A 2-APPROXIMATION ALGORITHM FOR THE MINIMUM KNAPSACK PROBLEM WITH A FORCING GRAPH

Abstract

Carnes and Shmoys [2] presented a 2-approximation algorithm for the minimum knapsack problem. We extend their algorithm to the minimum knapsack problem with a forcing graph (MKPFG), which has a forcing constraint for each edge in the graph. The forcing constraint means that at least one item (vertex) of the edge must be packed in the knapsack. The problem is strongly NP-hard, since it includes the vertex cover problem as a special case. Generalizing the proposed algorithm, we also present an approximation algorithm for the covering integer program with 0-1 variables.