The Maximum Weight Independent Set of Polygons problem is a fundamental problem in computational geometry. Given a set of weighted polygons in the 2-dimensional plane, the goal is to find a set of pairwise non-overlapping polygons with maximum total weight. Due to its wide range of applications, the MWISP problem and its special cases have been extensively studied both in the approximation algorithms and the computational geometry community. Despite a lot of research, its general case is not well-understood. Currently the best known polynomial time algorithm achieves an approximation ratio of n^(epsilon) [Fox and Pach, SODA 2011], and it is not even clear whether the problem is APX-hard. We present a (1+epsilon)-approximation algorithm, assuming that each polygon in the input has at most a polylogarithmic number of vertices. Our algorithm has quasi-polynomial running time. We use a recently introduced framework for approximating maximum weight independent set in geometric intersection graphs. The framework has been used to construct a QPTAS in the much simpler case of axis-parallel rectangles. We extend it in two ways, to adapt it to our much more general setting. First, we show that its technical core can be reduced to the case when all input polygons are triangles. Secondly, we replace its key technical ingredient which is a method to partition the plane using only few edges such that the objects stemming from the optimal solution are evenly distributed among the resulting faces and each object is intersected only a few times. Our new procedure for this task is not more complex than the original one, and it can handle the arising difficulties due to the arbitrary angles of the polygons. Note that already this obstacle makes the known analysis for the above framework fail. Also, in general it is not well understood how to handle this difficulty by efficient approximation algorithms.
There is a lot of research on the maximum independent set problem for geometric shapes in the plane. For the case when all shapes are unit disks (i.e., the resulting intersection graph is a unit disk graph), polynomial time approximation schemes have been presented by Hunt @cite_10 , and by Hochbaum and Maass @cite_0 . Subsequently, Nieberg, Hurink, and Kern @cite_1 presented a PTAS that does not even need the geometric representation of the graph. Observe here that it is @math -hard to decide whether a given graph is a unit disk graph @cite_11 . Using the geometric embedding, Erlebach, Jansen, and Seidel presented a PTAS for disks with arbitrary diameters, which generalizes to arbitrary fat objects @cite_3 .
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A disk graph is the intersection graph of a set of disks with arbitrary diameters in the plane. For the case that the disk representation is given, we present polynomial-time approximation schemes (PTASs) for the maximum weight independent set problem (selecting disjoint disks of maximum total weight) and for the minimum weight vertex cover problem in disk graphs. These are the first known PTASs for @math -hard optimization problems on disk graphs. They are based on a novel recursive subdivision of the plane that allows applying a shifting strategy on different levels simultaneously, so that a dynamic programming approach becomes feasible. The PTASs for disk graphs represent a common generalization of previous results for planar graphs and unit disk graphs. They can be extended to intersection graphs of other "disk-like" geometric objects (such as squares or regular polygons), also in higher dimensions. An EPTAS (efficient PTAS) is an approximation scheme where e does not appear in the exponent of n, i.e., the running time is f(e)nc. We use parameterized complexity to investigate the possibility of improving the known approximation schemes for certain geometric problems to EPTAS. Answering an open question of Alber and Fiala [2], we show that Maximum Independent Set is W[1]-complete for the intersection graphs of unit disks and axis-parallel unit squares in the plane. A standard consequence of this result is that the @math time PTAS of [11] for Maximum Independent Set on unit disk graphs cannot be improved to an EPTAS. Similar results are obtained for the problem of covering points with squares. A unit disk graph is the intersection graph of unit disks in the euclidean plane. We present a polynomial-time approximation scheme for the maximum weight independent set problem in unit disk graphs. In contrast to previously known approximation schemes, our approach does not require a geometric representation (specifying the coordinates of the disk centers). The approximation algorithm presented is robust in the sense that it accepts any graph as input and either returns a (1+e)-approximate independent set or a certificate showing that the input graph is no unit disk graph. The algorithm can easily be extended to other families of intersection graphs of geometric objects. We present NC-approximation schemes for a number of graph problems when restricted to geometric graphs including unit disk graphs and graphs drawn in a civilized manner. Our approximation schemes exhibit the same time versus performance trade-off as the best known approximation schemes for planar graphs. We also define the concept of ?