The parameterized complexity of the shared center problem

Recently, the shared center (SC) problem has been proposed as a mathematical model for inferring the allele-sharing status of a given set of individuals using a database of confirmed haplotypes as reference. The problem was proved to be NP-complete and a ratio-2 polynomial-time approximation algorithm was designed for its minimization version (called the closest shared center (CSC) problem). In this paper, we consider the parameterized complexity of the SC problem. First, we show that the SC problem is W[1]-hard with parameters d and n, where d and n are the radius and the number of (diseased or normal) individuals in the input, respectively. Then, we present two asymptotically optimal parameterized algorithms for the problem and apply them to linkage analysis. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media New York.