• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.107-113
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• 2015

This paper presents a polynomial time algorithm to the minimum cardinality feedback edge set and minimum weight feedback edge set problems. The algorithm makes use of the property wherein the sum of the minimum spanning tree edge set and the minimum feedback edge set equals a given graph's edge set. In other words, the minimum feedback edge set is inherently a complementary set of the former. The proposed algorithm, in pursuit of the optimal solution, modifies the minimum spanning tree finding Kruskal's algorithm so as to arrange the weight of edges in a descending order and to assign cycle-deficient edges to the maximum spanning tree edge set MXST and cycle-containing edges to the feedback edge set FES. This algorithm runs with linear time complexity, whose execution time corresponds to the number of edges of the graph. When extensively tested on various undirected graphs both with and without the weighed edge, the proposed algorithm has obtained the optimal solutions with 100% success and accuracy.