Approximating minimum representations of key Horn functions

Abstract: Horn functions form a subclass of Boolean functions and appear in many different areas of computer science and mathematics as a general tool to describe implications and dependencies. Finding minimum sized representations for such functions with respect to most commonly used measures is a computationally hard problem that remains hard even for the important subclass of key Horn functions. In this paper we provide logarithmic factor approximation algorithms for key Horn functions with respect to all measures studied in the literature for which the problem is known to be hard.