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How to Trim an MST: A 2-Approximation Algorithm for Minimum Cost Tree Cover

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Automata, Languages and Programming (ICALP 2006)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 4051))

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Abstract

The minimum cost tree cover problem is to compute a minimum cost tree T in a given connected graph G with costs on the edges, such that the vertices of T form a vertex cover for G. The problem is supposed to arise in applications of vertex cover and edge dominating set when connectivity is additionally required in solutions. Whereas a linear-time 2-approximation algorithm for the unweighted case has been known for quite a while, the best approximation ratio known for the weighted case is 3. Moreover, the known 3-approximation algorithm for such case is far from practical in its efficiency.

In this paper we present a fast, purely combinatorial 2-approximation algorithm for the minimum cost tree cover problem. It constructs a good approximate solution by trimming some leaves within a minimum spanning tree (MST), and to determine which leaves to trim, it uses both of the primal-dual schema and the local ratio technique in an interlaced fashion.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information & Computer Sciences, Toyohashi University of Technology, Tempaku, Toyohashi, 441-8580, Japan

    Toshihiro Fujito

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  1. Toshihiro Fujito
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Informatica, Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice

    Michele Bugliesi

  2. Interdisciplinary Institute for BroadBand Technology (IBBT), Belgium

    Bart Preneel

  3. ECS, University of Southampton, UK

    Vladimiro Sassone

  4. FB Informatik, Univ. Dortmund, LS2, 44221, Dortmund, Germany

    Ingo Wegener

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© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Fujito, T. (2006). How to Trim an MST: A 2-Approximation Algorithm for Minimum Cost Tree Cover. In: Bugliesi, M., Preneel, B., Sassone, V., Wegener, I. (eds) Automata, Languages and Programming. ICALP 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4051. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11786986_38

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11786986_38

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-35904-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-35905-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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