-precision unit disk graphs and show that for such graphs the approximation schemes have a better time versus performance trade-off than the approximation schemes for arbitrary unit disk graphs. Moreover, compared to unit disk graphs, we show that for ?-precision unit disk graphs many more graph problems have efficient approximation schemes.Our NC-approximation schemes can also be extended to obtain efficient NC-approximation schemes for several PSPACE-hard problems on unit disk graphs specified using a restricted version of the hierarchical specification language of Bentley, Ottmann, and Widmayer. The approximation schemes for hierarchically specified unit disk graphs presented in this paper are among the first approximation schemes in the literature for natural PSPACE-hard optimization problems. Unit disk graphs are the intersection graphs of equal sized circles in the plane: they provide a graph-theoretic model for broadcast networks (cellular networks) and for some problems in computational geometry. We show that many standard graph theoretic problems remain NP-complete on unit disk graphs, including coloring, independent set, domination, independent domination, and connected domination; NP-completeness for the domination problem is shown to hold even for grid graphs, a subclass of unit disk graphs. In contrast, we give a polynomial time algorithm for finding cliques when the geometric representation (circles in the plane) is provided. The MAXIMUM INDEPENDENT SET problem in d-box graphs, i.e., in the intersection graphs of axis-parallel rectangles in Rd, is a challenge open problem. For any fixed d ≥ 2 the problem is NP-hard and no approximation algorithm with ratio o(logd-1 n) is known. In some restricted cases, e.g., for d-boxes with bounded aspect ratio, a PTAS exists [17]. In this paper we prove APX-hardness (and hence non-existence of a PTAS, unless P = NP), of the MAXIMUM INDEPENDENT SET problem in d-box graphs for any fixed d ≥ 3. We state also first explicit lower bound 443 442 on efficient approximability in such case. Additionally, we provide a generic method how to prove APX-hardness for many NP-hard graph optimization problems in d-box graphs for any fixed d ≥ 3. In 2-dimensional case we give a generic approach to NP-hardness results for these problems in highly restricted intersection graphs of axis-parallel unit squares (alternatively, in unit disk graphs). Unit disk graphs are the intersection graphs of unit diameter closed disks in the plane. This paper reduces SATISFIABILITY to the problem of recognizing unit disk graphs. Equivalently, it shows that determining if a graph has sphericity 2 or less, even if the graph is planar or is known to have sphericity at most 3, is NP-hard. We show how this reduction can be extended to 3 dimensions, thereby showing that unit sphere graph recognition, or determining if a graph has sphericity 3 or less, is also NP-hard. We conjecture that K-sphericity is NP-hard for all fixed K greater than 1. We consider the problem of computing minimum geometric hitting sets in which, given a set of geometric objects and a set of points, the goal is to compute the smallest subset of points that hit all geometric objects. The problem is known to be strongly NP-hard even for simple geometric objects like unit disks in the plane. Therefore, unless P = NP, it is not possible to get Fully Polynomial Time Approximation Algorithms (FPTAS) for such problems. We give the first PTAS for this problem when the geometric objects are half-spaces in ℝ3 and when they are an r-admissible set regions in the plane (this includes pseudo-disks as they are 2-admissible). Quite surprisingly, our algorithm is a very simple local-search algorithm which iterates over local improvements only. We consider the problem of computing minimum geometric hitting sets in which, given a set of geometric objects and a set of points, the goal is to compute the smallest subset of points that hit all geometric objects. The problem is known to be strongly NP-hard even for simple geometric objects like unit disks in the plane. Therefore, unless P=NP, it is not possible to get Fully Polynomial Time Approximation Algorithms (FPTAS) for such problems. We give the first PTAS for this problem when the geometric objects are half-spaces in Re3 and when they are an r-admissible set regions in the plane (this includes pseudo-disks as they are 2-admissible). Quite surprisingly, our algorithm is a very simple local search algorithm which iterates over local improvements only. We study the following problem: given a geometric graph G and an integer k, determine if G has a planar spanning subgraph (with the original embedding and straight-line edges) such that all nodes have degree at least k. If G is a unit disk graph, the problem is trivial to solve for k = 1. We show that even the slightest deviation from the trivial case (e.g., quasi unit disk graphs or k = 2) leads to NP-hard problems. In this paper we study a model for ad-hoc networks close enough to reality as to represent existing networks, being at the same time concise enough to promote strong theoretical results. The Quasi Unit Disk Graph model contains all edges shorter than a parameter d between 0 and 1 and no edges longer than 1.We show that .in comparison to the cost known on Unit Disk Graphs .the complexity results in this model contain the additional factor 1 d2. We prove that in Quasi Unit Disk Graphs flooding is an asymptotically message-optimal routing technique, provide a geometric routing algorithm being more efficient above all in dense networks, and show that classic geometric routing is possible with the same performance guarantees as for Unit Disk Graphs if d = 1 v2. We consider the following packing problem. Let α be a fixed real in (0, 1]. We are given a bounding rectangle ρ and a set of n possibly intersecting unit disks whose centers lie in ρ. The task is to pack a set of m disjoint disks of radius α into ρ such that no disk in B intersects a disk in , where m is the maximum number of unit disks that can be packed. In this paper we present a polynomial-time algorithm for α = 2 3. So far only the case of packing squares has been considered. For that case, Baur and Fekete have given a polynomial-time algorithm for α = 2 3 and have shown that the problem cannot be solved in polynomial time for any α > 13 14 unless . In this paper the coloring problem for unit disk (UD) graphs is considered. UD graphs are the intersection graphs of equal-sized disks in the plane. Colorings of UD graphs arise in the study of channel assignment problems in broadcast networks. Improving on a result of [2] it is shown that the coloring problem for UD graphs remains NP-complete for any fixed number of colors k≥ 3 . Furthermore, a new 3-approximation algorithm for the problem is presented which is based on network flow and matching techniques. Given a set of n points and a set of m unit disks on a 2-dimensional plane, the discrete unit disk cover (DUDC) problem is (i) to check whether each point in is covered by at least one disk in or not and (ii) if so, then find a minimum cardinality subset such that the unit disks in cover all the points in . The discrete unit disk cover problem is a geometric version of the general set cover problem which is NP-hard. The general set cover problem is not approximable within , for some constant c, but the DUDC problem was shown to admit a constant factor approximation. In this paper, we provide an algorithm with constant approximation factor 18. The running time of the proposed algorithm is . The previous best known tractable solution for the same problem was a 22-factor approximation algorithm with running time . A graph is near-planar if it can be obtained from a planar graph by adding an edge. We show the surprising fact that it is NP-hard to compute the crossing number of near-planar graphs. A graph is 1-planar if it has a drawing where every edge is crossed by at most one other edge. We show that it is NP-hard to decide whether a given near-planar graph is 1-planar. The main idea in both reductions is to consider the problem of simultaneously drawing two planar graphs inside a disk, with some of its vertices fixed at the boundary of the disk. This leads to the concept of anchored embedding, which is of independent interest. As an interesting consequence we obtain a new, geometric proof of NP-completeness of the crossing number problem, even when restricted to cubic graphs. This resolves a question of Hliněný. We study an optimization problem that arises in the context of data placement in a multimedia storage system. We are given a collection of M multimedia objects (data items) that need to be assigned to a storage system consisting of N disks d1, d2,...,dN. We are also given sets U1, U2,...,UM such that Ui is the set of clients seeking the ith data item. Data item i has size si. Each disk dj is characterized by two parameters, namely, its storage capacity Cj which indicates the maximum total size of data items that may be assigned to it, and a load capacity Lj which indicates the maximum number of clients that it can serve. The goal is to find a placement of data items to