The effect of girth and degeneracy on the

complexity of Semitotal dominating set

R. Mahendra kumar1 , A. Mohanapriya1 , N. Sadagopan1 , and Vikash Tripathi2

1
Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing,
Kancheepuram, India
2
The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, HBNI, Chennai, India
{coe18d004,coe19d003,sadagopan}@iiitdm.ac.in,[email protected]

Abstract. We study a variant of the dominating set that lies between

the classical dominating set problem and the total dominating set prob-
lem, which is the semitotal dominating set problem. For a graph G with
no isolated vertex, a set D is a semitotal dominating set, if D is a dom-
inating set and for each vertex v ∈ D, there exists a vertex u ∈ D such
that u ̸= v and distance between u and v is within two. The semitotal
dominating set problem (SD) asks for finding the minimum cardinal-
ity semitotal dominating set. It is known that SD is NP-complete on
chordal graphs, bipartite graphs, and planar graphs.

We present an interesting dichotomy for SD from the parameterized

complexity perspective when parameterized by the solution size: on graphs
with girth three (four), the problem is W[2]-hard, and on graphs with
girth at least five, the problem is fixed-parameter tractable. On d-degenerate
graphs, SD is W[2]-hard when parameterized by the solution size. Fur-
ther, when parameterized by cliquewidth or treewidth of the input graph,
SD is fixed-parameter tractable.

Keywords: Semitotal dominating set · Parameterized complexity · Girth

· Degeneracy · Treewidth

1 Introduction

The domination set problem (DS) is one of the well-studied problems in the field
of graph theory. A set D ⊆ V (G) is a dominating set if each vertex v ∈ V (G)\D is
adjacent to at least one vertex in D. The Minimum dominating set problem
aims to compute a minimum cardinality dominating set of G. The minimum
cardinality of a dominating set is called the domination of G, denoted by γ(G).
The problem is extensively studied in the literature [1-3][?]. Motivated by the
various real-world applications, researchers introduced several generalizations
and variations of domination in graphs.
The total dominating set problem (TD) is the most natural variant of the
dominating set problem. A set D ⊆ V (G) is a total dominating set if D is a
dominating set and each vertex v ∈ D has a neighbor in D. The total domination
number of G, denoted by γt (G), is the minimum cardinality of a total dominating
set of G. The computational complexity study of TD is reported in [4-7][?].
Goddard et al. [6] have introduced a problem called the semitotal dominating
set problem (SD) which is a generalization of TD. For a connected graph G, a set
D ⊆ V (G) is a semitotal dominating set if D is a dominating set and each vertex
v ∈ D has another vertex in D which is at a distance within two. SD of G asks
for finding minimum cardinality semitotal dominating set, denoted by γt2 (G).
It is important to highlight that γ(G) ≤ γt2 (G) ≤ γt (G). On the computational
complexity front, it is known from [?] that SD is NP-complete (intractable) for
general graphs.
Many intractable computational problems have several real-world applica-
tions in various fields, specifically SD has applications in wireless networks. An
approach for dealing with intractable computational problems having some small
parameter is parameterized complexity [4]. For decision problems with input size
n, and a parameter k, the objective is to design an algorithm with running time
f (k)nO(1) where f is a function of k. Problems that admit such an algorithm
are said to be fixed-parameter tractable (FPT). Similarly, problems that do not
admit such an algorithm are said to be W [i]-hard, for some i. In this paper,
we study the parameterized complexity of SD with respect to both natural pa-
rameters and structural parameters. We show that SD which is W [2]-hard when
parameterized by a natural parameter (the solution size) on special graph classes,
and SD is fixed-parameter tractable when parameterized by a structural param-
eter (cliquewidth, and treewidth).

Related works
In [?], the semitotal dominating set problem has been introduced and proved
to be NP-complete in general graphs. It is known that SD is NP-complete for
split graphs, planar graphs, chordal bipartite graphs, and circle graphs. On the
positive side, SD is polynomial-time solvable on trees, AT-free graphs, interval
graphs, and block graphs.

Our results. In this paper, we shall study the following problem in the realm
of parameterized complexity.
The semitotal dominating set problem (SD) Input: A graph G, and an
integer k.
Parameter: k
Question: Does there exists a set S of size at most k such that V (G) \ S has
a neighbour in S and every vertex in S has a vertex in S which is at a distance
one or two.
Many dominating set variants such as DS, TD, and the connected dominating
set problem have been analyzed in graphs with respect to girth. It is shown that
many of these variants exhibit a FPT algorithm when parameterized by the
solution size on graphs with girth at least five and is W [2]-hard for graphs with
girth three or four. We explore a similar direction for SD, and obtained the
following results.

