Frans Schalekamp

Algorithms for the universal and a priori TSP

We present two simple results for generalizations of the traveling salesman problem (TSP): for the universal TSP, we show that one can compute a tour that is universally optimal whenever the input is a tree metric. A (randomized) O(logn)-approximation algorithm for the a priori TSP follows as a corollary.

Layers and matroids for the traveling salesman’s paths

Abstract Gottschalk and Vygen proved that every solution of the subtour elimination linear program for traveling salesman paths is a convex combination of more and more restrictive “generalized Gao-trees”. We give a short proof of this fact, as a layered convex combination of bases of a sequence of increasingly restrictive matroids. A strongly polynomial, combinatorial algorithm follows for finding this convex combination, which is a new tool offering polyhedral insight, already instrumental in recent results for the s − t path TSP.

A Duality Based 2-Approximation Algorithm for Maximum Agreement Forest

We give a 2-approximation algorithm for the Maximum Agreement Forest problem on two rooted binary trees. This NP-hard problem has been studied extensively in the past two decades, since it can be used to compute the Subtree Prune-and-Regraft (SPR) distance between two phylogenetic trees. Our result improves on the very recent 2.5-approximation algorithm due to Shi, Feng, You and Wang (2015). Our algorithm is the first approximation algorithm for this problem that uses LP duality in its analysis.

On the integrality gap of the subtour LP for the 1,2-TSP

In this paper, we study the integrality gap of the subtour LP relaxation for the traveling salesman problem in the special case when all edge costs are either 1 or 2. For the general case of symmetric costs that obey triangle inequality, a famous conjecture is that the integrality gap is 4/3. Little progress towards resolving this conjecture has been made in thirty years. We conjecture that when all edge costs cij∈{1,2}, the integrality gap is 10/9. We show that this conjecture is true when the optimal subtour LP solution has a certain structure. Under a weaker assumption, which is an analog of a recent conjecture by Schalekamp, Williamson and van Zuylen, we show that the integrality gap is at most 7/6. When we do not make any assumptions on the structure of the optimal subtour LP solution, we can show that inegrality gap is at most 19/15≈1.267<4/3; this is the first bound on the integrality gap of the subtour LP strictly less than 4/3 known for an interesting special case of the TSP.

Minimizing worst-case and average-case makespan over scenarios

We consider scheduling problems over scenarios where the goal is to find a single assignment of the jobs to the machines which performs well over all scenarios in an explicitly given set. Each scenario is a subset of jobs that must be executed in that scenario. The two objectives that we consider are minimizing the maximum makespan over all scenarios and minimizing the sum of the makespans of all scenarios. For both versions, we give several approximation algorithms and lower bounds on their approximability. We also consider some (easier) special cases. Combinatorial optimization problems under scenarios in general, and scheduling problems under scenarios in particular, have seen only limited research attention so far. With this paper, we make a step in this interesting research direction.

A tight upper bound on the number of cyclically adjacent transpositions to sort a permutation

We consider the problem of upper bounding the number of cyclically adjacent transpositions needed to sort a permutation. It is well known that any permutation can be sorted using at most n ( n - 1 ) 2 adjacent transpositions. We show that, if we allow all adjacent transpositions, as well as the transposition that interchanges the element in position 1 with the element in the last position, then the number of transpositions needed is at most ź n 2 4 ź . Upper bound on number of cyclically adjacent transpositions needed to sort a permutation of length n of ź n 2 4 ź .This upper bound matches the known lower bound.Answers open question in Feng, Chitturi and Sudborough 4.Relevant quantity in the design of interconnection networks, and the evolutionary history of the genome.