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Improved approximation bounds for the minimum constraint removal problem
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Improved approximation bounds for the minimum constraint removal problem

Sayan Bandyapadhyay, Neeraj Kumar, Subhash Suri and Kasturi Varadarajan
Computational geometry : theory and applications, Vol.90, p.101650
10/01/2020
DOI: 10.1016/j.comgeo.2020.101650

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Abstract

In the minimum constraint removal problem, we are given a set of overlapping geometric objects as obstacles in the plane, and we want to find the minimum number of obstacles that must be removed to reach a target point t from the source point s by an obstacle-free path. The problem is known to be intractable and no sub-linear approximations are known even for simple obstacles such as rectangles and disks. The main result of our paper is an approximation framework that gives an O(root n alpha(n))-approximation for polygonal obstacles, where alpha(n) denotes the inverse Ackermann's function. For pseudodisks and rectilinear polygons, the same technique achieves an O(root n)-approximation. The technique also gives O(root n)-approximation for the minimum color pathproblem in graphs. We also present some inapproximability results for the geometric constraint removal problem. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Mathematics Mathematics, Applied Physical Sciences Science & Technology

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