English

Improved approximation ratio for covering pliable set families

Data Structures and Algorithms 2024-04-02 v1

Abstract

A classic result of Williamson, Goemans, Mihail, and Vazirani [STOC 1993: 708-717] states that the problem of covering an uncrossable set family by a min-cost edge set admits approximation ratio 22, by a primal-dual algorithm with a reverse delete phase. Recently, Bansal, Cheriyan, Grout, and Ibrahimpur [ICALP 2023: 15:1-15:19] showed that this algorithm achieves approximation ratio 1616 for a larger class of set families, that have much weaker uncrossing properties. In this paper we will refine their analysis and show an approximation ratio of 1010. This also improves approximation ratios for several variants of the Capacitated kk-Edge Connected Spanning Subgraph problem.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2404.00683,
  title  = {Improved approximation ratio for covering pliable set families},
  author = {Zeev Nutov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.00683},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2307.08270

R2 v1 2026-06-28T15:39:35.474Z