Distributed Approximation - A Survey 1

The Distributed Computing Column covers the theory of systems that are composed of a number of interacting computing elements. These include problems of communication and networking, databases, distributed shared memory, multiprocessor architectures, operating systems, verification, Internet, and the Web. This issue contains two items: • An eulogy in memory of Larry Stockmeyer, who passed away on July 31, 2004. Larry did pioneering work in various areas, such as complexity theory, logic, interactive proofs, distributed computing, parallel computing, secure architectures, database privacy, and storage systems. A celebration of Larry’s work will be held May 21–22, 2005, in conjunction with STOC 2005 (May 22–24). On May 21, a tutorial by Nick Pippenger (Princeton) on some of Stockmeyer’s fundamental results in complexity theory will be followed by lectures by Miki Ajtai (IBM), Anne Condon (UBC), Cynthia Dwork (Microsoft), Richard Karp (UC Berkeley), Albert Meyer (MIT), and Chris Umans (CalTech). Some time will be reserved for personal remarks. If you wish to speak in this part of Larry’s commemoration contact Cynthia Dwork ([email protected]). The celebration of Stockmeyer’s work will conclude on May 22, with Lance Fortnow giving a keynote address to STOC. • “Distributed Approximation,” a survey by Michael Elkin. Considerable progress has been recently achieved in designing efficient distributed approximation algorithms, and in demonstrating hardness of distributed approximation for various problems. An overview of the research in this area is presented, including several directions for future research. Many thanks to Michael for his contribution to this issue. Request for Collaborations: Please send me any suggestions for material I should be including in this column, including news and communications, open problems, and authors willing to write a guest column or to review an event related to theory of distributed computing. ∗Instituto de Matemáticas, UNAM. Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City, D.F. 04510 [email protected].