The k-neighbourhood-covering problem on interval graphs

Let G=(V, E) be a simple connected graph and k be a fixed positive integer. A vertex w is said to be a k-neighbourhood-cover (kNC) of an edge (u, v) if d(u, w)≤k and d(v, w)≤k. A set C ? V is called a kNC set if every edge in E is kNC by some vertices of C. The decision problem associated with this problem is NP-complete for general graphs and it remains NP-complete for chordal graphs. In this article, we design an O(n) time algorithm to solve minimum kNC problem on interval graphs by using a data structure called interval tree.