Distributed algorithms for weighted problems in sparse graphs

We study distributed algorithms for three graph-theoretic problems in weighted trees and weighted planar graphs. For trees, we present an efficient deterministic distributed algorithm which finds an almost exact approximation of a maximum-weight matching. In addition, in the case of trees, we show how to approximately solve the minimum-weight dominating set problem. For planar graphs, we present an almost exact approximation for the maximum-weight independent set problem.