We consider the s-t-path TSP: given a finite metric space with two elements s and t, we look for a path from s to t that contains all the elements and has minimum total distance. We improve the approximation ratio for this problem from 1.599 to 1.566. Like previous algorithms, we solve the natural LP relaxation and represent an optimum solution x * as a convex combination of spanning trees. Gao showed that there exists a spanning tree in the support of x * that has only one edge in each narrow cut (i.e., each cut C with x * (C) < 2).Our main theorem says that the spanning trees in the convex combination can be chosen such that many of them are such "Gao trees".

The problem of maximizing non-negative submodular functions has been studied extensively in the last few years. However, most papers consider submodular set functions. Recently, several advances have been made for submodular functions on the integer lattice. As a direct generalization of submodular set functions, a function f :for all x, y ∈ {0, . . . , C} n where ∧ and ∨ denote element-wise minimum and maximum. The objective is finding a vector x maximizing f (x). In this paper, we present a deterministic −1)) δ −1 -approximation for every δ > 0 under the assumption that 3 − SAT cannot be solved in time 2 n 3/4+ǫ .

We study dynamic network flows with uncertain input data under a robust optimization perspective. In the dynamic maximum flow problem, the goal is to maximize the flow reaching the sink within a given time horizon T , while flow requires a certain travel time to traverse an edge.In our setting, we account for uncertain travel times of flow. We investigate maximum flows over time under the assumption that at most Γ travel times may be prolonged simultaneously due to delay. We develop and study a mathematical model for this problem. As the dynamic robust flow problem generalizes the static version, it is NP-hard to compute an optimal flow. However, our dynamic version is considerably more complex than the static version. We show that it is NP-hard to verify feasibility of a given candidate solution. Furthermore, we investigate temporally repeated flows and show that in contrast to the non-robust case (that is, without uncertainties) they no longer provide optimal solutions for the robust problem, but rather yield a worst case optimality gap of at least T . We finally show that the optimality gap is at most O(ηk log T ), where η and k are newly introduced instance characteristics and provide a matching lower bound instance with optimality gap Ω(log T ) and η = k = 1. The results obtained in this paper yield a first step towards understanding robust dynamic flow problems with uncertain travel times.

Stabilization of graphs has received substantial attention in recent years due to its connection to game theory. Stable graphs are exactly the graphs inducing a matching game with non-empty core. They are also the graphs that induce a network bargaining game with a balanced solution. A graph with weighted edges is called stable if the maximum weight of an integral matching equals the cost of a minimum fractional weighted vertex cover. If a graph is not stable, it can be stabilized in different ways. Recent papers have considered the deletion or addition of edges and vertices in order to stabilize a graph. In this work, we focus on a fine-grained stabilization strategy, namely stabilization of graphs by fractionally increasing edge weights.We show the following results for stabilization by minimum weight increase in edge weights (min additive stabilizer): (i) Any approximation algorithm for min additive stabilizer that achieves a factor of O(|V | 1/24−ǫ ) for ǫ > 0 would lead to improvements in the approximability of densestk-subgraph. (ii) Min additive stabilizer has no o(log |V |) approximation unless NP=P. Results (i) and (ii) together provide the first super-constant hardness results for any graph stabilization problem. On the algorithmic side, we present (iii) an algorithm to solve min additive stabilizer in factorcritical graphs exactly in poly-time, (iv) an algorithm to solve min additive stabilizer in arbitrary-graphs exactly in time exponential in the size of the Tutte set, and (v) a poly-time algorithm with approximation factor at most |V | for a super-class of the instances generated in our hardness proofs.

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