Solution Techniques for the Large Set Covering Problem
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Given a finite set E and a family F={E1,...,Em} of subsets of E such that F covers E, the famous unicost set covering problem (USCP) is to determine the smallest possible subset of F that also covers E. We study in this paper a variant, called the Large Set Covering Problem (LSCP), which differs from the USCP in that E and the subsets Ei are not given in extension because they are very large sets that are possibly infinite. We propose three exact algorithms for solving the LSCP. Two of them determine minimal covers, while the third one produces minimum covers. Heuristic versions of these algorithms are also proposed and analysed. We then give several procedures for the computation of a lower bound on the minimum size of a cover. We finally present algorithms for finding the largest possible subset of F that does not cover E. We also show that a particular case of the LSCP is to determine irreducible infeasible sets in inconsistent constraint satisfaction problems. All concepts presented in the paper are illustrated on the k-colouring problem which is formulated as a constraint satisfaction problem.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".