Weighted domination models and randomized heuristics

Lukas Dijkstra1, Andrei Gagarin1, Vadim Zverovich2
1School of Mathematics, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
2Mathematics and Statistics Research Group, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

Abstract

We consider the minimum weight and smallest weight minimum-size dominating set problems in vertex-weighted graphs and networks. The latter problem is a two-objective optimization problem, which is different from the classic minimum weight dominating set problem that requires finding a dominating set of the smallest weight in a graph without trying to optimize its cardinality. In other words, the objective of minimizing the size of the dominating set in the two-objective problem can be considered as a constraint, i.e. a particular case of finding Pareto-optimal solutions. First, we show how to reduce the two-objective optimization problem to the minimum weight dominating set problem by using Integer Linear Programming formulations. Then, under different assumptions, the probabilistic method is applied to obtain upper bounds on the minimum weight dominating sets in graphs. The corresponding randomized algorithms for finding small-weight dominating sets in graphs are described as well. Computational experiments are used to illustrate the results for two different types of random graphs.

Keywords: domination in weighted graphs, probabilistic method, upper bounds, heuristics, integer linear programming (ILP)