In the Maximum Independent Set of Hyperrectangles problem, we are given a set of $n$ (possibly overlapping) $d$-dimensional axis-aligned hyperrectangles, and the goal is to find a subset of non-overlapping hyperrectangles of maximum cardinality. For $d=1$, this corresponds to the classical Interval Scheduling problem, where a simple greedy algorithm returns an optimal solution. In the offline setting, for $d$-dimensional hyperrectangles, polynomial time $(\log n)^{O(d)}$-approximation algorithms are known. However, the problem becomes notably challenging in the online setting, where the input objects (hyperrectangles) appear one by one in an adversarial order, and on the arrival of an object, the algorithm needs to make an immediate and irrevocable decision whether or not to select the object while maintaining the feasibility. Even for interval scheduling, an $Ω(n)$ lower bound is known on the competitive ratio.
To circumvent these negative results, in this work, we study the online maximum independent set of axis-aligned hyperrectangles in the random-order arrival model, where the adversary specifies the set of input objects which then arrive in a uniformly random order. Starting from the prototypical secretary problem, the random-order model has received significant attention to study algorithms beyond the worst-case competitive analysis. Surprisingly, we show that the problem in the random-order model almost matches the best-known offline approximation guarantees, up to polylogarithmic factors. In particular, we give a simple $(\log n)^{O(d)}$-competitive algorithm for $d$-dimensional hyperrectangles in this model, which runs in $\tilde{O_d}(n)$ time. Our approach also yields $(\log n)^{O(d)}$-competitive algorithms in the random-order model for more general objects such as $d$-dimensional fat objects and ellipsoids. Furthermore, our guarantees hold with high probability.
Independent set is a fundamental problem in combinatorial optimization. While in general graphs the problem is essentially inapproximable, for many important graph classes there are approximation algorithms known in the offline setting. These graph classes include interval graphs and geometric intersection graphs, where vertices correspond to intervals/geometric objects and an edge indicates that the two corresponding objects intersect. We present dynamic approximation algorithms for independent set of intervals, hypercubes and hyperrectangles in $d$ dimensions. They work in the fully dynamic …
Set cover and hitting set are fundamental problems in combinatorial optimization which are well-studied in the offline, online, and dynamic settings. We study the geometric versions of these problems and present new online and dynamic algorithms for them. In the online version of set cover (resp. hitting set), $m$ sets (resp.~$n$ points) are give $n$ points (resp.~$m$ sets) arrive online, one-by-one. In the dynamic versions, points (resp. sets) can arrive as well as depart. Our goal is to maintain a set cover (resp. hitting set), minimizing the size of the computed solution. For online set cov…
Kierstead and Trotter (Congressus Numerantium 33, 1981) proved that their algorithm is an optimal online algorithm for the online interval coloring problem. In this paper, for online unit interval coloring, we show that the number of colors used by the Kierstead-Trotter algorithm is at most $3 ω(G) - 3$, where $ω(G)$ is the size of the maximum clique in a given graph $G$, and it is the best possible.
We study the online preemptive scheduling of intervals and jobs (with restarts). Each interval or job has an arrival time, a deadline, a length and a weight. The objective is to maximize the total weight of completed intervals or jobs. While the deterministic case for intervals was settled a long time ago, the randomized case remains open. In this paper we first give a 2-competitive randomized algorithm for the case of equal length intervals. The algorithm is barely random in the sense that it randomly chooses between two deterministic algorithms at the beginning and then sticks with it therea…
We study the online maximum coverage problem on a line, in which, given an online sequence of sub-intervals (which may intersect among each other) of a target large interval and an integer $k$, we aim to select at most $k$ of the sub-intervals such that the total covered length of the target interval is maximized. The decision to accept or reject each sub-interval is made immediately and irrevocably (no preemption) right at the release timestamp of the sub-interval. We comprehensively study different settings of this problem regarding both the length of a released sub-interval and the total nu…
The increase in the world's population and rising standards of living is leading to an ever-increasing number of vehicles on the roads, and with it ever-increasing difficulties in traffic management. This traffic management in transport networks can be clearly optimized by using information and communication technologies referred as Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). This management problem is usually reformulated as finding the shortest path in a time varying random graph. In this article, an online shortest path computation using stochastic gradient descent is proposed. This routing algori…
We consider an online vector balancing question where $T$ vectors, chosen from an arbitrary distribution over $[-1,1]^n$, arrive one-by-one and must be immediately given a $\pm$ sign. The goal is to keep the discrepancy small as possible. A concrete example is the online interval discrepancy problem where T points are sampled uniformly in [0,1], and the goal is to immediately color them $\pm$ such that every sub-interval remains nearly balanced. As random coloring incurs $Ω(T^{1/2})$ discrepancy, while the offline bounds are $Θ(\sqrt{n \log (T/n)})$ for vector balancing and $1$ for interval ba…
The interval scheduling problem is one variant of the scheduling problem. In this paper, we propose a novel variant of the interval scheduling problem, whose definition is as follows: given jobs are specified by their {\em release times}, {\em deadlines} and {\em profits}. An algorithm must start a job at its release time on one of $m$ identical machines, and continue processing until its deadline on the machine to complete the job. All the jobs must be completed and the algorithm can obtain the profit of a completed job as a user's satisfaction. It is possible to process more than one job at …