2
Theorem 1. SD is W[2]-hard on graphs with girth three when parameterized
by k.
To prove the theorem, we give a parameterized reduction from the dominating
set problem on general graphs to SD on graphs with girth three.
Theorem 2. SD is W[2]-hard on graphs with girth four when parameterized by
k.
We prove the above theorem for graphs with girth four by giving a param-
eterized reduction from the dominating set problem to SD on C3 -free graphs.
We observe that the reduction instances are bipartite graphs, in particular, the
reduction instances have a cycle of length four. Thus, we have the following two
corollaries.
Corollary 1. SD is W[2]-hard on bipartite graphs when parameterized by k.
Corollary 2. SD is W[2]-hard on C3 -free graphs when parameterized by k.
Having observed the complexity of SD on graphs with girth three and girth
four, it is an interesting direction to look into the complexity of the problem on
graphs with girth at least five (G5 graphs).
Theorem 3. SD is FPT on graphs with girth at least five when parameterized
by k.
By using a branching strategy, We give an exponential kernel for the problem
on G5 graphs. Our approach is similar to one presented in [7].
The study of SD on graphs with respect to girth gives us an interesting di-
chotomy. The next natural structure of graphs one can consider is the degeneracy
of the input graph. We study SD on d-degenerate graphs.
Theorem 4. SD is W[2]-hard on d-degenerate graphs when parameterized by
k.
We prove the theorem by a reduction from r-regular graphs to SD on d-
degenerate graphs. Further, by the construction we observe the reduction in-
stances are bipartite graphs. Thus the following corollary is true.
Corollary 3. SD is W[2]-hard on d-degenerate bipartite graphs when parame-
terized by k.
The structural parameters expand the boundary of FPT for SD. We analyze
the complexity of SD with respect to well-known structural parameters such as
treewidth and cliquewidth.
Theorem 5. SD admits an FPT algorithm, when parameterized by cliquewidth.
By giving a monadic second-order logic formula for SD, we shall prove that
SD parameterized by cliquewidth is FPT. Since any graph of treewidth at most
k admits clique-width at most k[3], SD parameterized by treewidth is also in
FPT. Further, we also provide an explicit algorithm for SD parameterized by
the treewidth of the input graph.

3
Theorem 6. SD admits an FPT algorithm, when parameterized by treewidth
of the input graph.
To prove the above theorem, we give a dynamic programming algorithm.
It is known that treewidth of a d-degenerate graph is at most d [?]. Thus,
SD on d-degenerate graphs admit FPT algorithm when parameterized by d.

Preliminaries. In this paper, we consider connected, undirected, unweighted,

and simple graphs. For a graph G, V (G) denotes the vertex set, and E(G) repre-
sents the edge set. For a set S ⊆ V (G), G[S] denotes the subgraph of G induced
on the vertex set S. The open neighborhood of a vertex v is NG (v) = {u | {u, v} ∈
E(G)} and the closed neighborhood of v is NG [v] = {v} ∪ NG (v). The degree of
vertex v is dS G (v) = |NG (v)|. For a set S ⊆ V (G), the closed neighborhood of S
is NG [S] = v∈S NG [v]. By the girth of a graph G, we mean the length of the
shortest cycle in G. We say that a graph is a Gi graph if the girth of the graph
is at least i. A graph G is a d-degenerate graph if every subgraph of G contains
a vertex of degree at most d.
A graph G is a bipartite graph if V (G) can be partitioned into X ∪ Y such
that X, Y are disjoint independent sets.

