In this article we prove that the minimum-degree greedy algorithm, with adversarial tie-breaking, is a ( 2 / 3 ) -approximation for the Maximum Independent Set problem on interval graphs. We show that this is tight, even on unit interval graphs of maximum degree 3. We show that on chordal graphs, the greedy algorithm is a ( 1 / 2 ) -approximation and that this is again tight. These results contrast with the known (tight) approximation ratio of 3 Δ + 2 of the greedy algorithm for general graphs of maximum degree Δ .

We consider a flow-shop with m stations (machines) and n identical jobs that need to be processed on each station. The processing time of every job on station i is pi. After a job is processed on a station i, it needs to be transported by an automated guided vehicle (AGV) to the next station i + 1. There is only one AGV. We assume no buffers, i.e., when the AGV transports a job to a station, the station needs to be empty. Furthermore, an AGV can transport at most one job at a time, non-preemptively, i.e., it cannot leave the job in the middle of transportation. The transportation times between the stations are given and are independent of whether the AGV carries a job or not. We study the problem of scheduling the single AGV such that all jobs are processed and the makespan is minimized. We provide a characterization of feasible schedules, and use it to derive an integer linear program (ILP) for the problem. We observe that solving the ILP requires a rather large amount of computation time even for very small instances. We use the ILP-formulation to design a rolling-window based heuristic that scales up and provides close-to-optimum schedules, as demonstrated by experimental evaluation that also involves comparison to two natural greedy algorithms.

We consider the problem of collectively delivering some package from a specified source to a designated target location in a graph, using multiple mobile agents. Each agent has limited energy which constrains the distance it can move. Hence multiple agents need to collaborate to move the package, each agent handing over the package to the next agent to carry it forward. Given the positions of the agents in the graph and their respective budgets, the problem of finding a feasible movement schedule for the agents can be challenging. We consider two variants of the problem: in non-returning delivery, the agents can stop anywhere; whereas in returning delivery, each agent needs to return to its starting location, a variant which has not been studied before. We first provide a polynomial-time algorithm for returning delivery on trees, which is in contrast to the known (weak) NP-hardness of the non-returning version. In addition, we give resource-augmented algorithms for returning delivery in general graphs. Finally, we give tight lower bounds on the required resource augmentation for both variants of the problem. In this sense, our results close the gap left by previous research.

Sorting with stacks is a collection of problems that deal with sorting a sequence of numbers by pushing and popping the numbers to and from a given set of stacks. Multiple concrete decision or optimization questions are formed by restricting the access to the stacks. The motivation comes, e.g., from shunting train wagons in shunting yards, shunting trams in depots, or in stacking cargo containers on cargo ships or storage yards in transshipment terminals. We consider the problem of sorting a permutation of n integers 1,2,...,n using k >= 2 stacks. In this problem, elements from the input sequence are pushed one-by-one (in the order of the elements in the sequence) to one of the k stacks. At any time, an element from a stack can be popped and pushed to another stack; such an operation is called a shuffle. Also, at any time, an element can be popped from a stack and placed to the output sequence. We can only place the elements to the output in the increasing order of their value such that at the end the output is the ordered sequence of the elements. The problem asks to minimize the number of shuffles in the process. It is known that for k >= 4, the problem is NP-hard, and that there is no approximation algorithm unless P=NP. For k >= 3, it is known that at most O(n log n) shuffles are needed for any input sequence. For the case when k=2, there exist input sequences that require Omega(n^{2-epsilon}) shuffles, for any epsilon>0. Nothing substantially more is known for the case of k=2. In this paper, we study the following variant of the problem with k=2 stacks: no shuffle and no placement to the output sequence can happen before every element is in one of the two stacks. We show that our problem can be seen as the MinUnCut problem by providing a polynomial-time reduction, and thus we show that there exists a randomized O(sqrt{log n})-approximation algorithm and a deterministic O(log n)-approximation algorithm for our problem.

