karger

Karger is a surname of German origin and may refer to various entities in business and science. The name is notably associated with S. Karger AG, a Basel-based Swiss academic publisher known as Karger Publishers, which specializes in medical and life sciences literature. Founded in Basel in the late 19th century, it produces scholarly journals, books, and electronic resources distributed worldwide and supports subscriptions, open access options, and archival services.

In publishing and scholarly communication, Karger Publishers operates as a regional and international publisher of scientific content, offering print and digital formats, and serving researchers, libraries, and institutions with library services, licensing, and content access.

In graph theory, Karger's algorithm refers to a family of randomized contraction algorithms for finding the minimum cut of a connected graph. Introduced by David R. Karger in the 1990s, the method contracts edges randomly while preserving the minimum cut with a calculable probability. An improved variant, the Karger–Stein algorithm, reduces the running time further for large graphs. The algorithms are notable for their simplicity and probabilistic guarantees, and they have influenced subsequent research in randomized algorithms and network reliability.