2 W[2]-hardness on graphs with girth three and four

We prove Theorem 1, by reduction from the dominating set problem (DS). It is

well known that DS parameterized by solution size is W[2]-hard [7].
The dominating set problem (DS)
Input: A graph G, and an integer k.
Parameter: k
Question: Does there exist a set S of size at most k such that NG [S] = V (G)?
Proof (proof of Theorem 1). Given an instance (G, k) of DS , we construct an
equivalent instance of (H, k) in polynomial time. The vertex set of H is: V (H) =
X ∪ Y ∪ {w}, let X = {xi | vi ∈ V (G)}, and let Y = {yi | vi ∈ V (G)}. The edge
set of H is: E(G) = {{xi , yj }, {yi , xj }, {yi , yj } | {vi , vj } ∈ E(G)} ∪ {{xi , yi } |
1 ≤ i ≤ n} ∪ {{w, yi } ∪ 1 ≤ i ≤ n}.
The girth of the reduced instance H is three because the presence of a single
edge in G creates a cycle of length three in H.
(⇒) If G has a dominating set S of size at most k, then H has a semitotal
dominating set of size at most k. Let D = {yi | vi ∈ S}. By our construction,
any vertex in Y is at a distance two from each other. Thus D is a semitotal
dominating set.
(⇐) If H has a semitotal dominating set D of size at most k, then G has
a dominating S of size at most k. Suppose that D ∩ {w} ̸= ∅. If D ∩ Y ̸= ∅,
then D′ = D \ {w}. Further, if D ∩ Y = ∅, then D′ = (D \ {w}) ∪ {yi }, for
some i. Let S = {vi | vi ∈ V (G), {xi , yi } ∩ D′ ̸= ∅}. Since |D′ | ≤ k, |S| ≤ k.
Now we need to show that S is a dominating set of G. Suppose that there
exists a vertex vi ∈ V (G) such that NG [vi ] ∩ S = ∅. Then it must be the case

4
that (NH [xi ] ∪ NH [yi ]) ∩ D = ∅, which is a contradiction that D is a semitotal
dominating set. Thus, it follows that SD is W[2]-hard on graphs with girth
three.
Proof ( Proof of Theorem 2). Given an instance (G, k) of DS , we construct a
corresponding instance of (H, k+1) in polynomial time such that H is a bipartite
graph. The vertex set of H is: V (H) = X ∪ Y ∪ {w, z}, let X = {xi | vi ∈ V (G)},
and let Y = {yi | vi ∈ V (G)}. The edge set of H is: E(G) = {{xi , yj }, {yi , xj } |
{vi , vj } ∈ E(G)} ∪ {{xi , yi } | 1 ≤ i ≤ n} ∪ {{w, yi } ∪ 1 ≤ i ≤ n} ∪ {{w, z}}.
The girth of the reduced instance H is four because H is bipartite and the
presence of a single edge in G creates a cycle of length four.
(⇒) If G has a dominating set S of size at most k, then H has a semitotal
dominating set of size at most k + 1. Let D = {yi | vi ∈ S} ∪ {w}. By our
construction, any vertex in Y is at a distance two from each other. Thus D is a
semitotal dominating set.
(⇐) If H has a semitotal dominating set D of size at most k + 1, then
G has a dominating S of size at most k. Observe that D ∩ {w, z} ̸= ∅. Let
S = {vi | vi ∈ V (G), {xi , yi } ∩ D ̸= ∅}. Since |D| ≤ k + 1, |S| ≤ k. Now
we need to show that S is a dominating set of G. Suppose that there exists
a vertex vi ∈ V (G) such that NG [vi ] ∩ S = ∅. Then it must be the case that
(NH [xi ] ∪ NH [yi ]) ∩ D = ∅, which is a contradiction that D is a semitotal
dominating set. Thus, it follows that SD is W[2]-hard on graphs with girth
four.

3 FPT on G5 graphs (graphs with girth at least five)

In this section we give a kernelization algorithm for the SD problem on graphs
having girth at least 5. We begin with the following result which holds for graphs
of girth at least 5.
Lemma 1. If G is a graph of girth at least 5 then for any vertex v ∈ V (G),
NG (u) is an independent set. Moreover, no two vertices in NG (u) has a common
neighbour.
The idea we adopted here is similar to the idea of computing a k size dominat-
ing set in graphs that excludes short cycle (girth at least 5) [7]. In our algorithm
we first identify a set of vertices of a graph G that must be included in any
semitoatal dominating set of size at most k.
Lemma 2. Let G be a graph of girth at least 5. If a vertex v ∈ V (G) has degree
more than k in G then v belongs to each semitotal dominating set of G.
Proof. Let G be a graph of girth at least 5 and D be a semitotal dominating
set of G such that |D| ≤ k. Moreover, let v ∈ V (G) be a vertex of degree more
than k and v ∈/ D. From Lemma 1, we note that NG (v) is an independent set
and no two vertices in NG (v) has a common neighbour. This implies that, if
v∈/ D then D contains at least |NG (v)| vertices to dominate vertices in NG (v),
a contradiction, as |D| ≤ k.

