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Naonori Kakimura

Publications and source records attributed to Naonori Kakimura.

32 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Online Task Assignment Problems with Reusable Resources

We study online task assignment problem with reusable resources, motivated by practical applications such as ridesharing, crowdsourcing and job hiring. In the problem, we are given a set of offline vertices (agents), and, at each time, an online vertex (task) arrives randomly according to a known time-dependent distribution. Upon arrival, we assign the task to agents immediately and irrevocably. The goal of the problem is to maximize the expected total profit produced by completed tasks. The key features of our problem are (1) an agent is reusable, i.e., an agent comes back to the market after completing the assigned task, (2) an agent may reject the assigned task to stay the market, and (3) a task may accommodate multiple agents. The setting generalizes that of existing work in which an online task is assigned to one agent under (1). In this paper, we propose an online algorithm that is $1/2$-competitive for the above setting, which is tight. Moreover, when each agent can reject assigned tasks at most $Δ$ times, the algorithm is shown to have the competitive ratio $Δ/(3Δ-1)\geq 1/3$. We also evaluate our proposed algorithm with numerical experiments.

cs.DS↗

Monotone edge flips to an orientation of maximum edge-connectivity à la Nash-Williams

We initiate the study of $k$-edge-connected orientations of undirected graphs through edge flips for $k \geq 2$. We prove that in every orientation of an undirected $2k$-edge-connected graph, there exists a sequence of edges such that flipping their directions one by one does not decrease the edge-connectivity, and the final orientation is $k$-edge-connected. This yields an ``edge-flip based'' new proof of Nash-Williams' theorem: an undirected graph $G$ has a $k$-edge-connected orientation if and only if $G$ is $2k$-edge-connected. As another consequence of the theorem, we prove that the edge-flip graph of $k$-edge-connected orientations of an undirected graph $G$ is connected if $G$ is $(2k+2)$-edge-connected. This has been known to be true only when $k=1$.

math.CO↗

Dynamic Bipartite Matching Market with Arrivals and Departures

In this paper, we study a matching market model on a bipartite network where agents on each side arrive and depart stochastically by a Poisson process. For such a dynamic model, we design a mechanism that decides not only which agents to match, but also when to match them, to minimize the expected number of unmatched agents. The main contribution of this paper is to achieve theoretical bounds on the performance of local mechanisms with different timing properties. We show that an algorithm that waits to thicken the market, called the $\textit{Patient}$ algorithm, is exponentially better than the $\textit{Greedy}$ algorithm, i.e., an algorithm that matches agents greedily. This means that waiting has substantial benefits on maximizing a matching over a bipartite network. We remark that the Patient algorithm requires the planner to identify agents who are about to leave the market, and, under the requirement, the Patient algorithm is shown to be an optimal algorithm. We also show that, without the requirement, the Greedy algorithm is almost optimal. In addition, we consider the $\textit{1-sided algorithms}$ where only an agent on one side can attempt to match. This models a practical matching market such as a freight exchange market and a labor market where only agents on one side can make a decision. For this setting, we prove that the Greedy and Patient algorithms admit the same performance, that is, waiting to thicken the market is not valuable. This conclusion is in contrast to the case where agents on both sides can make a decision and the non-bipartite case by [Akbarpour et al.,$~\textit{Journal of Political Economy}$, 2020].

cs.DS↗

Near-Optimal Regret Bounds for Contextual Combinatorial Semi-Bandits with Linear Payoff Functions

