Complexity and Approximation: Combinatorial Optimization Problems and Their Approximability Properties - Hardcover

Ausiello, Giorgio; Crescenzi, Pierluigi; Gambosi, Giorgio; Kann, Viggo; Marchetti-Spaccamela, Alberto; Protasi, Marco

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 3540654313 ISBN 13: 9783540654315

Verlag: Springer, 1999

Inhaltsangabe

N COMPUTER applications we are used to live with approximation. Var­ I ious notions of approximation appear, in fact, in many circumstances. One notable example is the type of approximation that arises in numer­ ical analysis or in computational geometry from the fact that we cannot perform computations with arbitrary precision and we have to truncate the representation of real numbers. In other cases, we use to approximate com­ plex mathematical objects by simpler ones: for example, we sometimes represent non-linear functions by means of piecewise linear ones. The need to solve difficult optimization problems is another reason that forces us to deal with approximation. In particular, when a problem is computationally hard (i. e. , the only way we know to solve it is by making use of an algorithm that runs in exponential time), it may be practically unfeasible to try to compute the exact solution, because it might require months or years of machine time, even with the help of powerful parallel computers. In such cases, we may decide to restrict ourselves to compute a solution that, though not being an optimal one, nevertheless is close to the optimum and may be determined in polynomial time. We call this type of solution an approximate solution and the corresponding algorithm a polynomial-time approximation algorithm. Most combinatorial optimization problems of great practical relevance are, indeed, computationally intractable in the above sense. In formal terms, they are classified as Np-hard optimization problems.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Giorgio Ausiello is Professor Emeritus in the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Informatica, Automatica e Gestionale, Università di Roma "La Sapienza". He has coauthored numerous formal academic journal and conference publications, and his book publications include the Springer titles "Complexity and Approximation" published in 2000 and "The Power of Algorithms" published in 2013. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the leading journal Elsevier journal "Theoretical Computer Science", Part A, and is the co-Editor-in-Chief of the Springer LNCS series "Advanced Research in Computing and Software Science". He has chaired many related conferences and research groups, and he was a founding member of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS), and its President from 2006 to 2009. His main research interests include on-line algorithms, approximation algorithms, dynamic graph algorithms, optimization problems in vehicle routing and logistics, and streaming algorithms; he has also researched and published on programming theory, computational complexity, and database theory.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Springer
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1999
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 3540654313
• ISBN 13: 9783540654315
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 544
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: ProductSafety@springernature.com; ProductSafety@springernature.com; ; Poststr. 9; Darmstadt; 64293; Deutschland