5
 We use a coloring scheme to identify the vertices that are in D and have a
neighbor in D which is at a distance within two, D, and do not have a neighbor
in D which is at a distance within two, N [D], and vertices that are not yet
dominated. At any instance of our algorithm, the vertices are colored with one
of the following colors;

1. Orange - The vertex included in the semitotal dominating set D has a

neighbor in D which is at a distance within two in G, which we are trying
to construct.
2. Red - The vertex included in the semitotal dominating set D which does
not have a vertex in D that is at a distance within two in G.
3. White - The vertex is not in the set D, but it is adjacent to some vertex
colored red or orange.
4. Black - The vertex is not in the set D, and it is not adjacent to any vertex
colored red or orange.

Observe that initially all vertices are colored black. Now we define a semitotal
dominating set on G5 graphs with vertices colored with orange, red, white, or
black. We call the colored G5 graph as an orwb-graph.
ORWB-Semitotal dominating set: Let G be an orwb-graph satisfying
the following conditions, and let k be a positive integer parameter. Let O, R, W ,
and B be the set of vertices colored orange, red, white, and black respectively.

1. Every white vertex is a neighbor of an orange or red vertex.

2. Every black vertex has no neighbor which is colored orange or red.
3. |O ∪ R| ≤ k

can we write Does G have at most k − |O ∪ R| vertices that dominate all the black vertices?
|R| = ∅ Finally, we want our orwb-graph to have |O| ≤ k, R = ∅, and B = ∅. The
following lemma holds true for semitotal dominating set on G5 graphs.
Lemma 3. Let G which is an orwb-graph be an instance of ORWB-semitotal
dominating set with a positive integer k as the parameter. Let v be the black
or white vertex with more than k − |O ∪ R| black neighbors. Then if G has a set
of size at most k − |O ∪ R| that dominates all black vertices, then v must be part
of every such set.
The proof of Lemma 3 is similar to one presented in [?].
From Lemma 3, we can observe the following reduction rules.

R1 If there is a white or black vertex v having more than k − |O ∪ R| black

neighbors, then either v is colored orange if v has a distance within two
neighbor in D or v is colored red if v has no distance within two neighbor in
D.
R2 If there exists u, v ∈ W such that N [u] = N [v], then W = W \ {v}.
R3 If a white vertex v ∈ W is not adjacent to a black vertex, then include it in
W ′ and W = W ′ \ {v}.
R4 If |O ∪ R| ≥ k, then stop and return NO.

6
Observe that now we have five partitions of vertices, that is vertices that are
colored orange, red, black, and white vertices are partitioned into W and W ′ ,
respectively.
Lemma 4. Let G be an instance of ORWB- Semitotal dominating set, and
let G′ be the instance after applying rules R1 to R4 once. Let k be the integer
parameter. Then G has a set of size at most k − |R ∪ O| dominating all vertices
in B and satisfying the constraint that |R| = ∅ if and only if G′ has a set of size
at most k − |R′ | dominating all vertices in B ′ and satisfying the constraint that
|R′ | = ∅.
Observe that the vertices in W ′ might be useful in ensuring the semitotal
domination property for vertices in R. From Lemma 3, and Lemma 4, we shall
prove the following lemma.
Lemma 5. Let (G, k) be a yes instance of ORWB- Semitotal dominating
set and (G′ , k ′ ) be the reduced instance of (G, k) after applying rules R1-R4
until no longer possible. Then the number of vertices in G′ is O(k 3 + 2k ).
Proof. to be added
Thus ORWB-Semitotal dominating set can be solved in time O((k 3 +
2k )k nO(1) ) time. Since the resultant graph after applying reduction rules R1-R4
recursively, until no longer possible results in a graph with at most k 3 + 2k + k
vertices, we can just try all possible subsets of size at most k for k 3 + 2k vertices.

