Polynomial-Time Data Reduction for Weighted Problems Beyond Additive Goal Functions

Abstract: Dealing with NP-hard problems, kernelization is a fundamental notion for polynomial-time data reduction with performance guarantees: in polynomial time, a problem instance is reduced to an equivalent instance with size upper-bounded by a function of a parameter chosen in advance. Kernelization for weighted problems particularly requires to also shrink weights. Marx and V\'egh [ACM Trans. Algorithms 2015] and Etscheid et al. [J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 2017] used a technique of Frank and Tardos [Combinatorica 1987] to obtain polynomial-size kernels for weighted problems, mostly with additive goal functions. We characterize the function types that the technique is applicable to, which turns out to contain many non-additive functions. Using this insight, we systematically obtain kernelization results for natural problems in graph partitioning, network design, facility location, scheduling, vehicle routing, and computational social choice, thereby improving and generalizing results from the literature.