On the Power of Advice and Randomization for Online Bipartite Matching

Christoph Dürr, Christian Konrad, Marc P. Renault

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference Contribution (Conference Proceeding)

12 Citations (Scopus)
84 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

While randomized online algorithms have access to a sequence of uniform random bits, deterministic online algorithms with advice have access to a sequence of advice bits, i.e., bits that are set by an all-powerful oracle prior to the processing of the request sequence. Advice bits are at least as helpful as random bits, but how helpful are they? In this work, we investigate the power of advice bits and random bits for online maximum bipartite matching (MBM). The well-known Karp-Vazirani-Vazirani algorithm [Karp, Vazirani and Vazirani 90] is an optimal randomized (1-1/e)-competitive algorithm for MBM that requires access to Theta(n log n) uniform random bits. We show that Omega(log(1/epsilon) n) advice bits are necessary and O(1/epsilon^5 n) sufficient in order to obtain a (1-epsilon)-competitive deterministic advice algorithm. Furthermore, for a large natural class of deterministic advice algorithms, we prove that Omega(log log log n) advice bits are required in order to improve on the 1/2-competitiveness of the best deterministic online algorithm, while it is known that O(log n) bits are sufficient [Böckenhauer, Komm, Královic and Královic 2011]. Last, we give a randomized online algorithm that uses cn random bits, for integers c >= 1, and a competitive ratio that approaches 1-1/e very quickly as c is increasing. For example if c = 10, then the difference between 1-1/e and the achieved competitive ratio is less than 0.0002.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication24th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms, ESA 2016, August 22-24, 2016, Aarhus, Denmark
PublisherSchloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik, Germany
Pages1-16
Number of pages16
ISBN (Print)9783959770156
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 22 Jun 2016

Publication series

NameLeibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)
ISSN (Print)1868-8969

Keywords

  • On-line algorithms
  • Bipartite matching
  • Randomization

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'On the Power of Advice and Randomization for Online Bipartite Matching'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this