Given a collection F of subsets of S = f1; : : : ; ng, set cover is the problem of selecting as few as possible subsets from F such that their union covers S, and max k-cover is the problem of selecting k subsets from F such that their union has maximum cardinality. Both these problems are NP-hard. We prove that (1 \Gamma o(1)) ln n is a threshold below which set cover cannot be approximated efficiently, unless NP has slightly superpolynomial time algorithms. This closes the gap (up to low order terms) between the ratio of approximation achievable by the greedy algorithm (which is (1 \Gamma o(1)) ln n), and previous results of Lund and Yannakakis, that showed hardness of approximation within a ratio of (log 2 n)=2 ' 0:72 lnn. For max k-cover we show an approximation threshold of (1 \Gamma 1=e) (up to low order terms), under the assumption that P != NP .

We present new approximation algorithms for several facility location problems. In each facility location problem that we study, there is a set of locations at which we may build a facility (such as a warehouse), where the cost of building at location i is f i ; furthermore, there is a set of client locations (such as stores) that require to be serviced by a facility, and if a client at location j is assigned to a facility at location i, a cost of c ij is incurred. The objective is to determine a set of locations at which to open facilities so as to minimize the total facility and assignment costs. In the uncapacitated case, each facility can service an unlimited number of clients, whereas in the capacitated case, each facility can serve, for example, at most u clients. These models and a number of closely related ones have been studied extensively in the Operations Research literature. We shall consider the case in which the assignment costs are symmetric and satisfy the triangle ineq...

We present improved combinatorial approximation algorithms for the uncapacitated facility location and k-median problems. Two central ideas in most of our results are cost scaling and greedy improvement. We present a simple greedy local search algorithm which achieves an approximation ratio of 2:414 + in ~ O(n 2 =) time. This also yields a bicriteria approximation tradeoff of (1 +; 1+ 2=) for facility cost versus service cost which is better than previously known tradeoffs and close to the best possible. Combining greedy improvement and cost scaling with a recent primal dual algorithm for facility location due to Jain and Vazirani, we get an approximation ratio of 1.853 in ~ O(n 3 ) time. This is already very close to the approximation guarantee of the best known algorithm which is LP-based. Further, combined with the best known LP-based algorithm for facility location, we get a very slight improvement in the approximation factor for facility location, achieving 1.728....

We present the first constant-factor approximation algorithm for the metric k-median problem. The k-median problem is one of the most well-studied clustering problems, i.e., those problems in which the aim is to partition a given set of points into clusters so that the points within a cluster are relatively close with respect to some measure. For the metric k-median problem, we are given n points in a metric space. We select k of these to be cluster centers, and then assign each point to its closest selected center. If point j is assigned to a center i, the cost incurred is proportional to the distance between i and j. The goal is to select the k centers that minimize the sum of the assignment costs. We give a 6 2 3-approximation algorithm for this problem. This improves upon the best previously known result of O(log k log log k), which was obtained by refining and derandomizing a randomized O(log n log log n)-approximation algorithm of Bartal. 1

We study cluster ng pr blems in the str aming model, wher e the goal is to cluster a set of points by making one pass (or a few passes) over the data using a small amount of storSD space.Our mainr esult is a r ndomized algor ithm for k--Median prE lem which p duces a constant factor appr oximation in one pass using storR4 space O(kpolylog n). This is a significant imp r vement of the prS ious best algor5 hm which yielded a 2 appr ximation using O(n )space.

Publishing data for analysis from a table containing personal records, while maintaining individual privacy, is a problem of increasing importance today. The traditional approach of de-identifying records is to remove identifying fields such as social security number, name etc. However, recent research has shown that a large fraction of the US population can be identified using non-key attributes (called quasi-identifiers) such as date of birth, gender, and zip code [15]. Sweeney [16] proposed the k-anonymity model for privacy where non-key attributes that leak information are suppressed or generalized so that, for every record in the modified table, there are at least k−1 other records having exactly the same values for quasi-identifiers. We propose a new method for anonymizing data records, where quasi-identifiers of data records are first clustered and then cluster centers are published. To ensure privacy of the data records, we impose the constraint

In the past few years, there has been significant progress in our understanding of the extent to which near-optimal solutions can be efficiently computed for NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems. This paper surveys these recent developments, while concentrating on the advances made in the design and analysis of approximation algorithms, and in particular, on those results that rely on linear programming and its generalizations.

We study the problem of clustering points in a metric space so as to minimize the sumof cluster diameters or the sum of cluster radii. Significantly improving on previous results, we present

This paper explores the problem of similarity criteria between nonrigid shapes. Broadly speaking, such criteria are divided into intrinsic and extrinsic, the first referring to the metric structure of the object and the latter to how it is laid out in the Euclidean space. Both criteria have their advantages and disadvantages: extrinsic similarity is sensitive to nonrigid deformations, while intrinsic similarity is sensitive to topological noise. In this paper, we approach the problem from the perspective of metric geometry. We show that by unifying the extrinsic and intrinsic similarity criteria, it is possible to obtain a stronger topology-invariant similarity, suitable for comparing deformed shapes with different topology. We construct this new joint criterion as a tradeoff between the extrinsic and intrinsic similarity and use it as a set-valued distance. Numerical results demonstrate the efficiency of our approach in cases where using either extrinsic or intrinsic criteria alone would fail.

In this paper we investigate the location of mobile facilities (in L1 and L2 metrics) under the motion of clients. In particular, we present lower bounds and efficient algorithms for exact and approximate maintenance of the 1-center and 1-median for a set of moving points in the plane. Our algorithms are based on the kinetic framework introduced by Basch et al. [6].