SIGACT news online algorithms column 20: the power of harmony

I would like to begin this column by thanking Marek Chrobak, Lance Fortnow and Brendan Mumey for giving me this opportunity for continuing the online algorithms column started by Marek in 2003. I will begin by discussing a problem close to my heart, namely online bin packing. For the standard version of this problem, there has been very little progress in the last 10 years. I hope to bring some new attention to this important problem and hopefully convince some of you to give this some thought. I will also discuss some (but by no means all) recent results in strip packing and two-dimensional bin packing.

[1]  Marek Chrobak,et al.  Two-Bounded-Space Bin Packing Revisited , 2011, ESA.

[2]  Walter Kern,et al.  A tight analysis of Brown-Baker-Katseff sequences for online strip packing , 2010, CTW.

[3]  Brenda S. Baker,et al.  Shelf Algorithms for Two-Dimensional Packing Problems , 1983, SIAM J. Comput..

[4]  Rob van Stee,et al.  New Bounds for Multidimensional Packing , 2003, Algorithmica.

[5]  Guochuan Zhang,et al.  A note on online strip packing , 2009, J. Comb. Optim..

[6]  Leah Epstein,et al.  Tight results for Next Fit and Worst Fit with resource augmentation , 2010, Theor. Comput. Sci..

[7]  David S. Johnson,et al.  Fast Algorithms for Bin Packing , 1974, J. Comput. Syst. Sci..

[8]  David S. Johnson,et al.  Bounded Space On-Line Bin Packing: Best Is Better than First , 1991, SODA '91.

[9]  Guochuan Zhang,et al.  Strip Packing vs. Bin Packing , 2006, AAIM.

[10]  Prudence W. H. Wong,et al.  Dynamic bin packing of unit fractions items , 2008, Theor. Comput. Sci..

[11]  Gerhard J. Woeginger,et al.  Resource augmentation for online bounded space bin packing , 2000, J. Algorithms.

[12]  Brenda S. Baker,et al.  Lower bounds for on-line two-dimensional packing algorithms , 1982, Acta Informatica.

[13]  J. J. Sylvester,et al.  On a Point in the Theory of Vulgar Fractions , 1880 .

[14]  Prudence W. H. Wong,et al.  On Dynamic Bin Packing: An Improved Lower Bound and Resource Augmentation Analysis , 2008, Algorithmica.

[15]  Edward G. Coffman,et al.  Dynamic Bin Packing , 1983, SIAM J. Comput..

[16]  Leah Epstein,et al.  Bin Packing with Rejection Revisited , 2006, WAOA.

[17]  Guochuan Zhang,et al.  A new upper bound 2.5545 on 2D Online Bin Packing , 2011, TALG.

[18]  D. T. Lee,et al.  A simple on-line bin-packing algorithm , 1985, JACM.

[19]  Leah Epstein.  Online Bin Packing with Cardinality Constraints , 2005, ESA.

[20]  D. T. Lee,et al.  On-Line Bin Packing in Linear Time , 1989, J. Algorithms.

[21]  Yossi Azar,et al.  On Two Dimensional Packing , 1997, J. Algorithms.

[22]  Rolf Harren,et al.  Improved Lower Bound for Online Strip Packing - (Extended Abstract) , 2011, WAOA.

[23]  Leah Epstein,et al.  Online bin packing with resource augmentation , 2007, Discret. Optim..

[24]  Johann Hurink,et al.  Improved online algorithms for parallel job scheduling and strip packing , 2011, Theor. Comput. Sci..

[25]  Berit Johannes,et al.  Scheduling parallel jobs to minimize the makespan , 2006, J. Sched..

[26]  Donna J. Brown,et al.  A Lower Bound for On-Line One-Dimensional Bin Packing Algorithms. , 1979 .

[27]  Steven S. Seiden,et al.  On the online bin packing problem , 2001, JACM.

[28]  Andrew Chi-Chih Yao,et al.  Resource Constrained Scheduling as Generalized Bin Packing , 1976, J. Comb. Theory A.

[29]  Gerhard Reinelt,et al.  Lower Bound for the Online Bin Packing Problem with Restricted Repacking , 2008, SIAM J. Comput..

[30]  Frank M. Liang.  A Lower Bound for On-Line Bin Packing , 1980, Inf. Process. Lett..

[31]  Rob van Stee,et al.  New bounds for multi-dimensional packing , 2002, SODA '02.

[32]  Yong Zhou,et al.  A note on online hypercube packing , 2010, Central Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[33]  Sándor P. Fekete,et al.  Online Square Packing , 2009, WADS.

[34]  József Békési,et al.  New lower bounds for certain classes of bin packing algorithms , 2012, Theor. Comput. Sci..

[35]  Andrew Chi-Chih Yao,et al.  New Algorithms for Bin Packing , 1978, JACM.

[36]  Jirí Sgall,et al.  A New Analysis of Best Fit Bin Packing , 2012, FUN.

[37]  Yong He,et al.  Bin packing problems with rejection penalties and their dual problems , 2006, Inf. Comput..

[38]  Johann Hurink,et al.  Online scheduling of parallel jobs on two machines is 2-competitive , 2008, Oper. Res. Lett..

[39]  Leah Epstein.  Bin Packing with Rejection Revisited , 2008, Algorithmica.

[40]  Leah Epstein,et al.  Online square and cube packing , 2005, Acta Informatica.

[41]  Errol L. Lloyd,et al.  A Fundamental Restriction on Fully Dynamic Maintenance of Bin Packing , 1996, Inf. Process. Lett..

[42]  Richard E. Ladner,et al.  Windows scheduling as a restricted version of bin packing , 2007, TALG.