Approximation algorithms for combinatorial problems

Simple, polynomial-time, heuristic algorithms for finding approximate solutions to various polynomial complete optimization problems are analyzed with respect to their worst case behavior, measured by the ratio of the worst solution value that can be chosen by the algorithm to the optimal value. For certain problems, such as a simple form of the knapsack problem and an optimization problem based on satisfiability testing, there are algorithms for which this ratio is bounded by a constant, independent of the problem size. For a number of set covering problems, simple algorithms yield worst case ratios which can grow with the log of the problem size. And for the problem of finding the maximum clique in a graph, no algorithm has been found for which the ratio does not grow at least as fast as 0(nε), where n is the problem size and ε> 0 depends on the algorithm.