Guest Editorial: Selected Papers from European Symposium on Algorithms

Abstract

Issue is dedicated to a selection of papers from the 16th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA) held in Karlsruhe, Germany, September 15–17, 2008. Five papers were invited from the “Design and Analysis Track” and three from the “Engineering and Applications Track”; seven papers were submitted and went through the standard refereeing process of Algorithmica. The paper “Better and Simpler Approximation Algorithms for the Stable Marriage Problem” by Zoltan Kiraly received the best paper award. It introduces a new approximation algorithm for the stable marriage problem. The algorithm improves on its predecessors on all accounts: simplicity, quality of approximation, and efficiency. The contribution “Deterministic Sampling Algorithms for Network Design” by Anke van Zuylen received the best student paper award in the design and analysis track. For several NP-hard network design problems, the best known approximation algorithms follow a simple randomized strategy, called sample-and-augment. A random sample from the input is drawn, a certain problem is solved, and the solution is extended to a full solution. Anke shows how to derandomize these algorithms by exhibiting a specific sample that works well. Herve Fournier and Antoine Vigneron address a basic approximation problem: “Fitting a Step Function to a Point Set”. Given an integer k and a set P of points in the plane, the goal is to find the step function that minimizes the maximal vertical distance between the point set and the step function. The authors present an algorithm that runs in time O(n) for a point set sorted by x-coordinate.