35-3 Weighted set-covering problem
Suppose that we generalize the set-covering problem so that each set in the family has an associated weight and the weight of a cover is . We wish to determine a minimum-weight cover. (Section 35.3 handles the case in which for all .)
Show how to generalize the greedy set-covering heuristic in a natural manner to provide an approximate solution for any instance of the weighted set-covering problem. Show that your heuristic has an approximation ratio of , where is the maximum size of any set .
(Omit!)