Introduction to algorithms
Improved approximation algorithms for the vertex cover problem in graphs and hypergraphs
SODA '00 Proceedings of the eleventh annual ACM-SIAM symposium on Discrete algorithms
The importance of being biased
STOC '02 Proceedings of the thiry-fourth annual ACM symposium on Theory of computing
The complexity of theorem-proving procedures
STOC '71 Proceedings of the third annual ACM symposium on Theory of computing
A better approximation ratio for the vertex cover problem
ICALP'05 Proceedings of the 32nd international conference on Automata, Languages and Programming
Vertex cover approximations: experiments and observations
WEA'05 Proceedings of the 4th international conference on Experimental and Efficient Algorithms
On the approximability of the vertex cover and related problems
AAIM'10 Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Algorithmic aspects in information and management
Strong and weak edges of a graph and linkages with the vertex cover problem
Discrete Applied Mathematics
An edge-reduction algorithm for the vertex cover problem
Operations Research Letters
Implementation and comparison of heuristics for the vertex cover problem on huge graphs
SEA'12 Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Experimental Algorithms
A novel parameterised approximation algorithm for minimum vertex cover
Theoretical Computer Science
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The vertex cover problem is a classical NP-complete problem for which the best worst-case approximation ratio is 2-o(1). In this paper, we use a collection of simple graph transformations, each of which guarantees an approximation ratio of 3/2, to find approximate vertex covers for a large collection of randomly generated graphs. These reductions are extremely fast and even though they, by themselves are not guaranteed to find a vertex cover, we manage to find a 3/2-approximate vertex cover for almost every single random graph we generate.