The contextual combinatorial semi-bandit problem with linear payoff functions is a decision-making problem in which a learner chooses a set of arms with the feature vectors in each round under given constraints so as to maximize the sum of rewards of arms. Several existing algorithms have regret bounds that are optimal with respect to the number of rounds $T$. However, there is a gap of $\tilde{O}(\max(\sqrt{d}, \sqrt{k}))$ between the current best upper and lower bounds, where $d$ is the dimension of the feature vectors, $k$ is the number of the chosen arms in a round, and $\tilde{O}(\cdot)$ ignores the logarithmic factors. The dependence of $k$ and $d$ is of practical importance because $k$ may be larger than $T$ in real-world applications such as recommender systems. In this paper, we fill the gap by improving the upper and lower bounds. More precisely, we show that the C${}^2$UCB algorithm proposed by Qin, Chen, and Zhu (2014) has the optimal regret bound $\tilde{O}(d\sqrt{kT} + dk)$ for the partition matroid constraints. For general constraints, we propose an algorithm that modifies the reward estimates of arms in the C${}^2$UCB algorithm and demonstrate that it enjoys the optimal regret bound for a more general problem that can take into account other objectives simultaneously. We also show that our technique would be applicable to related problems. Numerical experiments support our theoretical results and considerations.

stat.ML↗

Market Pricing for Matroid Rank Valuations

In this paper, we study the problem of maximizing social welfare in combinatorial markets through pricing schemes. We consider the existence of prices that are capable to achieve optimal social welfare without a central tie-breaking coordinator. In the case of two buyers with rank valuations, we give polynomial-time algorithms that always find such prices when one of the matroids is a simple partition matroid or both matroids are strongly base orderable. This result partially answers a question raised by Düetting and Végh in 2017. We further formalize a weighted variant of the conjecture of Düetting and Végh, and show that the weighted variant can be reduced to the unweighted one based on the weight-splitting theorem for weighted matroid intersection by Frank. We also show that a similar reduction technique works for M${}^\natural$-concave functions, or equivalently, gross substitutes functions.

cs.GT↗

Approximability of Monotone Submodular Function Maximization under Cardinality and Matroid Constraints in the Streaming Model

Maximizing a monotone submodular function under various constraints is a classical and intensively studied problem. However, in the single-pass streaming model, where the elements arrive one by one and an algorithm can store only a small fraction of input elements, there is much gap in our knowledge, even though several approximation algorithms have been proposed in the literature. In this work, we present the first lower bound on the approximation ratios for cardinality and matroid constraints that beat $1-\frac{1}{e}$ in the single-pass streaming model. Let $n$ be the number of elements in the stream. Then, we prove that any (randomized) streaming algorithm for a cardinality constraint with approximation ratio $\frac{2}{2+\sqrt{2}}+\varepsilon$ requires $Ω\left(\frac{n}{K^2}\right)$ space for any $\varepsilon>0$, where $K$ is the size limit of the output set. We also prove that any (randomized) streaming algorithm for a (partition) matroid constraint with approximation ratio $\frac{K}{2K-1}+\varepsilon$ requires $Ω\left(\frac{n}{K}\right)$ space for any $\varepsilon>0$, where $K$ is the rank of the given matroid. In addition, we give streaming algorithms when we only have a weak oracle with which we can only evaluate function values on feasible sets. Specifically, we show weak-oracle streaming algorithms for cardinality and matroid constraints with approximation ratios $\frac{K}{2K-1}$ and $\frac{1}{2}$, respectively, whose space complexity is exponential in $K$ but is independent of $n$. The former one exactly matches the known inapproximability result for a cardinality constraint in the weak oracle model. The latter one almost matches our lower bound of $\frac{K}{2K-1}$ for a matroid constraint, which almost settles the approximation ratio for a matroid constraint that can be obtained by a streaming algorithm whose space complexity is independent of $n$.

cs.DS↗

Online Spectral Approximation in Random Order Streams

This paper studies spectral approximation for a positive semidefinite matrix in the online setting. It is known in [Cohen et al. APPROX 2016] that we can construct a spectral approximation of a given $n \times d$ matrix in the online setting if an additive error is allowed. In this paper, we propose an online algorithm that avoids an additive error with the same time and space complexities as the algorithm of Cohen et al., and provides a better upper bound on the approximation size when a given matrix has small rank. In addition, we consider the online random order setting where a row of a given matrix arrives uniformly at random. In this setting, we propose time and space efficient algorithms to find a spectral approximation. Moreover, we reveal that a lower bound on the approximation size in the online random order setting is $Ω(d ε^{-2} \log n)$, which is larger than the one in the offline setting by an $\mathrm{O}\left( \log n \right)$ factor.

