ClassW04ApproxAlgs/Glossary

See also:

• [Search NIST dictionary of algorithms] for terms.
• [A compendium of NP optimization problems, by Crescenzi and Kann]
• BasicProbability and Lenstra's basic probability primer ([pdf] or [postcript])
• [Index of this bulletin board]
• Search this bulletin board by entering terms in the form at the end of the page, below.

[polynomial-time algorithm]

[minimum-cost spanning tree]

minimum-cost [perfect matching]

minimum-cost [traveling salesman tour]

[Eulerian graph] - graph (or multigraph) where every vertex has even degree

[Eulerian tour] - a tour (cycle) crossing every edge exactly once

[metric graph] - a complete graph with non-negative edge weights satisfying the triangle inequality

minimization problem, maximization problem, c-approximation algorithm

approximation-preserving reduction

maximal matching - matching not contained in any other matching

maximum matching - matching of maximum cardinality

VertexCover? - collection of vertices touching all edges

SteinerTree of a subset S of vertices - a tree containing the vertices in S, and possibly more.

comments: a Steiner tree of S can cost less than the minimum spanning tree of S. Finding a minimum-cost Steiner tree is NP-hard.