On Tractable Cases of Target Set Selection

We study the NP-complete TARGET SET SELECTION (TSS) problem occurring in social network analysis. Complementing results on its approximability and extending results for its restriction to trees and bounded treewidth graphs, we classify the influence of the parameters "diameter", "cluster edge deletion number", "vertex cover number", and "feedback edge set number" of the underlying graph on the problem's complexity, revealing both tractable and intractable cases. For instance, even for diameter-two split graphs TSS remains very hard. TSS can be efficiently solved on graphs with small feedback edge set number and also turns out to be fixed-parameter tractable when parameterized by the vertex cover number, both results contrasting known parameterized intractability results for the parameter treewidth. While these tractability results are relevant for sparse networks, we also show efficient fixed-parameter algorithms for the parameter cluster ed...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: ISAAC
• Authors: André Nichterlein, Rolf Niedermeier, Johannes Uhlmann, Mathias Weller
• Keywords: Algorithms, Cluster Edge Deletion, Edge Deletion Number, Feedback Edge, ISAAC 2010