CMPUT 675 - Approximation Algorithms - Fall 2014

Instructor: Zachary Friggstad
Contact Information: Click Here
Lecture: MWF 1:00 - 1:50 pm, CSC B 41
Office Hours: 2:00 - 3:00 pm on Monday and Tuesday

Syllabus

Resources: There is no required textbook, but many lectures will cover topics from the following. It is available at the bookstore.


Scribe Notes

Template: .tex and .pdf

Schedule
Eventually, each student should provide notes for 3 lectures. You can sign up for a lecture at any time, but if you want to reserve your place in advance then pick an empty slot and send me an email. I will enter your name on the schedule.

WS = the Williamson and Shmoys textbook
LRS = the Lau, Ravi, and Singh text mentioned below
V = the Vazirani text mentioned below
AB = the Arora and Barak text mentioned below

Please point out any typos in the notes.

Date Topic Reference Scribe Notes
 Sep 3,5   Intro, Vertex Cover, Steiner Tree   WS - Chapter 1.1   Mohammad Salavatipour   Lectured by Mohammad Salavatipour 
 Sep 8   Steiner Tree, Traveling Salesman Problem, .tex   WS - Exercise 2.5, Chapter 2.4   Zac Friggstad 
 Sep 10   Traveling Salesman Problem, .tex   WS - Chapter 2.4   Antonio Carlos Salzvedel Furtado Junior 
 Sep 12   k-Centre and Set Cover, .tex   WS - Chapters 2.2, 1.6   Leah Hackman 
 Sep 15   Set Cover and Knapsack, .tex   WS - Chapters 1.6, 3.1   Bradley Hauer 
 Sep 17   Minimizing Makespan on Identical Parallel Machines, .tex   WS - Chapter 3.2   Chris Martin 
 Sep 19   Bin Packing Asymptotic PTAS, .tex   WS - Chapter 3.3   Yifeng Zhang 
 Sep 22   Linear Programming Introduction, .tex, figure   Zac Friggstad   See also LRS - Chapter 2.1. 
 Sep 24   Knapsack and MAX SAT, .tex   WS - Chapter 5.3   Nikos Fasarakis-Hilliard 
 Sep 26   MAX SAT and Random Variables, .tex   WS - Chapters 5.4, 5.5   Antonio Carlos Salzvedel Furtado Junior 
 Sep 29   Chernoff Bounds and Minimizing Congestion, .tex   WS - Chapters 5.10, 5.11   Bradley Hauer 
 Oct 1   Separation Oracles and Multicut (Part 1), .tex   WS - Chapter 8.3   Chris Martin 
 Oct 3   Multicut (Part 2), .tex   WS - Chapter 8.3   Leah Hackman 
 Oct 6,8   LP Duality and Facility Location, .tex   WS - Chapter 4.5   Zac Friggstad   See also V - Chapter 12 
 Oct 10   Multicut in Trees, .tex   V - Chapter 18   Nikos Fasarakis-Hilliard 
 Oct 15   Steiner Forest, .tex   WS - Chapter 7.4   Yifeng Zhang    
 Oct 17   Steiner Forest and k-Median, .tex   V - Chapters 7.4, 9.2   Nikos Fasarakis-Hilliard 
 Oct 20   k-Median, .tex   WS - Chapter 9.2   Zac Friggstad    
 Oct 22   Semidefinite Programming and Max Cut, .tex   WS - Chapter 6.1, 6.2   Zac Friggstad    
 Oct 24   Nearly-Tight Max Cut SDP Gap and Max 2SAT, .tex   V - Example 26.12, Ch. 26.5   Chris Martin    
 Oct 27   Colouring 3-Colourable Graphs, .tex   WS - Chapter 6.5   Bradley Hauer    
 Oct 29   Tree Metrics - Part I, .tex   WS - Chapter 8.5   Leah Hackman    
 Oct 31   Tree Metrics - Part II, .tex   WS - Chapter 8.5   Yifeng Zhang    
 Nov 3,5   Group Steiner Tree, .tex   GKR Paper   Zac Friggstad   We used simplifications from Rothvoss' Paper 
 Nov 7,12   k-MST and Prize-Collecting Steiner Tree, .tex   CRW Paper   Zac Friggstad   Also Exercise 14.1 and 14.2 in WS 
 Nov 14   Scheduling on Unrelated Machines, .tex   LRS - Section 3.2   Antonio Carlos Salzvedel Furtado Junior   A different proof is Section 11.1 of WS 
 Nov 17,19   Bounded Degree Spanning Trees, .tex   LRS - Section 4.4   Zac Friggstad   Also Section 11.2 in WS 
 Nov 21,24   Introduction to Hardness, .tex   V - Sections 29.1 to 29.3   Zac Friggstad   Also Chapter 16 of WS 
 Nov 26   Maximum Independent Set Hardness, .tex   V - Section 26.9   Zac Friggstad    
 Nov 28   Set Cover Hardness, .tex   WS - Sections 16.4   Zac Friggstad   Also Section 29.7 of V 
 Dec 1,3   HÃ¥stad's Max-2Lin(3) Hardness, .tex   AB - Section 26.9   Zac Friggstad    



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