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...

Abstract. We present a polynomial time approximation scheme for Euclidean TSP in fixed dimensions. For every fixed c � 1 and given any n nodes in � 2, a randomized version of the scheme finds a (1 � 1/c)-approximation to the optimum traveling salesman tour in O(n(log n) O(c) ) time. When the nodes are in � d, the running time increases to O(n(log n) (O(�dc))d�1). For every fixed c, d the running time is n � poly(log n), that is nearly linear in n. The algorithm can be derandomized, but this increases the running time by a factor O(n d). The previous best approximation algorithm for the problem (due to Christofides) achieves a 3/2-approximation in polynomial time. We also give similar approximation schemes for some other NP-hard Euclidean problems: Minimum Steiner Tree, k-TSP, and k-MST. (The running times of the algorithm for k-TSP and k-MST involve an additional multiplicative factor k.) The previous best approximation algorithms for all these problems achieved a constant-factor approximation. We also give efficient approximation schemes for Euclidean Min-Cost Matching, a problem that can be solved exactly in polynomial time. All our algorithms also work, with almost no modification, when distance is measured using any geometric norm (such as �p for p � 1 or other Minkowski norms). They also have simple parallel (i.e., NC) implementations.

The Steiner tree problem in weighted graphs seeks a minimum weight connected subgraph containing a given subset of the vertices (terminals). We present a new polynomial-time heuristic with an approximation ratio approaching 1 + 2 1:55, which improves upon the previously best-known approximation algorithm of [10] with performance ratio 1:59.

Introduction A natural and well-studied problem in algorithmic graph theory and network optimization is that of computing a "shortest path" between two nodes, s and t, in a graph whose edges have "weights" associated with them, and we consider the "length" of a path to be the sum of the weights of the edges that comprise it. Efficient algorithms are well known for this problem, as briefly summarized below. The shortest path problem takes on a new dimension when considered in a geometric domain. In contrast to graphs, where the encoding of edges is explicit, a geometric instance of a shortest path problem is usually specified by giving geometric objects that implicitly encode the graph and its edge weights. Our goal in devising efficient geometric algorithms is generally to avoid explicit construction of the entire underlying graph, since the full induced graph may be very large (even exponential in the input size, or infinite). Computing an optimal

We give the first non-trivial approximation algorithms for the Steiner tree problem and the generalized Steiner network problem on general directed graphs. These problems have several applications in network design and multicast routing. For both problems, the best ratios known before our work were the trivial O(k)-approximations. For the directed Steiner tree problem, we design a family of algorithms that achieves an approximation ratio of i(i \Gamma 1)k 1=i in time O(n i k 2i ) for any fixed i ? 1, where k is the number of terminals. Thus, an O(k ffl ) approximation ratio can be achieved in polynomial time for any fixed ffl ? 0. Setting i = log k, we obtain an O(log 2 k) approximation ratio in quasi-polynomial time. For the directed generalized Steiner network problem, we give an algorithm that achieves an approximation ratio of O(k 2=3 log 1=3 k), where k is the number of pairs of vertices that are to be connected. Related problems including the group Steiner...

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 formulate the problem of multicast tree generation as one of computing a directed Steiner tree of minimal cost. In this context, we present a polynomial-time algorithm that provides for tradeoff selection, using a single parameter , between the tree-cost (Steiner cost) and the runtime efficiency. Further, the same algorithm may be used for delay optimization or tree-cost minimization simply by configuring the value of appropriately. We present theoretical and experimental analysis characterizing the problem and the performance of our algorithm. Theoretically, we (1) show that it is highly unlikely that there exists a polynomial-time algorithm with a performance guarantee of constant times optimum cost, (2) introduce metrics for measuring the asymmetry of graphs, and (3) show that the worst-case cost of the tree produced by our algorithm is at most twice the optimum cost times the asymmetry, for two of these asymmetry metrics. For graphs with bounded asymmetry, this gives constant ...

A spanning tree in a graph is the smallest connected spanning subgraph. Given a graph, how does one find the smallest (i.e., least number of edges) 2-connected spanning subgraph (connectivity refers to both edge and vertex connectivity, if not specified) ? Unfortunately, the problem is known to be NP -hard. We consider the problem of finding a better approximation to the smallest 2-connected subgraph, by an efficient algorithm. For 2-edge connectivity our algorithm guarantees a solution that is no more than 3 2 times the optimal. For 2-vertex connectivity our algorithm guarantees a solution that is no more than 5 3 times the optimal. The previous best approximation factor is 2 for each of these problems. The new algorithms (and their analyses) depend upon a structure called a carving of a graph, which is of independent interest. We show that approximating the optimal solution to within an additive constant is NP -hard as well. We also consider the case where the graph has edge weigh...

The survivable network design problem is to construct a minimum-cost subgraph satisfying certain given edge-connectivity requirements. The first polynomial-time approximation algorithm was given by Williamson et al. [20]. This paper gives an improved version that is more efficient. Consider a graph

Abstract. The classical Steiner tree problem in weighted graphs seeks a minimum weight connected subgraph containing a given subset of the vertices (terminals). We present a new polynomial-ln 3 time heuristic that achieves a best-known approximation ratio of 1 + ≈ 1.55 for general graphs 2 and best-known approximation ratios of ≈ 1.28 for both quasi-bipartite graphs (i.e., where no two nonterminals are adjacent) and complete graphs with edge weights 1 and 2. Our method is considerably simpler and easier to implement than previous approaches. We also prove the first known nontrivial performance bound (1.5 · OPT) for the iterated 1-Steiner heuristic of Kahng and Robins in quasi-bipartite graphs.