Related papers: Recognizing When Heuristics Can Approximate Minimu…
We introduce a simple, efficient and precise polynomial heuristic for a key NP complete problem, minimum vertex cover. Our method is iterative and operates in probability space. Once a stable probability solution is found we find the true…
Finding a minimum vertex cover in a network is a fundamental NP-complete graph problem. One way to deal with its computational hardness, is to trade the qualitative performance of an algorithm (allowing non-optimal outputs) for an improved…
The problem of finding an optimal vertex cover in a graph is a classic NP-complete problem, and is a special case of the hitting set question. On the other hand, the hitting set problem, when asked in the context of induced geometric…
A dominating set D in a graph G is a subset of its vertices such that every vertex of the graph which does not belong to set D is adjacent to at least one vertex from set D. A set of vertices of graph G is a global dominating set if it is a…
We study the approximability of the maximum size independent set (MIS) problem in bounded degree graphs. This is one of the most classic and widely studied NP-hard optimization problems. We focus on the well known minimum degree greedy…
We consider a natural generalization of the Partial Vertex Cover problem. Here an instance consists of a graph G = (V,E), a positive cost function c: V-> Z^{+}, a partition $P_1,..., P_r$ of the edge set $E$, and a parameter $k_i$ for each…
The VertexCover problem is proven to be computationally hard in different ways: It is NP-complete to find an optimal solution and even NP-hard to find an approximation with reasonable factors. In contrast, recent experiments suggest that on…
In this paper, we investigate the approximability of two node deletion problems. Given a vertex weighted graph $G=(V,E)$ and a specified, or "distinguished" vertex $p \in V$, MDD(min) is the problem of finding a minimum weight vertex set $S…
We study the Minimum Sum Vertex Cover problem, which asks for an ordering of vertices in a graph that minimizes the total cover time of edges. In particular, n vertices of the graph are visited according to an ordering, and for each edge…
The problem of finding the densest subgraph in a given graph has several applications in graph mining, particularly in areas like social network analysis, protein and gene analyses etc. Depending on the application, finding dense subgraphs…
Can we efficiently compute optimal solutions to instances of a hard problem from optimal solutions to neighboring (i.e., locally modified) instances? For example, can we efficiently compute an optimal coloring for a graph from optimal…
In this paper we show that the problem of identifying an edge $(i,j)$ in a graph $G$ such that there exists an optimal vertex cover $S$ of $G$ containing exactly one of the nodes $i$ and $j$ is NP-hard. Such an edge is called a weak edge.…
The vertex cover problem is one of the most important and intensively studied combinatorial optimization problems. Khot and Regev (2003) proved that the problem is NP-hard to approximate within a factor $2 - \epsilon$, assuming the Unique…
Covering problems are classical computational problems concerning whether a certain combinatorial structure 'covers' another. For example, the minimum vertex covering problem aims to find the smallest set of vertices in a graph so that each…
Spectral graph bisections are a popular heuristic aimed at approximating the solution of the NP-complete graph bisection problem. This technique, however, does not always provide a robust tool for graph partitioning. Using a special class…
Given a graph $G$, the optimization version of the graph burning problem seeks for a sequence of vertices, $(u_1,u_2,...,u_p) \in V(G)^p$, with minimum $p$ and such that every $v \in V(G)$ has distance at most $p-i$ to some vertex $u_i$.…
The design of good heuristics or approximation algorithms for NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems often requires significant specialized knowledge and trial-and-error. Can we automate this challenging, tedious process, and learn the…
In a simple connected graph $G=(V,E)$, a subset of vertices $S \subseteq V$ is a dominating set if any vertex $v \in V\setminus S$ is adjacent to some vertex $x$ from this subset. A number of real-life problems can be modeled using this…
We analyse approximation algorithms (greedy heuristics) for the classical domination number and two multiple domination numbers in simple graphs. First, we present a short self-contained proof of the known result that the minimum domination…
The goal in the stochastic vertex cover problem is to obtain an approximately minimum vertex cover for a graph $G^\star$ that is realized by sampling each edge independently with some probability $p\in (0, 1]$ in a base graph $G = (V, E)$.…