Fractionally Subadditive Maximization under an Incremental Knapsack Constraint with Applications to Incremental Flows

SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics, Volume 38, Issue 1, Page 764-789, March 2024.
Abstract. We consider the problem of maximizing a fractionally subadditive function under an increasing knapsack constraint. An incremental solution to this problem is given by an order in which to include the elements of the ground set, and the competitive ratio of an incremental solution is defined by the worst ratio over all capacities relative to an optimum solution of the corresponding capacity. We present an algorithm that finds an incremental solution of competitive ratio at most [math], under the assumption that the values of singleton sets are in the range [math], and we give a lower bound of [math] on the attainable competitive ratio. In addition, we establish that our framework captures potential-based flows between two vertices, and we give a lower bound of [math] and an upper bound of [math] for the incremental maximization of classical flows with capacities in [math] which is tight for the unit capacity case.