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### Paper:

TR19-146 | 31st October 2019 15:46

#### Dynamic Kernels for Hitting Sets and Set Packing

TR19-146
Authors: Max Bannach, Zacharias Heinrich, Rüdiger Reischuk, Till Tantau
Publication: 31st October 2019 15:46
Keywords:

Abstract:

Computing kernels for the hitting set problem (the problem of
finding a size-$k$ set that intersects each hyperedge of a
hypergraph) is a well-studied computational problem. For hypergraphs
with $m$ hyperedges, each of size at most~$d$, the best algorithms
can compute kernels of size $O(k^d)$ in time $O(2^d m)$. In this
paper we generalize the task to the dynamic setting where
hyperedges may be continuously added and deleted and we always have
to keep track of a hitting set kernel (including moments when no
size-$k$ hitting set exists). We present a deterministic solution,
based on a novel data structure, that needs worst-case time
$O^*(3^d)$ for updating the kernel upon hyperedge inserts and
time~$O^*(5^d)$ for updates upon deletions -- thus nearly matching
the time $O^*(2^d)$ needed by the best static algorithm per
hyperedge. As a novel technical feature, our approach does not use
the standard replace-sunflowers-by-their-cores methodology, but
introduces a generalized concept that is actually easier to compute
and that allows us to achieve a kernel size of $\sum_{i=0}^d k^i$
rather than the typical size $d!\cdot k^d$ resulting from the Sunflower
Lemma. We also show that our approach extends to the dual problem of
finding packings in hypergraphs (the problem of finding $k$ pairwise
disjoint hyperedges), albeit with a slightly larger kernel size of
$\sum_{i=0}^d d^i(k-1)^i$.

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