We consider the dynamic graph coloring problem restricted to the class of interval graphs. At each update step the algorithm is presented with an interval to be colored, or a previously colored interval to delete. The goal of the algorithm is to efficiently maintain a proper coloring of the intervals with as few colors as possible by an online algorithm. In the incremental model, each update step presents the algorithm with an interval to be colored. The problem is closely connected to the online vertex coloring problem of interval graphs for which the Kierstead-Trotter (KT) algorithm achieves…
University of Pennsylvania（宾夕法尼亚大学）；Rice University（莱斯大学）
We present a general, efficient technique for providing contextual predictions that are "multivalid" in various senses, against an online sequence of adversarially chosen examples $(x,y)$. This means that the resulting estimates correctly predict various statistics of the labels $y$ not just marginally -- as averaged over the sequence of examples -- but also conditionally on $x \in G$ for any $G$ belonging to an arbitrary intersecting collection of groups $\mathcal{G}$. We provide three instantiations of this framework. The first is mean prediction, which corresponds to an online algorithm sat…
Consider a unit interval $[0,1]$ in which $n$ points arrive one-by-one independently and uniformly at random. On arrival of a point, the problem is to immediately and irrevocably color it in $\{+1,-1\}$ while ensuring that every interval $[a,b] \subseteq [0,1]$ is nearly-balanced. We define \emph{discrepancy} as the largest imbalance of any interval during the entire process. If all the arriving points were known upfront then we can color them alternately to achieve a discrepancy of $1$. What is the minimum possible expected discrepancy when we color the points online? We show that the discrep…
In this paper we propose a new method called ND-Tree-based update (or shortly ND-Tree) for the dynamic non-dominance problem, i.e. the problem of online update of a Pareto archive composed of mutually non-dominated points. It uses a new ND-Tree data structure in which each node represents a subset of points contained in a hyperrectangle defined by its local approximate ideal and nadir points. By building subsets containing points located close in the objective space and using basic properties of the local ideal and nadir points we can efficiently avoid searching many branches in the tree. ND-T…
We consider the discrepancy problem of coloring $n$ intervals with $k$ colors such that at each point on the line, the maximal difference between the number of intervals of any two colors is minimal. Somewhat surprisingly, a coloring with maximal difference at most one always exists. Furthermore, we give an algorithm with running time $O(n \log n + kn \log k)$ for its construction. This is in particular interesting because many known results for discrepancy problems are non-constructive. This problem naturally models a load balancing scenario, where $n$ tasks with given start- and endtimes hav…
Though competitive analysis has been a very useful performance measure for the quality of online algorithms, it is recognized that it sometimes fails to distinguish between algorithms of different quality in practice. A number of alternative measures have been proposed, but, with a few exceptions, these have generally been applied only to the online problem they were developed in connection with. Recently, a systematic study of performance measures for online algorithms was initiated [Boyar, Irani, Larsen: Eleventh International Algorithms and Data Structures Symposium 2009], first focusing on…
This paper presents scheduling algorithms for procrastinators, where the speed that a procrastinator executes a job increases as the due date approaches. We give optimal off-line scheduling policies for linearly increasing speed functions. We then explain the computational/numerical issues involved in implementing this policy. We next explore the online setting, showing that there exist adversaries that force any online scheduling policy to miss due dates. This impossibility result motivates the problem of minimizing the maximum interval stretch of any job; the interval stretch of a job is the…
We study streaming algorithms for the interval selection problem: finding a maximum cardinality subset of disjoint intervals on the line. A deterministic 2-approximation streaming algorithm for this problem is developed, together with an algorithm for the special case of proper intervals, achieving improved approximation ratio of 3/2. We complement these upper bounds by proving that they are essentially best possible in the streaming setting: it is shown that an approximation ratio of $2 - ε$ (or $3 / 2 - ε$ for proper intervals) cannot be achieved unless the space is linear in the input size.…
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem（耶路撒冷希伯来大学）；Google Research（谷歌研究院）；Tel Aviv University（特拉维夫大学）
We consider online algorithms under both the competitive ratio criteria and the regret minimization one. Our main goal is to build a unified methodology that would be able to guarantee both criteria simultaneously. For a general class of online algorithms, namely any Metrical Task System (MTS), we show that one can simultaneously guarantee the best known competitive ratio and a natural regret bound. For the paging problem we further show an efficient online algorithm (polynomial in the number of pages) with this guarantee. To this end, we extend an existing regret minimization algorithm (speci…
We study the problem of making calibrated probabilistic forecasts for a binary sequence generated by an adversarial nature. Following the seminal paper of Foster and Vohra (1998), nature is often modeled as an adaptive adversary who sees all activity of the forecaster except the randomization that the forecaster may deploy. A number of papers have proposed randomized forecasting strategies that achieve an $ε$-calibration error rate of $O(1/\sqrt{T})$, which we prove is tight in general. On the other hand, it is well known that it is not possible to be calibrated without randomization, or if na…
We consider a generalization of the secretary problem where contracts are temporary, and for a fixed duration. This models online hiring of temporary employees, or online auctions for re-usable resources. The problem is related to the question of Finding a large independent set in a random unit interval graph.