4 SD on d-degenerate graphs
4.1 W[2]-hardness on d-degenerate graphs
Proof. (proof of Theorem 4) It is known from [?] that DS on r-regular graphs is
W[2]-hard and this can be reduced in polynomial time to SD in d-degenerate
graphs using the following reduction algorithm. We map an instance (G, k) of
DS on r-regular graphs to the corresponding instance (G′ , k) of SD as follows:
V (G′ ) = W ∪ X ∪ Y ∪ Z,
W = {wi | vi ∈ V (G)}, X = {xi | vi ∈ V (G)},
Y = {yi | vi ∈ V (G)},
Z = {zi | vi ∈ V (G)}.
We shall now describe the edges of G′ ,
E(G∗ ) = E1 ∪ E2 ,
E1 = {wi , xj , {xi , wj }, {yi , zj }, {zi , yj }, {xi , yj }, {xj , yi } | {vi , vj } ∈ E(G)},
and E2 = {{wi , xi }, {xi , yi }, {yi , zi } | 1 ≤ i ≤ n}.
Observe that the maximum degree of G′ is 2r + 2. Thus, G′ is a 2r + 2-
degenerate graph.
(⇒) If G has a dominating set S of size at most k, then G′ has a semitotal
dominating set D of size at most 2k. Let D = {yi , xi | vi ∈ S}. By our
construction, for each xi , yi ∈ D, they are at a distance one. Thus D is a semitotal
dominating set.

7
 (⇐) If G′ has a semitotal dominating set D of size at most 2k, then G has
a dominating set S of size at most k. Suppose that |(W ∪ X) ∩ D| ≥ k. Then
|(Y ∪Z)∩D| ≤ k. Let S = {vi | yi ∈ D∨zi ∈ D, 1 ≤ i ≤ n}. Now we need to show
that S is a dominating set of G. Suppose that there exist a vertex vi ∈ V (G) such
that NG [vi ] ∩ S = ∅. Then it must be the case that (NG′ [xi ] ∪ NG′ [yi ]) ∩ D = ∅,
which is a contradiction that D is a semitotal dominating set. Thus it follows
that SD W[2]-hard on d-degenerate graphs.

Observe that for d-degenerate graphs SD is FPT when parameterized by d,

which is established by Section 5.2.

5 Structural parameters

5.1 Parameterizing SD by cliquewidth

Theorem 7. [2,5] Let P be the graph property expressible in MSO1 expressible.

Then any graphs of cliquewidth ≤ k can be verified in time O(f (k)nO(1) ).

Proof. (Proof of Theorem 5) Given a graph G of bounded cliquewidth, i.e.,

cw(G) ≤ k (cw(G) is the cliquewidth of G), SD can be expressed in MSO1 as
follows;

ϕ = min(X) : ∀v ∈ V (G)∃x ∈ X : (adj(v, x) ∨ (v = x ∧ (∃a adj(a, x) ∧ a ∈ X)

∨(∃a∃b adj(a, x) ∧ adj(b, a) ∧ b ∈ X)))

Hence the theorem.

5.2 Parameterizing SD by treewidth

The goal is to provide a dynamic programming algorithm on a tree determines

determines the minimum possible size of a dominating set of the input graph G.
Let T = (T, {Xt }t∈V (T ) ) be a tree decomposition of G which has width at most
tw.
To prove the complexity of the problem parameterized by treewidth, we use
nice tree decomposition with the following nodes as defined in [4]:

1. Leaf node.
2. Introduce vertex node.
3. Introduce edge node.
4. Forget node.
5. Join node.

With each node t of the tree decomposition we associate a subgraph Gt of G

defined as follows:

Gt = (Vt , Et = {e : e is introduced in the subtree rooted at t}).

8
 Our approach is similar to the one presented in [1]. Since we need to distin-
guish between the vertices in the dominating set and those that do not have a
distance within two vertex in the dominating set, we use three colors. For the
remaining vertices, we use two colors to differentiate whether or not they have
been dominated by at least one vertex in the dominating set. Thus, a coloring
of bag Xt is a mapping f : Xt → 1, 1′ , 2, 0, 0′ .
- 1, meaning that the vertex is in the dominating set and satisfies semitotal
dominating set property or has a neighbor in 2.
- 1′ , meaning that the vertex is in the dominating set and does not satisfy
semitotal dominating set property.
- 2, meaning that the vertex is already dominated, not in D, and it is adjacent
to a vertex in 1. These are helper vertices for vertices in 1 to satisfy the
semitotal dominating set.
- 0, meaning that the vertex is not in the dominating set and is already dom-
inated
- 0′ , meaning that the vertex is not in the dominating set and is yet to be
dominated.
We use colors to refer to a function mapping of a vertex.
Observe that at a node t, there are at most 5tw colorings of Xt . For a coloring
f of Xt , let c[t, f ] denotes the minimum size of a semitotal dominating set D of
Vt such that D ∩ Xt = f −1 (1) ∪ f −1 (1′ ), and every vertex in f −1 (2) ∪ f −1 (0)
is adjacent to at least one vertex in f −1 (1) ∪ f −1 (1′ ). Further every vertex in
f −1 (1′ ) does not have a neighbor in f −1 (2) or f −1 (1). We call such a set D a
minimum compatible set for t and f . We have c[t, f ] = +∞, if t and f are not
minimum compatible in D.
By the property of nice tree decomposition, we know that for root node r,
Xr = ∅ and Gr = G. Thus the root node has only one possible coloring which is
empty coloring. Thus the size of the minimum semitotal dominating set in G is
exactly the value of c[r, ∅].
For a coloring f of X, Y ⊆ X, f |Y denotes the mapping of f restricted to
Y . Next, we shall define the recursive formulas for the values of c at each node
of the tree decomposition.

