We consider the monotone submodular k-set packing problem in the context of the more general problem of maximizing a monotone submodular function in a k-exchange system. These systems, introduced by [Feldman,2011], generalize the matroid k-parity problem in a wide class of matroids and capture many other combinatorial optimization problems. We give a deterministic, non-oblivious local search algorithm that attains an approximation ratio of (k + 3) 2 + epsilon for the problem of maximizing a monotone submodular function in a k-exchange system, improving on the best known result of k+epsilon, and answering an open question posed by
LetN be a finite set andz be a real-valued function defined on the set of subsets ofN that satisfies z(S)+z(T)gez(SxcupT)+z(SxcapT) for allS, T inN. Such a function is called submodular. We consider the problem maxSsubN a(S):|S|leK,z(S) submodular . Several hard combinatorial optimization problems can be posed in this framework. For example, the problem of finding a maximum weight independent set in a matroid, when the elements of the matroid are colored and the elements of the independent set can have no more thanK colors, is in this class. The uncapacitated location problem is a special case of this matroid optimization problem. We analyze greedy and local improvement heuristics and a linear programming relaxation for this problem. Our results are worst case bounds on the quality of the approximations. For example, whenz(S) is nondecreasing andz(0) = 0, we show that a ldquogreedyrdquo heuristic always produces a solution whose value is at least 1 –[(K – 1) K] K times the optimal value. This bound can be achieved for eachK and has a limiting value of (e – 1) e, where e is the base of the natural logarithm. Constrained submodular maximization problems have long been studied, most recently in the context of auctions and computational advertising, with near-optimal results known under a variety of constraints when the submodular function is monotone. In this paper, we give constant approximation algorithms for the non-monotone case that work for p-independence systems (which generalize constraints given by the intersection of p matroids that had been studied previously), where the running time is poly(n, p). Our algorithms and analyses are simple, and essentially reduce non-monotone maximization to multiple runs of the greedy algorithm previously used in the monotone case. We extend these ideas to give a simple greedy-based constant factor algorithms for non-monotone submodular maximization subject to a knapsack constraint, and for (online) secretary setting (where elements arrive one at a time in random order and the algorithm must make irrevocable decisions) subject to uniform matroid or a partition matroid constraint. Finally, we give an O(log k) approximation in the secretary setting subject to a general matroid constraint of rank k.  Submodular maximization and set systems play a major role in combinatorial optimization. It is long known that the greedy algorithm provides a 1 (k + 1)-approximation for maximizing a monotone submodular function over a k-system. For the special case of k-matroid intersection, a local search approach was recently shown to provide an improved approximation of 1 (k +δ) for arbitrary δ > 0. Unfortunately, many fundamental optimization problems are represented by a k-system which is not a k-intersection. An interesting question is whether the local search approach can be extended to include such problems. We answer this question affirmatively. Motivated by the b-matching and k-set packing problems, as well as the more general matroid k-parity problem, we introduce a new class of set systems called k-exchange systems, that includes k-set packing, b-matching, matroid k-parity in strongly base orderable matroids, and additional combinatorial optimization problems such as: independent set in (k+1)-claw free graphs, asymmetric TSP, job interval selection with identical lengths and frequency allocation on lines. We give a natural local search algorithm which improves upon the current greedy approximation, for this new class of independence systems. Unlike known local search algorithms for similar problems, we use counting arguments to bound the performance of our algorithm. Moreover, we consider additional objective functions and provide improved approximations for them as well. In the case of linear objective functions, we give a non-oblivious local search algorithm, that improves upon existing local search approaches for matroid k-parity. Submodular function maximization is a central problem in combinatorial optimization, generalizing many important NP-hard problems including max cut in digraphs, graphs, and hypergraphs; certain constraint satisfaction problems; maximum entropy sampling; and maximum facility location problems. Our main result is that for any k ≥ 2 and any e > 0, there is a natural local search algorithm that has approximation guarantee of 1 (k + e) for the problem of maximizing a monotone submodular function subject to k matroid constraints. This improves upon the 1 (k + 1)-approximation of Fisher, Nemhauser, and Wolsey obtained in 1978 [Fisher, M., G. Nemhauser, L. Wolsey. 1978. An analysis of approximations for maximizing submodular set functions---II. Math. Programming Stud.8 73--87]. Also, our analysis can be applied to the problem of maximizing a linear objective function and even a general nonmonotone submodular function subject to k matroid constraints. We show that, in these cases, the approximation guarantees of our algorithms are 1 (k-1 + e) and 1 (k + 1 + 1 (k-1) + e), respectively. Our analyses are based on two new exchange properties for matroids. One is a generalization of the classical Rota exchange property for matroid bases, and another is an exchange property for two matroids based on the structure of matroid intersection. Given a collection F of subsets of S = 1,…, n , setcover is the problem of selecting as few as possiblesubsets from F such that their union covers S, , and maxk-cover is the problem of selecting k subsets from F such that their union has maximum cardinality. Both these problems areNP-hard. We prove that (1 - o (1)) ln n is a threshold below which setcover cannot be approximated efficiently, unless NP has slightlysuperpolynomial time algorithms. This closes the gap (up to low-orderterms) between the ratio of approximation achievable by the greedyalogorithm (which is (1 - o (1)) lnn), and provious results of Lund and Yanakakis, that showed hardness ofapproximation within a ratio of log 2 n 2s0.72 ln n . For max k -cover, we show an approximationthreshold of (1 - 1 e )(up tolow-order terms), under assumption that P≠NP .