Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2506.09004

Improving Online Bin Covering with Little Advice

Andrej Brodnik·Bengt J. Nilsson·Gordana Vujović
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

The online bin covering problem is: given an input sequence of items find a placement of the items in the maximum number of bins such that the sum of the items' sizes in each bin is at least~1. Boyar~{\em et~al}.\@~\cite{boyar2021} present a strategy that with $O(\log \log n)$ bits of advice, where $n$ is the length of the input sequence, achieves a competitive ratio of $8/15\approx0.5333\ldots$. We show that with a strengthened analysis and some minor improvements, the same strategy achieves the significantly improved competitive ratio of~$135/242\approx0.5578\ldots$, still using $O(\log \log n)$ bits of advice.

Explore related subjects

cs.DS

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Andrej Brodnik, Bengt J. Nilsson, Gordana Vujović. 2025-06-10. Improving Online Bin Covering with Little Advice. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-63021-7_6

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Quasi-Monte Carlo Beyond Hardy-Krause II: $(1 + \varepsilon)n$ Samples Suffice

Numerical integration studies how well one can estimate the integral of a function $f$ over $[0,1)^d$ using $n$ sample points. The two classical methods, Monte Carlo (MC) and quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC), have complementary strengths and weaknesses, and a fundamental question is to design an approach that combines the benefits of both. Recently, building on the transference principle in discrepancy theory, Bansal and Jiang~\cite{BJ25a} gave a randomized QMC method that bridges MC and QMC guarantees using only i.i.d.\ samples. Their method also goes beyond the classical Koksma--Hlawka inequality: it achieves integration error $\widetilde{O}_d(\sigma_{\mathsf{SO}}(f)/n)$, where the smoothed-out variation $\sigma_{\mathsf{SO}}(f)$ can be substantially smaller than the Hardy--Krause variation that governs the classical bound. However, their algorithm requires $n^2$ i.i.d.\ samples as input, and this quadratic blowup is inherent to any method based on the transference principle. In this work, we bypass the quadratic blowup: for any constant $\varepsilon > 0$, we show that $(1+\varepsilon)n$ i.i.d.\ samples suffice to both obtain the beyond-Hardy--Krause guarantee of~\cite{BJ25a}, resolving an open problem posed there, and to produce low-discrepancy point sequences. Our algorithms are variants of the online Haar-thinning method of Dwivedi, Feldheim, Gurel-Gurevich, and Ramdas~\cite{DFG+19}.

cs.DS↗
arXiv2026

Single-Exponential Algorithms and a Polynomial Kernel for Strong Connectivity Augmentation

Strong Connectivity Augmentation (SCA) asks whether a directed acyclic graph can be made strongly connected by adding at most $k$ prescribed links whose total weight is within a given budget. Klinkby, Misra, and Saurabh (SODA 2021) gave an $O^*(2^{O(k\log k)})$-time algorithm and asked whether the problem admits a single-exponential parameterized algorithm and a polynomial kernel. We answer both questions affirmatively: SCA can be solved in $O^*(9^k)$ time and admits a polynomial kernel with $O(k^4)$ vertices and $O(k^{16})$ bits. For unweighted SCA, we obtain $O^*(4^k)$ time and a kernel with $O(k^3)$ vertices. Our algorithms are based on a particularly simple reduction to Strongly Connected Spanning Subgraph with two edge costs.

cs.DS↗