This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post workshop proceedings of the 10th International Workshop on Approximation and Online Algorithms, WAOA 2012, held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in September 2012 as part of the ALGO 2012 conference event. The 22 revised full papers presented together with invited talk were carefully reviewed and selected from 60 submissions. The workshop covered areas such as geometric problems, online algorithms, scheduling, algorithmic game theory, and approximation algorithms.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems, APPROX 2000, held in Saarbrücken, Germany in September 2000. The 22 revised full papers presented together with four invited contributions were carefully reviewed and selected from 68 submissions. The topics dealt with include design and analysis of approximation algorithms, inapproximibility results, on-line problems, randomization techniques, average-case analysis, approximation classes, scheduling problems, routing and flow problems, coloring and partitioning, cuts and connectivity, packing and covering, geometric problems, network design, and various applications.

Handbook of Approximation Algorithms and Metaheuristics, Second Edition reflects the tremendous growth in the field, over the past two decades. Through contributions from leading experts, this handbook provides a comprehensive introduction to the underlying theory and methodologies, as well as the various applications of approximation algorithms and metaheuristics. Volume 1 of this two-volume set deals primarily with methodologies and traditional applications. It includes restriction, relaxation, local ratio, approximation schemes, randomization, tabu search, evolutionary computation, local search, neural networks, and other metaheuristics. It also explores multi-objective optimization, reoptimization, sensitivity analysis, and stability. Traditional applications covered include: bin packing, multi-dimensional packing, Steiner trees, traveling salesperson, scheduling, and related problems. Volume 2 focuses on the contemporary and emerging applications of methodologies to problems in combinatorial optimization, computational geometry and graphs problems, as well as in large-scale and emerging application areas. It includes approximation algorithms and heuristics for clustering, networks (sensor and wireless), communication, bioinformatics search, streams, virtual communities, and more. About the Editor Teofilo F. Gonzalez is a professor emeritus of computer science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He completed his Ph.D. in 1975 from the University of Minnesota. He taught at the University of Oklahoma, the Pennsylvania State University, and the University of Texas at Dallas, before joining the UCSB computer science faculty in 1984. He spent sabbatical leaves at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education and Utrecht University. He is known for his highly cited pioneering research in the hardness of approximation; for his sublinear and best possible approximation algorithm for k-tMM clustering; for introducing the open-shop scheduling problem as well as algorithms for its solution that have found applications in numerous research areas; as well as for his research on problems in the areas of job scheduling, graph algorithms, computational geometry, message communication, wire routing, etc.

Covering the basic techniques used in the latest research work, the author consolidates progress made so far, including some very recent and promising results, and conveys the beauty and excitement of work in the field. He gives clear, lucid explanations of key results and ideas, with intuitive proofs, and provides critical examples and numerous illustrations to help elucidate the algorithms. Many of the results presented have been simplified and new insights provided. Of interest to theoretical computer scientists, operations researchers, and discrete mathematicians.

This book constitutes the joint refereed proceedings of the 11th International Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems, APPROX 2008 and the 12th International Workshop on Randomization and Computation, RANDOM 2008, held in Boston, MA, USA, in August 2008. The 20 revised full papers of the APPROX 2008 workshop were carefully reviewed and selected from 42 submissions and focus on algorithmic and complexity issues surrounding the development of efficient approximate solutions to computationally difficult problems. RANDOM 2008 is concerned with applications of randomness to computational and combinatorial problems and accounts for 27 revised full papers, also diligently reviewed and selected out of 52 workshop submissions.

This volume presents the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems and the 11th International Workshop on Randomization and Computation. The papers cover design and analysis of approximation algorithms, hardness of approximation, small space and data streaming algorithms, sub-linear time algorithms, embeddings and metric space methods, and much more.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post workshop proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Approximation and Online Algorithms, WAOA 2009, held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in September 2009 as part of the ALGO 2009 conference event. The 22 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 62 submissions. The workshop covered areas such as algorithmic game theory, approximation classes, coloring and partitioning, competitive analysis, computational finance, cuts and connectivity, geometric problems, inapproximability results, mechanism design, network design, packing and covering, paradigms for design and analysis of approximation and online algorithms, parameterized complexity, randomization techniques, real-world applications, and scheduling problems.

The Fifth Workshop on Approximation and Online Algorithms (WAOA 2007) focused on the design and analysis of algorithms for online and computationally hard problems. Both kinds of problems have a large number of applications from a variety of ?elds. WAOA 2007 took place in Eilat, Israel, during October 11–12, 2007. The workshop was part of the ALGO 2007 event that also hosted ESA 2007, and PEGG 2007. The previous WAOA workshops were held in Budapest (2003), Rome (2004), Palma de Mallorca (2005) and Zurich (2006). The proceedings of these previous WAOA workshops have appeared as LNCS volumes 2909, 3351, 3879 and 4368, respectively. Topics of interest for WAOA 2007 were: algorithmic game theory, appro- mation classes, coloring and partitioning, competitive analysis, computational ?nance, cuts and connectivity, geometric problems, inapproximability results, mechanism design, network design, packing and covering, paradigms for design and analysis of approximation and online algorithms, randomization techniques, real-world applications, and scheduling problems. In response to the call for - pers, we received 56 submissions. Each submission was reviewed by at least three referees, and the vast majority by at least four referees. The submissions were mainly judged on originality, technical quality, and relevance to the topics of the conference. Based on the reviews, the Program Committee selected 22 papers. We are grateful to Andrei Voronkov for providing the EasyChair conference system which was used to manage the electronic submissions, the review process, and the electronic PC meeting. It made our task much easier.

Randomized Algorithms discusses two problems of fine pedigree: counting and generation, both of which are of fundamental importance to discrete mathematics and probability. When asking questions like "How many are there?" and "What does it look like on average?" of families of combinatorial structures, answers are often difficult to find -- we can be blocked by seemingly intractable algorithms. Randomized Algorithms shows how to get around the problem of intractability with the Markov chain Monte Carlo method, as well as highlighting the method's natural limits. It uses the technique of coupling before introducing "path coupling" a new technique which radically simplifies and improves upon previous methods in the area.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 16th International Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems, APPROX 2013, and the 17th International Workshop on Randomization and Computation, RANDOM 2013, held in August 2013 in the USA. The total of 48 carefully reviewed and selected papers presented in this volume consist of 23 APPROX papers selected out of 46 submissions, and 25 RANDOM papers selected out of 52 submissions. APPROX 2013 focuses on algorithmic and complexity theoretic issues relevant to the development of efficient approximate solutions to computationally difficult problems, while RANDOM 2013 focuses on applications of randomness to computational and combinatorial problems.