The dominating set problem in graphs asks for a minimum size subset of vertices with the following property: each vertex is required to either be in the dominating set, or adjacent to some node in the dominating set. We focus on the question of finding a connected dominating set of minimum size, where the graph induced by vertices in the dominating set is required to be connected as well. This problem arises in network testing, as well as in wireless communication. Two polynomial time algorithms that achieve approximation factors of O(H (\Delta)) are presented, where \Delta is the maximum degree, and H is the harmonic function. This question also arises in relation to the traveling tourist problem, where one is looking for the shortest tour such that each vertex is either visited, or has at least one of its neighbors visited. We study a generalization of the problem when the vertices have weights, and give an algorithm which achieves a performance ratio of 3 ln n. We also consider the ...

We give the first approximation algorithm for the generalized network Steiner problem, a problem in network design. An instance consists of a network with link-costs and, for each pair fi; jg of nodes, an edge-connectivity requirement r ij . The goal is to find a minimum-cost network using the available links and satisfying the requirements. Our algorithm outputs a solution whose cost is within 2dlog 2 (r + 1)e of optimal, where r is the highest requirement value. In the course of proving the performance guarantee, we prove a combinatorial min-max approximate equality relating minimum-cost networks to maximum packings of certain kinds of cuts. As a consequence of the proof of this theorem, we obtain an approximation algorithm for optimally packing these cuts; we show that this algorithm has application to estimating the reliability of a probabilistic network.

We give the first approximation algorithm for the node-weighted Steiner tree problem. Its performance guarantee is within a constant factor of the best possible unless ~ P ' NP . Our algorithm generalizes to handle other network design problems.

We present approximation algorithms for several NP-hard optimization problems arising in network design. Almost all of our algorithms run in polynomial time and output solutions with a worst-case performance guarantee on the quality of the output solution. A typical problem that we consider can be stated as follows: given an undirected graph and certain connectivity requirements, find a subgraph that satisfies these requirements and has minimum cost. In this thesis, we address many different connectivity requirements such as spanning trees, Steiner trees, generalized Steiner forests, and two-connected networks. The cost criteria that we consider range from the total cost of the edges in the network, the total cost of the nodes in the network, the maximum degree of any node in the network, the maximum cost of any edge in the network to some combination of these. We also address the maximum-leaf spanning tree problem and provide the first approximation algorithms for this problem. In t...