Branch-and-bound algorithms for the test cover problem

K.M.J. Bontridder, de, B.J. Lageweg, J.K. Lenstra, J.B. Orlin, L. Stougie

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionAcademicpeer-review

24 Citations (Scopus)
1 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

In the test cover problem a set of items is given together with a collection of subsets of the items, called tests. A smallest subcollection of tests is to be selected such that for every pair of items there is a test in the selection that contains exactly one of the two items. This problem is NP-hard in general. It has important applications in biology, pharmacy, and the medical sciences, as well as in coding theory. We develop a variety of branch-and-bound algorithms to solve the problem to optimality. The variety is in the de.nition of the branching rules and the lower bounds to prune the search tree. Our algorithms are compared both theoretically and empirically.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAlgorithms - ESA 2002 (Proceedings 10th Annual European Symposium, Rome, Italy, September 17-21, 2002)
EditorsR. Möhring, R. Raman
Place of PublicationBerlin
PublisherSpringer
Pages223-233
ISBN (Print)3-540-44180-8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2002

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science
Volume2461
ISSN (Print)0302-9743

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