In this paper, we strengthen the competitive analysis results obtained for a fundamental online streaming problem, the Frequent Items Problem. Additionally, we contribute with a more detailed analysis of this problem, using alternative performance measures, supplementing the insight gained from competitive analysis. The results also contribute to the general study of performance measures for online algorithms. It has long been known that competitive analysis suffers from drawbacks in certain situations, and many alternative measures have been proposed. However, more systematic comparative stud…
Many types of dynamic networks are made up of durable entities whose links evolve over time. When considered from a {\em global} and {\em discrete} standpoint, these networks are often modelled as evolving graphs, i.e. a sequence of graphs ${\cal G}=(G_1,G_2,...,G_δ)$ such that $G_i=(V,E_i)$ represents the network topology at time step $i$. Such a sequence is said to be $T$-interval connected if for any $t\in [1, δ-T+1]$ all graphs in $\{G_t,G_{t+1},...,G_{t+T-1}\}$ share a common connected spanning subgraph. In this paper, we consider the problem of deciding whether a given sequence ${\cal G}…
We provide approximation algorithms for two problems, known as NECKLACE SPLITTING and $ε$-CONSENSUS SPLITTING. In the problem $ε$-CONSENSUS SPLITTING, there are $n$ non-atomic probability measures on the interval $[0, 1]$ and $k$ agents. The goal is to divide the interval, via at most $n (k-1)$ cuts, into pieces and distribute them to the $k$ agents in an approximately equitable way, so that the discrepancy between the shares of any two agents, according to each measure, is at most $2 ε/ k$. It is known that this is possible even for $ε= 0$. NECKLACE SPLITTING is a discrete version of $ε$-CONS…
The Weighted Tree Augmentation problem (WTAP) is a fundamental problem in network design. In this paper, we consider this problem in the online setting. We are given an $n$-vertex spanning tree $T$ and an additional set $L$ of edges (called links) with costs. Then, terminal pairs arrive one-by-one and our task is to maintain a low-cost subset of links $F$ such that every terminal pair that has arrived so far is $2$-edge-connected in $T \cup F$. This online problem was first studied by Gupta, Krishnaswamy and Ravi (SICOMP 2012) who used it as a subroutine for the online survivable network desig…
In Cloud systems, we often deal with jobs that arrive and depart in an online manner. Upon its arrival, a job should be assigned to a server. Each job has a size which defines the amount of resources that it needs. Servers have uniform capacity and, at all times, the total size of jobs assigned to a server should not exceed the capacity. This setting is closely related to the classic bin packing problem. The difference is that, in bin packing, the objective is to minimize the total number of used servers. In the Cloud, however, the charge for each server is proportional to the length of the ti…
The problem of online packet scheduling to minimize the required conventional grid energy for transmitting a fixed number of packets given a common deadline is considered. The total number of packets arriving within the deadline is known, but the packet arrival times are unknown, and can be arbitrary. The proposed algorithm tries to finish the transmission of each packet assuming all future packets are going to arrive at equal time intervals within the left-over time. The proposed online algorithm is shown to have competitive ratio that is logarithmic in the number of packet arrivals. The hybr…
Microsoft Research India（微软研究院印度）；University of Minnesota（明尼苏达大学）；Stanford University（斯坦福大学）
A natural optimization model that formulates many online resource allocation and revenue management problems is the online linear program (LP) in which the constraint matrix is revealed column by column along with the corresponding objective coefficient. In such a model, a decision variable has to be set each time a column is revealed without observing the future inputs and the goal is to maximize the overall objective function. In this paper, we provide a near-optimal algorithm for this general class of online problems under the assumption of random order of arrival and some mild conditions o…
A classical problem in power systems is to allocate in-coming (elastic or inelastic) demands without violating the operating constraints of electric networks in an online fashion. Although online decision problems have been well-studied in the literature, a unique challenge arising in power systems is the presence of non-linear constraints, a departure from the traditional settings. A particular example is the capacity constraint of apparent power, which gives rise to a quadratic constraint, rather than typical linear constraints. In this paper, we present a competitive randomized online algor…
Consider a storage area where arriving items are stored temporarily in bounded capacity stacks until their departure. We look into the problem of deciding where to put an arriving item with the objective of minimizing the maximum number of stacks used over time. The decision has to be made as soon as an item arrives, and we assume that we only have information on the departure times for the arriving item and the items currently at the storage area. We are only allowed to put an item on top of another item if the item below departs at a later time. We refer to this problem as online stacking. W…
We prove new lower bounds for suitable competitive ratio measures of two relaxed online packing problems: online removable multiple knapsack, and a recently introduced online minimum peak appointment scheduling problem. The high level objective in both problems is to pack arriving items of sizes at most 1 into bins of capacity 1 as efficiently as possible, but the exact formalizations differ. In the appointment scheduling problem, every item has to be assigned to a position, which can be seen as a time interval during a workday of length 1. That is, items are not assigned to bins, but only onc…
