arXiv subjects

Joshua Könen

Publications and source records attributed to Joshua Könen.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Parameterized Algorithms for the Drone Delivery Problem

Timely delivery and optimal routing remain fundamental challenges in the modern logistics industry. Building on prior work that considers single-package delivery across networks using multiple types of collaborative agents with restricted movement areas (e.g., drones or trucks), we examine the complexity of the problem under structural and operational constraints. Our focus is on minimizing total delivery time by coordinating agents that differ in speed and movement range across a graph. This problem formulation aligns with the recently proposed Drone Delivery Problem with respect to delivery time (DDT), introduced by Erlebach et al. [ISAAC 2022]. We first resolve an open question posed by Erlebach et al. [ISAAC 2022] by showing that even when the delivery network is a path graph, DDT admits no polynomial-time approximation within any polynomially encodable factor $a(n)$, unless P=NP. Additionally, we identify the intersection graph of the agents, where nodes represent agents and edges indicate an overlap of the movement areas of two agents, as an important structural concept. For path graphs, we show that DDT becomes tractable when parameterized by the treewidth $w$ of the intersection graph, and we present an exact FPT algorithm with running time $f(w)\cdot\text{poly}(n,k)$, for some computable function $f$. For general graphs, we give an FPT algorithm with running time $f(Δ,w)\cdot\text{poly}(n,k)$, where $Δ$ is the maximum degree of the intersection graph. In the special case where the intersection graph is a tree, we provide a simple polynomial-time algorithm.

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arXiv2025

Parameterized Algorithms for Computing Pareto Sets

Dynamic programming over tree decompositions is a common technique in parameterized algorithms. In this paper, we study whether this technique can also be applied to compute Pareto sets of multiobjective optimization problems. We first derive an algorithm to compute the Pareto set for the multicriteria s-t cut problem and show how this result can be applied to a polygon aggregation problem arising in cartography that has recently been introduced by Rottmann et al. (GIScience 2021). We also show how to apply these techniques to also compute the Pareto set of the multiobjective minimum spanning tree problem and for the multiobjective TSP. The running time of our algorithms is $O(f(w)\cdot\mathrm{poly}(n,p_{\text{max}}))$, where $f$ is some function in the treewidth $w$, $n$ is the input size, and $p_{\text{max}}$ is an upper bound on the size of the Pareto sets of the subproblems that occur in the dynamic program. Finally, we present an experimental evaluation of computing Pareto sets on real-world instances of polygon aggregation problems. For this matter we devised a task-specific data structure that allows for efficient storage and modification of large sets of Pareto-optimal solutions. Throughout the implementation process, we incorporated several improved strategies and heuristics that significantly reduced both runtime and memory usage, enabling us to solve instances with treewidth of up to 22 within reasonable amount of time. Moreover, we conducted a preprocessing study to compare different tree decompositions in terms of their estimated overall runtime.

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arXiv2024

Local Search k-means++ with Foresight

Since its introduction in 1957, Lloyd's algorithm for $k$-means clustering has been extensively studied and has undergone several improvements. While in its original form it does not guarantee any approximation factor at all, Arthur and Vassilvitskii (SODA 2007) proposed $k$-means++ which enhances Lloyd's algorithm by a seeding method which guarantees a $\mathcal{O}(\log k)$-approximation in expectation. More recently, Lattanzi and Sohler (ICML 2019) proposed LS++ which further improves the solution quality of $k$-means++ by local search techniques to obtain a $\mathcal{O}(1)$-approximation. On the practical side, the greedy variant of $k$-means++ is often used although its worst-case behaviour is provably worse than for the standard $k$-means++ variant. We investigate how to improve LS++ further in practice. We study two options for improving the practical performance: (a) Combining LS++ with greedy $k$-means++ instead of $k$-means++, and (b) Improving LS++ by better entangling it with Lloyd's algorithm. Option (a) worsens the theoretical guarantees of $k$-means++ but improves the practical quality also in combination with LS++ as we confirm in our experiments. Option (b) is our new algorithm, Foresight LS++. We experimentally show that FLS++ improves upon the solution quality of LS++. It retains its asymptotic runtime and its worst-case approximation bounds.

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arXiv2023

Clustering Graphs of Bounded Treewidth to Minimize the Sum of Radius-Dependent Costs

We consider the following natural problem that generalizes min-sum-radii clustering: Given is $k\in\mathbb{N}$ as well as some metric space $(V,d)$ where $V=F\cup C$ for facilities $F$ and clients $C$. The goal is to find a clustering given by $k$ facility-radius pairs $(f_1,r_1),\dots,(f_k,r_k)\in F\times\mathbb{R}_{\geq 0}$ such that $C\subseteq B(f_1,r_1)\cup\dots\cup B(f_k,r_k)$ and $\sum_{i=1,\dots,k} g(r_i)$ is minimized for some increasing function $g:\mathbb{R}_{\geq 0}\rightarrow\mathbb{R}_{\geq 0}$. Here, $B(x,r)$ is the radius-$r$ ball centered at $x$. For the case that $(V,d)$ is the shortest-path metric of some edge-weighted graph of bounded treewidth, we present a dynamic program that is tailored to this class of problems and achieves a polynomial running time, establishing that the problem is in $\mathsf{XP}$ with parameter treewidth.

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