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1. An independent set of a graph G = (V, E) is a subset V 0 ? V of vertices such

ID: 656090 • Letter: 1

Question

1. An independent set of a graph G = (V, E) is a subset V 0 ? V of vertices such that each edge in E is incident on at most one vertex in V 0 . The independent set problem is to find a maximum-size independent set in G. A vertex cover of a graph G = (V, E) is a subset of vertices V 0 ? V such that every edge in E contains at least one vertex from V 0 . The vertex cover problem is to find a vertex cover of minimum size in G. (a) Formulate the decision version of the independent set problem. We will refer to this as ISET. (b) Formulate the decision version of the vertex cover problem. We will refer to this as VERTEX-COVER. (c) Show that ISET ?P VERTEX-COVER.

2. Given an integer m

Explanation / Answer

To show that any problem A is NP-Complete, we need to show four

things:

(1) there is a non-deterministic polynomial-time algorithm that solves A,

(2) any NP-Complete problem B can be reduced to A,

(3) the reduction of B to A works in polynomial time,

(4) the original problem A has a solution if and only if B has a solution.

We now show that SET-PARTITION is NP-Complete.

(1) SET-PARTITION ? NP: Guess the two partitions and verify that the two

have equal sums.

(2) Reduction of SUBSET-SUM to SET-PARTITION: Recall SUBSET-SUM is

defined as follows: Given a set X of integers and a target number t, find a subset

Y ? X such that the members of Y add up to exactly t. Let s be the sum of

members of X. Feed X? = X ? {s ? 2t} into SET-PARTITION. Accept if and

only if SET-PARTITION accepts.

(3) This reduction clearly works in polynomial time.

(4) We will prove that hX, ti ? SUBSET-SUM iff hX?i ? SET-PARTITION.

Note that the sum of members of X? is 2s ? 2t.

?: If there exists a set of numbers in X that sum to t, then the remaining numbers

in X sum to s ? t. Therefore, there exists a partition of X? into two such that

each partition sums to s ? t.

?: Let