Consider a problem where 4k given vectors need to be partitioned into k clusters of four vectors each. A cluster of four vectors is called a quad, and the cost of a quad is the sum of the component-wise maxima of the four vectors in the quad. The problem is to partition the given 4k vectors into k quads with minimum total cost. We analyze a straightforward matching-based algorithm and prove that this algorithm is a 3/2-approximation algorithm for this problem. We further analyze the performance of this algorithm on a hierarchy of special cases of the problem and prove that, in one particular case, the algorithm is a 5/4-approximation algorithm. Our analysis is tight in all cases except one.

We consider k mobile agents initially located at distinct nodes of an undirected graph (on n nodes, with edge lengths) that have to deliver a single item from a given source node s to a given target node t. The agents can move along the edges of the graph, starting at time 0 with respect to the following: Each agent i has a weight w_i that defines the rate of energy consumption while travelling a distance in the graph, and a velocity v_i with which it can move. We are interested in schedules (operating the k agents) that result in a small delivery time T (time when the package arrives at t), and small total energy consumption E. Concretely, we ask for a schedule that: either (i) Minimizes T, (ii) Minimizes lexicographically (T,E) (prioritizing fast delivery), or (iii) Minimizes epsilon*T + (1-epsilon)*E, for a given epsilon, 0

We propose a novel approach for optimization under uncertainty. Our approach does not assume any particular noise model behind the measurements, and only requires two typical instances. We first propose a measure of similarity of instances (with respect to a given objective). Based on this measure, we then choose a solution randomly among all solutions that are near-optimum for both instances. The exact notion of near-optimum is intertwined with the proposed similarity measure. Our similarity measure also allows us to derive formal statements about the expected quality of the computed solution. Furthermore, we apply our approach to various optimization problems.

Given an urban public transportation network and historic delay information, we consider the problem of computing reliable journeys. We propose new algorithms based on our recently presented solution concept (Böhmová et al., ATMOS 2013), and perform an experimental evaluation using real-world delay data from Zürich, Switzerland. We compare these methods to natural approaches as well as to our recently proposed method which can also be used to measure typicality of past observations. Moreover, we demonstrate how this measure relates to the predictive quality of the individual methods. In particular, if the past observations are typical, then the learning- based methods are able to produce solutions that perform well on typical days, even in the presence of large delays.

Based on time-dependent travel times for N past days, we consider the computation of robust routes according to the min-max relative regret criterion. For this method we seek a path minimizing its maximum weight in any one of the N days, normalized by the weight of an optimum for the respective day. In order to speed-up this computationally demanding approach, we observe that its output belongs to the Pareto front of the network with time-dependent multi-criteria edge weights. We adapt a well-known algorithm for computing Pareto fronts in time-dependent graphs and apply the bi-directional search technique to it. We also show how to parametrize this algorithm by a value K to compute a K-approximate Pareto front. An experimental evaluation for the cases N = 2 and N = 3 indicates a considerable speed-up of the bi-directional search over the uni-directional.

We study variants of the vertex disjoint paths problem in plane graphs where paths have to be selected from given sets of paths. We investigate the problem as a decision, maximization, and routing-in-rounds problem. Although all considered variants are NP-hard in planar graphs, restrictions on the locations of the terminals on the outer face of the given planar embedding of the graph lead to polynomially solvable cases for the decision and maximization versions of the problem. For the routing-in-rounds problem, we obtain a p-approximation algorithm, where p is the maximum number of alternative paths for a terminal pair, when restricting the locations of the terminals to the outer face such that they appear in a counterclockwise traversal of the boundary as a sequence for some permutation . © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.NETWORKS, Vol. 66(2), 136–144 2015

