A Variant of the Maximum Weight Independent Set Problem

Abstract: We study a natural extension of the Maximum Weight Independent Set Problem (MWIS), one of the most studied optimization problems in Graph algorithms. We are given a graph $G=(V,E)$, a weight function $w: V \rightarrow \mathbb{R^+}$, a budget function $b: V \rightarrow \mathbb{Z^+}$, and a positive integer $B$. The weight (resp. budget) of a subset of vertices is the sum of weights (resp. budgets) of the vertices in the subset. A $k$-budgeted independent set in $G$ is a subset of vertices, such that no pair of vertices in that subset are adjacent, and the budget of the subset is at most $k$. The goal is to find a $B$-budgeted independent set in $G$ such that its weight is maximum among all the $B$-budgeted independent sets in $G$. We refer to this problem as MWBIS. Being a generalization of MWIS, MWBIS also has several applications in Scheduling, Wireless networks and so on. Due to the hardness results implied from MWIS, we study the MWBIS problem in several special classes of graphs. We design exact algorithms for trees, forests, cycle graphs, and interval graphs. In unweighted case we design an approximation algorithm for $d+1$-claw free graphs whose approximation ratio ($d$) is competitive with the approximation ratio ($\frac{d}{2}$) of MWIS (unweighted). Furthermore, we extend Baker's technique \cite{Baker83} to get a PTAS for MWBIS in planar graphs.