1. Leaf node. For a leaf node Xt = ∅. Hence there is only one coloring possible.

c[t, ∅] = 0

2. Introduce vertex node. Let t be an introduce node with a child t′ . Then

Xt = Xt′ ∪ {v} for some v ∈ / Xt′ . Observe that no edges are introduced to v
and v is an isolated vertex in Gt . Hence, the isolated vertex v in Gt cannot
receive color 2 or 0. Thus, we have the following values for c[t, f ].

+∞,
 if f (v) = 0 or f (v) = 2
′
c[t, f ] = c[t , f |Xt′ ], if f (v) = 0′
1 + c[t , f |Xt′ ], if f (v) = 1 or f (v) = 1′
′



9
 3. Introduce edge node. Let t be an introduce edge node labelled with an
edge {u, v}. Let t′ be the child of t. Then V (Gt ) = V (Gt′ ) and E(Gt ) =
E(Gt′ ) ∪ {{u, v}}. The edge {u, v} is useful in the following ways; if f (u) = 1
or f (u) = 1′ and f (v) = 0 or f (v) = 0′ , then taking precomputed solution
for t′ can help the color of v from 0′ to 0 (or vice versa).


c[t′ , fv→0′ ], if f (u) ∈ {1, 1′ } and f (v) = 0

c[t′ , fu→0′ ], if f (u) = 0 and f (v) ∈ {1, 1′ }




′

c[t , fu→1′ ,v→1′ ], if f (u) = 1 and f (v) = 1




c[t′ , f

u→1′ ,v→0′ ], if f (u) = 1 and f (v) = 2
c[t, f ] = ′


c[t , fu→0′ ,v→1′ ], if f (u) = 2 and f (v) = 1
c[t′ , fu→1′ ,v→2 ], if f (u) = 1 and f (v) = 0




c[t′ , fu→2,v→1′ ], if f (u) = 0 and f (v) = 1




 ′

c[t , f ], otherwise

4. Forget node. Let t be a forget node with a child t′ . Then for some w ∈ Xt′ ,
Xt = Xt′ \ {w}. Every coloring of t′ that maps w to 1 or 0 is a valid coloring.
Thus, we obtain the following recursion.

c[t, f ] = min{c[t′ , fw→1 ], c[t′ , fw→0 ]}

5. Join node. Let t be a join node with children t1 and t2 . Then we know that
Xt = Xt1 = Xt2 . We say that colorings f1 of Xt1 or f2 of Xt2 are consistent
with a coloring f of Xt if for every v ∈ Xt the following conditions hold;
(a) f (v) = 1 if and only if f1 (v) = f2 (v) = 1.
(b) f (v) = 1′ if and only if f1 (v) = f2 (v) = 1′ .
(c) f (v) = 2 if and only if f1 (v) = f2 (v) = 2
(d) f (v) = 0 if and only if (f1 (v), f2 (v)) ∈ {(0′ , 0), (0, 0′ )}
(e) f (v) = 0′ if and only if f1 (v) = f2 (v) = 0′
Observe that D is a compatible set for t and f if and only if D must be a
compatible set for t1 and f1 , and t2 and f2 . Let D1 in Gt1 and D2 in Gt2 .
Since D1 ⊆ D and D2 ⊆ D, D∩Xt = D1 ∩Xt1 = D2 ∩Xt2 = f −1 (1)∪f −1 (1′ ).
Thus, |D| = |D1 | + |D2 | − |f −1 (1) ∪ f −1 (1′ )|. Hence, we obtain the following
recursion.

c[t, f ] = min {c[t1 , f1 ] + c[t2 , f2 ] − |f −1 (1)| − |f −1 (1′ )|}

f1 ,f2

Running time.

References
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