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Lecture 12

1) The document describes an algorithm to solve the fractional knapsack problem in a greedy manner. 2) It sorts items by value per unit weight (vi/wi) in decreasing order and selects items in that order until the total weight reaches the knapsack capacity W. 3) The algorithm runs in O(nlogn) time where n is the number of items. It proves that the greedy approach of selecting items by value per unit weight provides an optimal solution to the fractional knapsack problem.

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42 views13 pages

Lecture 12

1) The document describes an algorithm to solve the fractional knapsack problem in a greedy manner. 2) It sorts items by value per unit weight (vi/wi) in decreasing order and selects items in that order until the total weight reaches the knapsack capacity W. 3) The algorithm runs in O(nlogn) time where n is the number of items. It proves that the greedy approach of selecting items by value per unit weight provides an optimal solution to the fractional knapsack problem.

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f20201862
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BITS, PILANI – K. K.

BIRLA GOA CAMPUS

Design & Analysis of Algorithms


(CS F364)

Lecture No. 12

1
Greedy - Exercise
Suppose you were to drive from Mumbai to Pune along the
express highway. Suppose your car’s petrol tank holds enough
petrol to travel M miles. Suppose you have a map that gives
distances between petrol stations along the route. Let d1 < d2
< …< dn be the locations of all the petrol stations along the
route where di is the distance of petrol station from Mumbai.
Assume that distance between neighboring petrol stations is
less than M miles. Your goal is to accomplish the journey
making as few petrol stops as possible along the way.
Design an efficient algorithm to determine at which petrol
stations to take a halt. Prove that your algorithm gives optimal
solution and also analyze the time complexity of the
algorithm.
The Fractional Knapsack Problem
Given: A set S of n items, with each item i having
wi - a positive “weight”
vi - a positive “benefit”
Goal:
Choose items with maximum total benefit but with weight
at most W.
And we are allowed to take fractional amounts
The Fractional Knapsack Problem
Possible Greedy Strategies:
• Pick the items in increasing order of weights
• Pick the items in decreasing order of benefits
• Pick the items by decreasing order of value per
pound
Note:
1st two strategies do not give optimal solution
Counterexamples - Exercise
Greedy Algorithm
We can solve the fractional knapsack problem with a
greedy algorithm:
• Compute the value per pound (vi/wi) for each item
• Sort (decreasing) the items by value per pound
• Greedy strategy of always taking as much as possible
of the item remaining which has highest value per
pound
Time Complexity:
If there are n items, this greedy algorithm takes
O(nlogn) time
Greedy Choice Property
• Theorem
Consider a knapsack instance P, and let item 1
be item of highest value density
Then there exists an optimal solution to P that
uses as much of item 1 as possible (that is,
min(w1, W)).
Proof:
Suppose we have a optimal solution Q that uses
weight w <min(w1, W) of item 1.
Let w′ = min(w1, W) − w
Greedy Choice Property
Q must contain at least weight w′ of some other
item(s), since it never pays to leave the knapsack
partly empty.
Construct Q* from Q by removing w′ worth of
other items and replacing with w′ worth of item
1
Because item 1 has max value per weight, So
Q* has total value at least as big as Q.
Alternate Proof - 1
Alternate Proof:
Assume the objects are sorted in order of cost
per pound.
Let vi be the value for item i and let wi be its
weight.
Let xi be the fraction of object i selected by
greedy and let V(X) be the total value obtained
by greedy
Alternate Proof - 1
Alternate Proof
Alternate Proof - 1
Alternate Proof - 1
Alternate proof (2) - Proof by contradiction
We can also prove by contradiction.
We start by assuming that there is an optimal solution where we did
not take as much of item i as possible and we also assume that our
knapsack is full (If it is not full, just add more of item i).
Since item i has the highest value to weight ratio, there must exist an
𝒗𝒋 𝒗
item j in our knapsack such that < 𝒊
𝒘𝒋 𝒘𝒊
We can take item j of weight x from our knapsack and we can add item
i of weight x to our knapsack (Since we take out x weight and put in x
weight, we are still within capacity).
𝒗𝒊 𝒗𝒋
The change in value of our knapsack is x − 𝒙 >𝟎
𝒘𝒊 𝒘𝒋
Therefore, we arrive at a contradiction because the ”so-called” optimal
solution in our starting assumption, can in fact be improved by taking
out some of item j and adding more of item i. Hence, it is not optimal.

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