summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/approximation.tex
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorStratis Ioannidis <stratis@stratis-Latitude-E6320.(none)>2013-07-03 09:21:24 -0700
committerStratis Ioannidis <stratis@stratis-Latitude-E6320.(none)>2013-07-03 09:21:24 -0700
commit755c7cc3dd07c3b081be23966f55a0066cdd4271 (patch)
tree8373fd156fdb5cc17bf321e4e75a9387e7f90dea /approximation.tex
parentf28514e9eb3ed56091b3d10b8f6efc3b91a0e2b6 (diff)
downloadrecommendation-755c7cc3dd07c3b081be23966f55a0066cdd4271.tar.gz
approx
Diffstat (limited to 'approximation.tex')
-rw-r--r--approximation.tex4
1 files changed, 4 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/approximation.tex b/approximation.tex
index 23dc212..670352b 100644
--- a/approximation.tex
+++ b/approximation.tex
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+Previous approaches towards designing truthful, budget feasible mechanisms for \textsc{Knapsack}~\cite{chen} and the \textsc{Coverage}~\cite{singer-influence} build upon polynomial-time algorithms that compute an approximation of $OPT$, the optimal value in the full information case. Crucially, to be used in designing a truthful mechanism, such algorithms need also to be \emph{monotone}, in the sense that decreasing any of the costs $c_i$ leads to an increase of the estimate of $OPT$. Both in the cases of \textsc{Knapsack}~\cite{chen} and~\textsc{Coverage}, as well as in the case of \EDP{}, the monotonicity requirement prevents using traditional approximation algorithms for approximating any of the above problems.
+
+We address this issue by designing a convex relaxation of \EDP{}, and showing that it well approximates $OPT$.
+
As noted above, \EDP{} is NP-hard. Designing a mechanism for this problem, as
we will see in Section~\ref{sec:mechanism}, will involve being able to find an approximation of its optimal value
$OPT$ defined in \eqref{eq:non-strategic}. In addition to being computable in