Random separation: a new method for solving fixed-cardinality optimization problems

  • Authors:

  • Leizhen Cai;Siu Man Chan;Siu On Chan

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR, China;Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR, China;Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR, China

  • Venue:
  • IWPEC'06 Proceedings of the Second international conference on Parameterized and Exact Computation
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

We develop a new randomized method, random separation, for solving fixed-cardinality optimization problems on graphs, i.e., problems concerning solutions with exactly a fixed number k of elements (e.g., k vertices V′) that optimize solution values (e.g., the number of edges covered by V′). The key idea of the method is to partition the vertex set of a graph randomly into two disjoint sets to separate a solution from the rest of the graph into connected components, and then select appropriate components to form a solution. We can use universal sets to derandomize algorithms obtained from this method. This new method is versatile and powerful as it can be used to solve a wide range of fixed-cardinality optimization problems for degree-bounded graphs, graphs of bounded degeneracy (a large family of graphs that contains degree-bounded graphs, planar graphs, graphs of bounded tree-width, and nontrivial minor-closed families of graphs), and even general graphs.