Knapsack with Vertex Cover, Set Cover, and Hitting Set

TL;DR

This paper investigates the computational complexity and approximation algorithms for the vertex cover knapsack problem and its variants, providing NP-completeness proofs, approximation algorithms, hardness results, and fixed parameter tractable algorithms.

Contribution

It establishes NP-completeness for the vertex cover knapsack problem, develops approximation algorithms for set cover and hitting set variants, and introduces fixed parameter tractable algorithms based on treewidth.

Findings

Vertex cover knapsack is NP-complete.

Polynomial-time approximation algorithms for set cover and hitting set variants.

Fixed parameter tractable algorithm with exponential dependence on treewidth.

Abstract

Given an undirected graph $\mathcal{G}=(\mathcal{V},\mathcal{E})$, with vertex weights $(w(u))_{u\in\mathcal{V}}$, vertex values $(\alpha(u))_{u\in\mathcal{V}}$, a knapsack size $s$, and a target value $d$, the \vcknapsack problem is to determine if there exists a subset $\mathcal{U}\subseteq\mathcal{V}$ of vertices such that $\mathcal{U}$ forms a vertex cover, $w(\mathcal{U})=\sum_{u\in\mathcal{U}} w(u) \le s$, and $\alpha(\mathcal{U})=\sum_{u\in\mathcal{U}} \alpha(u) \ge d$. In this paper, we closely study the \vcknapsack problem and its variations, such as \vcknapsackbudget, \minimalvcknapsack, and \minimumvcknapsack, for both general graphs and trees. We first prove that the \vcknapsack problem belongs to the complexity class \NPC and then study the complexity of the other variations. We generalize the problem to \setc and \hs versions and design polynomial time $H_g$-factor approximation algorithm for the \setckp problem and d-factor approximation algorithm for \hstp using primal dual method. We further show that \setcks and \hsmb are hard to approximate in polynomial time. Additionally, we develop a fixed parameter tractable algorithm running in time $8^{\mathcal{O}({\rm tw})}\cdot n\cdot {\sf min}\{s,d\}$ where ${\rm tw},s,d,n$ are respectively treewidth of the graph, the size of the knapsack, the target value of the knapsack, and the number of items for the \minimalvcknapsack problem.