A 4/3-approximation for Minimum Weight Edge Cover

This paper addresses the minimum weight edge cover problem (MEC), which is stated as follows: Given a graph <i>G= (V,E)</i>, find a set of edges <i>S:S⊆E </i>and ∑_e∈S^w(e)</∑<sub>e∈Q^w(e)∀Q: Q is an edge cover. Where an edge cover <i>P</i> is a set of edges such that ∀v∈V <i>v</i> is incident to at least one edge in <i>P</i>. An efficient implementation of a 4/3-approximation for MEC is provided. Empirical results obtained experimentally from practical data sets are reported and compared against various other approximation algorithms for MEC.<br>