Parameterized Approximation Schemes for Biclique-Free Max k-Weight SAT and Max Coverage

Abstract

MAX-SAT with cardinality constraint (CC-MAX-SAT) is one of the classical NP-complete problems, that generalizes MAXIMUM COVERAGE, PATIAL VERTEX COVER, MAX-2-SAT with bisection constraints, and has been extensively studied across all algorithmic paradigms. In this problem, we are given a CNF formula Φ, and a positive integer k, and the goal is to find an assignment β with at most k variables set to true (also called a k-weight assignment) such that the number of clauses satisfied by β is maximized. The problem is known to admit an approximation algorithm with factor which is probably optimal. Furthermore, assuming Gap-Exponential Time Hypothesis (Gap-ETH), for any ϵ > 0 and any function h, no h(k)(n + m)o(k) time algorithm can approximate MAXIMUM COVERAGE (a monotone version of CC-MAX-SAT) with n elements and m sets to within a factor, even with a promise that there exist k sets that fully cover the whole universe. In fact, the problem is hard to approximate within 0.929, assuming Unique Games Conjecture, even when the input formula is 2-CNF. These intractable results lead us to explore families of formula, where we can circumvent these barriers. Toward this, we consider K<inf>d,d</inf>-free formulas (that is, the clause-variable incidence bipartite graph of the formula excludes K<inf>d,d</inf> as an induced subgraph). We show that for every ϵ > 0, there exists an algorithm for CC-MAX-SAT) on K<inf>d,d</inf>-free formulas with approximation ratio (1 - ϵ) and running in time (these algorithms are called FPT-AS). For MAXIMUM COVERAGE on Kd,d-free set families, we obtain FPT-AS with running time . Our second result considers “optimizing k,” with fixed covering constraint for the MAXIMUM COVERAGE problem. To explain our result, we first recast the MAXIMUM COVERAGE problem as the MAX RED BLUE DOMIINATING SET WITH COVERING CONSTRAINT problem. Here, the input is a bipartite graph G = (A,B,E), a positive integer t, and the objective is to find a minimum sized subset S ⊆ A, such that |N(S)| (the size of the set of neighbors of S) is at least t. We design an additive approximation algorithm for MAX RED BLUE DOMIINATING SET WITH COVERING CONSTRAINT, on Kd,d-free bipartite graphs, running in FPT time. In particular, if k denotes the minimum size of S ⊆ A, such that |N(S)| ≥ t, then our algorithm runs in time (kd)O(kd)nO(1) and returns a set S' such that |N(S')| ≥ t and |S'| ≤ k + 1. This is in sharp contrast to the fact that, even a special case of our problem, namely, the PARTIAL VERTEX COVER problem (or MAX k -VC) is W[1]-hard, parameterized by k. Thus, we get the best possible parameterized approximation algorithm for the MAXIMUM COVERAGE problem on K<inf>d,d</inf>-free bipartite graphs. © 2025 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).