math.NA↗

Shortest Reconfiguration of Perfect Matchings via Alternating Cycles

Motivated by adjacency in perfect matching polytopes, we study the shortest reconfiguration problem of perfect matchings via alternating cycles. Namely, we want to find a shortest sequence of perfect matchings which transforms one given perfect matching to another given perfect matching such that the symmetric difference of each pair of consecutive perfect matchings is a single cycle. The problem is equivalent to the combinatorial shortest path problem in perfect matching polytopes. We prove that the problem is NP-hard even when a given graph is planar or bipartite, but it can be solved in polynomial time when the graph is outerplanar.

cs.DS↗

Non-zero-sum Stackelberg Budget Allocation Game for Computational Advertising

Computational advertising has been studied to design efficient marketing strategies that maximize the number of acquired customers. In an increased competitive market, however, a market leader (a leader) requires the acquisition of new customers as well as the retention of her loyal customers because there often exists a competitor (a follower) who tries to attract customers away from the market leader. In this paper, we formalize a new model called the Stackelberg budget allocation game with a bipartite influence model by extending a budget allocation problem over a bipartite graph to a Stackelberg game. To find a strong Stackelberg equilibrium, a standard solution concept of the Stackelberg game, we propose two algorithms: an approximation algorithm with provable guarantees and an efficient heuristic algorithm. In addition, for a special case where customers are disjoint, we propose an exact algorithm based on linear programming. Our experiments using real-world datasets demonstrate that our algorithms outperform a baseline algorithm even when the follower is a powerful competitor.

cs.GT↗

Novel Dense Subgraph Discovery Primitives: Risk Aversion and Exclusion Queries

In the densest subgraph problem, given a weighted undirected graph $G(V,E,w)$, with non-negative edge weights, we are asked to find a subset of nodes $S\subseteq V$ that maximizes the degree density $w(S)/|S|$, where $w(S)$ is the sum of the edge weights induced by $S$. This problem is a well studied problem, known as the {\em densest subgraph problem}, and is solvable in polynomial time. But what happens when the edge weights are negative? Is the problem still solvable in polynomial time? Also, why should we care about the densest subgraph problem in the presence of negative weights? In this work we answer the aforementioned question. Specifically, we provide two novel graph mining primitives that are applicable to a wide variety of applications. Our primitives can be used to answer questions such as "how can we find a dense subgraph in Twitter with lots of replies and mentions but no follows?", "how do we extract a dense subgraph with high expected reward and low risk from an uncertain graph"? We formulate both problems mathematically as special instances of dense subgraph discovery in graphs with negative weights. We study the hardness of the problem, and we prove that the problem in general is NP-hard. We design an efficient approximation algorithm that works well in the presence of small negative weights, and also an effective heuristic for the more general case. Finally, we perform experiments on various real-world uncertain graphs, and a crawled Twitter multilayer graph that verify the value of the proposed primitives, and the practical value of our proposed algorithms. The code and the data are available at \url{https://github.com/negativedsd}.