disks and an assignment of clients to disks so as to maximize the total number of clients served, subject to the capacity constraints of the storage system.We study this data placement problem for homogeneous storage systems where all the disks are identical. We assume that all disks have a storage capacity of k and a load capacity of L. Previous work on this problem has assumed that all data items have unit size, in other words si = 1 for all i. Even for this case, the problem is NP-hard. For the case where si ∈ 1,..., Δ for some constant Δ, we develop a polynomial time approximation scheme (PTAS). This result is obtained by developing two algorithms, one that works for constant k and one that works for arbiuary k. The algorithm for arbitrary k guarantees that a solution where at least ((k-Δ) (k + Δ))(1 - 1 (1 + √k (2Δ))2)- fraction of all clients are assigned to a disk (under certain assumptions). In addition we develop an algorithm for which we can prove tight bounds when si ∈ 1,2 . In fact, we can show that a (1 - 1 (1 + √⌊k 2⌋)2)-fraction of all clients can be assigned (under certain natural assumptions), regardless of the input distribution. The simplest model of a wireless network graph is the Unit Disk Graph (UDG): an edge exists in UDG if the Euclidean distance between its endpoints is ≤ 1. The problem of constructing planar spanners of Unit Disk Graphs with respect to the Euclidean distance has received considerable attention from researchers in computational geometry and ad-hoc wireless networks. In this paper, we present an algorithm that, given a set X of terminals in the plane, constructs a planar hop spanner with constant stretch factor for the Unit Disk Graph defined by X. Our algorithm improves on previous constructions in the sense that (i) it ensures the planarity of the whole spanner while previous algorithms ensure only the planarity of a backbone subgraph; (ii) the hop stretch factor of our spanner is significantly smaller. In this paper we extend the lower bound technique by Linial for local coloring and maximal independent sets. We show that constant approximations to maximum independent sets on a ring require at least log-star time. More generally, the product of approximation quality and running time cannot be less than log-star. Using a generalized ring topology, we gain identical lower bounds for approximations to minimum dominating sets. Since our generalized ring topology is contained in a number of geometric graphs such as the unit disk graph, our bounds directly apply as lower bounds for quite a few algorithmic problems in wireless networking. Having in mind these and other results about local approximations of maximum independent sets and minimum dominating sets, one might think that the former are always at least as difficult to obtain as the latter. Conversely, we show that graphs exist, where a maximum independent set can be determined without any communication, while finding even an approximation to a minimum dominating set is as hard as in general graphs. Computing the maximum number of disjoint elements in a collection C of geometric objects is a classical problem in computational geometry with applications ranging from frequency assignment in cellular networks to map labeling in computational cartography. The problem is equivalent to finding the independence number, α(GC), of the intersection graph GC of C, obtained by connecting two elements of C with an edge if and only if their intersection is nonempty. This is known to be an NP-hard task even for systems of segments in the plane with at most two different slopes. The best known polynomial time approximation algorithm for systems of arbitrary segments is due to Agarwal and Mustafa, and returns in the worst case an n1 2+o(1)-approximation for α. Using extensions of the Lipton-Tarjan separator theorem, we improve this result and present, for every e > 0, a polynomial time algorithm for computing α(GC) with approximation ratio at most ne. In contrast, for general graphs, for any e > 0 it is NP-hard to approximate the independence number within a factor of n1−e. We also give a subexponential time exact algorithm for computing the independence number of intersection graphs of arcwise connected sets in the plane. We present 1 ? ?approximation algorithms for the maximum matching problem in location aware unit disc graphs and in growth-bounded graphs. The algorithm for unit disk graph is local in the sense that whether or not an edge is in the matching depends only on other vertices which are at most a constant number of hops away from it. The algorithm for growth-bounded graphs needs at most @math @math communication rounds during its execution. Using these matching algorithms we can compute vertex covers of the respective graph classes whose size are at most twice the optimal.