We consider the exploration of a simple polygon P by a robot that moves from vertex to vertex along edges of the visibility graph of P . The visibility graph has a vertex for every vertex of P and an edge between two vertices if they see each other—that is, if the line segment connecting them lies inside P entirely. While located at a vertex, the robot is capable of ordering the vertices it sees in counterclockwise order as they appear on the boundary, and for every two such vertices, it can distinguish whether the angle between them is convex (⩽ π) or reflex ( > π). Other than that, distant vertices are indistinguishable to the robot. We assume that an upper bound on the number of vertices is known. We obtain the general result that a robot exploring any locally oriented, arc-labeled graph G can always determine the base graph of G . Roughly speaking, this is the smallest graph that cannot be distinguished by a robot from G by its observations alone, no matter how it moves. Combining this result with various other techniques allows the ability to show that a robot exploring a polygon P with the preceding capabilities is always capable of reconstructing the visibility graph of P . We also show that multiple identical, indistinguishable, and deterministic robots of this kind can always solve the weak rendezvous problem in which they need to position themselves such that they mutually see each other—for instance, such that they form a clique in the visibility graph.

Frontmatter, Table of Contents, Preface, Workshop Organization

In chromatic variants of the art gallery problem, simple polygons are guarded with point guards that are assigned one of k colors each. We say these guards cover the polygon. Here we consider the conflict-free chromatic art gallery problem, first studied by Bärtschi and Suri (Algorithmica 2013): A covering of the polygon is conflict-free if each point of the polygon is seen by some guard whose color appears exactly once among the guards visible to that point. We are interested in the smallest number k(n) of colors that ensure such a covering for every n-vertex polygon.

We study optimization in the presence of uncertainty such as noise in measurements, and advocate a novel approach of tackling it. The main difference to any existing approach is that we do not assume any knowledge about the nature of the uncertainty (such as for instance a probability distribution). Instead, we are given several instances of the same optimization problem as input, and, assuming they are typical w.r.t. the uncertainty, we make use of it in order to compute a solution that is good for the sample instances as well as for future (unknown) typical instances.

We consider the process of forming outbound trains from cars of inbound trains at rail-freight hump yards. Given the arrival and departure times as well as the composition of the trains, we study the problem of allocating classification tracks to outbound trains such that every outbound train can be built on a separate classification track. We observe that the core problem can be formulated as a special list coloring problem in interval graphs, which is known to be NP-complete. We focus on an extension where individual cars of different trains can temporarily be stored on a special subset of the tracks. This problem induces several new variants of the list-coloring problem, in which the given intervals can be shortened by cutting off a prefix of the interval. We show that in case of uniform and sufficient track lengths, the corresponding coloring problem can be solved in polynomial time, if the goal is to minimize the total cost associated with cutting off prefixes of the intervals. Based on these results, we devise two heuristics as well as an integer program to tackle the problem. As a case study, we consider a real-world problem instance from the Hallsberg Rangerbangard hump yard in Sweden. Planning over horizons of seven days, we obtain feasible solutions from the integer program in all scenarios, and from the heuristics in most scenarios.

We study variants of the vertex disjoint paths problem in planar graphs where paths have to be selected from a given set of paths. We study the problem as a decision, maximization, and routing-in-rounds problem. Although all considered variants are NP-hard in planar graphs, restrictions on the location of the terminals, motivated by railway applications, lead to polynomially solvable cases for the decision and maximization versions of the problem, and to a $p$-approximation algorithm for the routing-in-rounds problem, where $p$ is the maximum number of alternative paths for a terminal pair.

Consider the problem of discovering (or verifying) the edges and non-edges of a network, modeled as a connected undirected graph, using a minimum number of queries. A query at a vertex v discovers (or verifies) all edges and non-edges whose endpoints have different distance from v. In the network discovery problem, the edges and non-edges are initially unknown, and the algorithm must select the next query based only on the results of previous queries. We study the problem using competitive analysis and give a randomized on-line algorithm with competitive ratio $O(\sqrt{nlogn})$ for graphs with n vertices. We also show that no deterministic algorithm can have competitive ratio better than 3. In the network verification problem, the graph is known in advance and the goal is to compute a minimum number of queries that verify all edges and non-edges. This problem has previously been studied as the problem of placing landmarks in a graph or determining the metric dimension of a graph. We show that there is no approximation algorithm for this problem with ratio o(log n) unless $\mathcal{P} = \mathcal{NP}$ .