Robust Monotone Submodular Function Maximization

Abstract: We consider a robust formulation, introduced by Krause et al. (2008), of the classical cardinality constrained monotone submodular function maximization problem, and give the first constant factor approximation results. The robustness considered is w.r.t. adversarial removal of up to $\tau$ elements from the chosen set. For the fundamental case of $\tau=1$, we give a deterministic $(1-1/e)-1/\Theta(m)$ approximation algorithm, where $m$ is an input parameter and number of queries scale as $O(n^{m+1})$. In the process, we develop a deterministic $(1-1/e)-1/\Theta(m)$ approximate greedy algorithm for bi-objective maximization of (two) monotone submodular functions. Generalizing the ideas and using a result from Chekuri et al. (2010), we show a randomized $(1-1/e)-\epsilon$ approximation for constant $\tau$ and $\epsilon\leq \frac{1}{\tilde{\Omega}(\tau)}$, making $O(n^{1/\epsilon^3})$ queries. Further, for $\tau\ll \sqrt{k}$, we give a fast and practical 0.387 algorithm. Finally, we also give a black box result result for the much more general setting of robust maximization subject to an Independence System.