClausProceedings of the 55th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing10.1145/3564246.3585174(1862-1875)Online publication date: 2-Jun-2023
    • (2023)Efficient Approximation Algorithms for the Diameter-Bounded Max-Coverage Group Steiner Tree ProblemProceedings of the ACM Web Conference 202310.1145/3543507.3583257(199-209)Online publication date: 30-Apr-2023
    • (2022)Quasi-Polynomial Algorithms for Submodular Tree Orienteering and Directed Network Design ProblemsMathematics of Operations Research10.1287/moor.2021.118147:2(1612-1630)Online publication date: 1-May-2022
    • (2022)$O(\log^2{k}/\log\log{k})$-Approximation Algorithm for Directed Steiner Tree: A Tight Quasi-Polynomial Time AlgorithmSIAM Journal on Computing10.1137/20M131298852:2(STOC19-298-STOC19-322)Online publication date: 28-Jul-2022
    • (2022)Risk-aware temporal cascade reconstruction to detect asymptomatic casesKnowledge and Information Systems10.1007/s10115-022-01748-864:12(3373-3399)Online publication date: 15-Sep-2022
    • (2022)On Approximating Degree-Bounded Network Design ProblemsAlgorithmica10.1007/s00453-022-00924-084:5(1252-1278)Online publication date: 24-Jan-2022
    • Show More Cited By

    View Options

    Get Access

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    Media

    Figures

    Other

    Tables

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media