The general Steiner problem in Boolean space and application (Q810871)

In a Boolean space the distance D(A,B) of points A, B is defined as their symmetric difference, i.e. \(D(A,B)=A\oplus B=\) \(AB'+A'B.\) Given n Boolean points \(x_ 1,...,x_ n\) and Boolean constants \(c_ 1,...,c_ n\). The general Steiner problem (GSP) in Boolean space is to find the point X such that \(\Phi (X)=\sum^{n}_{i=1}c_ iD(x_ i,X)\) be minimum. The case \(c_ 1=...=c_ n\) is of geometric interest. The GSP is an optimization problem of genuine Boolean function. The main idea of solution is reduced to the problem of solving the Boolean equations. The author gives an application of GSP as a mathematical model for actual optimization, and he expects further applications as well in mathematical theory as in practice.