cs.SI↗

Causal Bandits with Propagating Inference

Bandit is a framework for designing sequential experiments. In each experiment, a learner selects an arm $A \in \mathcal{A}$ and obtains an observation corresponding to $A$. Theoretically, the tight regret lower-bound for the general bandit is polynomial with respect to the number of arms $|\mathcal{A}|$. This makes bandit incapable of handling an exponentially large number of arms, hence the bandit problem with side-information is often considered to overcome this lower bound. Recently, a bandit framework over a causal graph was introduced, where the structure of the causal graph is available as side-information. A causal graph is a fundamental model that is frequently used with a variety of real problems. In this setting, the arms are identified with interventions on a given causal graph, and the effect of an intervention propagates throughout all over the causal graph. The task is to find the best intervention that maximizes the expected value on a target node. Existing algorithms for causal bandit overcame the $Ω(\sqrt{|\mathcal{A}|/T})$ simple-regret lower-bound; however, their algorithms work only when the interventions $\mathcal{A}$ are localized around a single node (i.e., an intervention propagates only to its neighbors). We propose a novel causal bandit algorithm for an arbitrary set of interventions, which can propagate throughout the causal graph. We also show that it achieves $O(\sqrt{ γ^*\log(|\mathcal{A}|T) / T})$ regret bound, where $γ^*$ is determined by using a causal graph structure. In particular, if the in-degree of the causal graph is bounded, then $γ^* = O(N^2)$, where $N$ is the number $N$ of nodes.

stat.ML↗

Multi-Pass Streaming Algorithms for Monotone Submodular Function Maximization

We consider maximizing a monotone submodular function under a cardinality constraint or a knapsack constraint in the streaming setting. In particular, the elements arrive sequentially and at any point of time, the algorithm has access to only a small fraction of the data stored in primary memory. We propose the following streaming algorithms taking $O(\varepsilon^{-1})$ passes: ----a $(1-e^{-1}-\varepsilon)$-approximation algorithm for the cardinality-constrained problem ---- a $(0.5-\varepsilon)$-approximation algorithm for the knapsack-constrained problem. Both of our algorithms run in $O^\ast(n)$ time, using $O^\ast(K)$ space, where $n$ is the size of the ground set and $K$ is the size of the knapsack. Here the term $O^\ast$ hides a polynomial of $\log K$ and $\varepsilon^{-1}$. Our streaming algorithms can also be used as fast approximation algorithms. In particular, for the cardinality-constrained problem, our algorithm takes $O(n\varepsilon^{-1} \log (\varepsilon^{-1}\log K) )$ time, improving on the algorithm of Badanidiyuru and Vondrák that takes $O(n \varepsilon^{-1} \log (\varepsilon^{-1} K) )$ time.

cs.DS↗

The $b$-branching problem in digraphs

In this paper, we introduce the concept of $b$-branchings in digraphs, which is a generalization of branchings serving as a counterpart of $b$-matchings. Here $b$ is a positive integer vector on the vertex set of a digraph, and a $b$-branching is defined as a common independent set of two matroids defined by $b$: an arc set is a $b$-branching if it has at most $b(v)$ arcs sharing the terminal vertex $v$, and it is an independent set of a certain sparsity matroid defined by $b$. We demonstrate that $b$-branchings yield an appropriate generalization of branchings by extending several classical results on branchings. We first present a multi-phase greedy algorithm for finding a maximum-weight $b$-branching. We then prove a packing theorem extending Edmonds' disjoint branchings theorem, and provide a strongly polynomial algorithm for finding optimal disjoint $b$-branchings. As a consequence of the packing theorem, we prove the integer decomposition property of the $b$-branching polytope. Finally, we deal with a further generalization in which a matroid constraint is imposed on the $b(v)$ arcs sharing the terminal vertex $v$.

cs.DM↗

Set Covering with Ordered Replacement -- Additive and Multiplicative Gaps

We consider set covering problems where the underlying set system satisfies a particular replacement property w.r.t. a given partial order on the elements: Whenever a set is in the set system then a set stemming from it via the replacement of an element by a smaller element is also in the set system. Many variants of BIN PACKING that have appeared in the literature are such set covering problems with ordered replacement. We provide a rigorous account on the additive and multiplicative integrality gap and approximability of set covering with replacement. In particular we provide a polylogarithmic upper bound on the additive integrality gap that also yields a polynomial time additive approximation algorithm if the linear programming relaxation can be efficiently solved. We furthermore present an extensive list of covering problems that fall into our framework and consequently have polylogarithmic additive gaps as well.

cs.DM↗