Truthful Mechanisms for Steiner Tree Problems

Steiner Tree Problems

Truthful Mechanisms for Generalized Utilitarian Problems

In this paper we investigate extensions of the well-known Vickrey[1961]-Clarke[1971]Groves[1973] (VCG) mechanisms to problems whose objective function is not utilitarian and whose agents’ utilities are not quasi-linear. We provide a generalization of utilitarian problems, termed consistent problems, and prove that every consistent problem admits a truthful mechanism. These mechanisms, termed VC...

Solving Rectilinear Steiner Tree Problems

The rectilinear Steiner tree problem asks for a shortest tree connecting given points in the plane with rectilinear distance. The best theoretically analyzed algorithm for this problem with a fairly practical behaviour bases on dynamic programming and has a running time of O(n 2 2:62 n) (Ganley/Cohoon). The best implementation can solve random problems of size 35 (Salowe/Warme) within a day. In...

Approximation Algorithms for Directed Steiner Tree Problems

The Steiner tree problem which is known to be NP-Complete is the following. Given a weighted undirected graph G = (V;E), and a set X V of terminals, the objective is to nd a tree of minimum cost which connects all the terminals. If the graph is directed, in addition to X, we are given a root r 2 V , and the objective is to nd a minimum cost arborescence which connects the root to each of the te...

Online Priority Steiner Tree Problems

A central issue in the design of modern communication networks is the provision of Quality-of-Service (QoS) guarantees at the presence of heterogeneous users. For instance, in QoS multicasting, a source needs to efficiently transmit a message to a set of receivers, each requiring support at a different QoS level (e.g., bandwidth). This can be formulated as the Priority Steiner tree problem: Her...