We present a general approximation technique for a large class of graph problems. Our technique mostly applies to problems of covering, at minimum cost, the vertices of a graph with trees, cycles or paths satisfying certain requirements. In particular, many basic combinatorial optimization problems fit in this framework, including the shortest path, minimum-cost spanning tree, minimum-weight perfect matching, traveling salesman and Steiner tree problems. Our techniqueproduces approximation algorithms that run in O(n² log n) time and come within a factor of 2 of optimal for most of these problems. For instance, we obtain a 2-approximationalgorithm for the minimum-weight perfect matching problem under the triangle inequality. Our running time of O(n² log n) time compares favorably with the best strongly polynomial exact algorithms running in O(n³) time for dense graphs. A similar result is obtained for the 2-matchingproblem and its variants. We also derive the first approxi...

The primal-dual method is a standard tool in the design of algorithms for combinatorial optimization problems. This chapter shows how the primal-dual method can be modified to provide good approximation algorithms for a wide variety of NP-hard problems. We concentrate on results from recent research applying the primal-dual method to problems in network design.

We consider a problem of locating communication centers. In this problem, it is required to partition the set of n customers into subsets minimizing the length of nets required to connect all the customers to the communication centers. Suppose that communication centers are to be placed in p of the customers locations. The number of customers each center supports is also given. The problem remains to divide a graph into sets of the given sizes, keeping the sum of the spanning trees minimal. The problem is NP-Complete, and no polynomial algorithm with bounded error ratio can be given, unless P = NP . We present an approximation algorithm for the problem assuming that the edge lengths satisfy the triangle inequality. It runs in O(p 2 4 p +n 2 ) time (n = jV j) and comes within a factor of 2p \Gamma 1 of optimal. When the sets' sizes are all equal this algorithm runs in O(n 2 ) time. Next an improved algorithm is presented which obtains as an input a positive integer x (x n \Gamm...

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The NP-hard microaggregation problem seeks a partition of data points into groups of minimum specified size k, so as to minimize the sum of the squared euclidean distances of every point to its group’s centroid. One recent heuristic provides an Oðk 3 Þ guarantee for this objective function and an Oðk 2 Þ guarantee for a version of the problem that seeks to minimize the sum of the distances of the points to its group’s centroid. This paper establishes approximation bounds for another microaggregation heuristic, providing better approximation guarantees of Oðk 2 Þ for the squared distance measure and OðkÞ for the distance measure.