The focus of this study is to clarify the approximability of the important versions of the maximum independent set problem, and to apply, where possible, the technique to related hereditary subgraph and subset problem. We report improved performance ratios for the Independent Set problem in weighted general graphs, weighted bounded-degree graphs, and in sparse graphs. Other problems with better...

Theaverage lower independencenumber iav(G)of a graphG=(V ,E) is defined as 1 |V | ∑ v∈V iv(G), and the average lower domination number av(G) is defined as 1 |V | ∑ v∈V v(G), where iv(G) (resp. v(G)) is the minimum cardinality of a maximal independent set (resp. dominating set) that contains v.We give an upper bound of iav(G) and av(G) for arbitrary graphs. Then we characterize the graphs achiev...

We study graphs in which the maximum and the minimum sizes of a maximal independent set differ by exactly one. We call these graphs almost well-covered, in analogy with the class of well-covered graphs, in which all maximal independent sets have the same size. A characterization of graphs of girth at least 8 having exactly two different sizes of maximal independent sets due to Finbow, Hartnell,...

Blbzsik, Z., M. Hujter, A. Pluhir and Z. Tuza, Graphs with no induced C4 and 2K,, Discrete Mathematics 115 (1993) 51-55. We characterize the structure of graphs containing neither the 4-cycle nor its complement as an induced subgraph. This self-complementary class B of graphs includes split graphs, which are graphs whose vertex set is the union of a clique and an independent set. In the members...

It is shown that in star-free graphs the maximum independent set problem, the minimum dominating set problem and the minimum independent dominating set problem are approximable up to constant factor by any maximal independent set.