Algorithm for finding the independence number of a recursively constructed hypergraph

Informally, a recursive hypergraph class is the one in which any sufficiently large member in the class can be formed by smaller successively joining members in this class at specific vertices called terminals. Letting the maximum allowable number of terminals be k, we sometimes refer to these as k-terminal hypergraphs. We give a linear-time algorithm for finding the independence number of a k-terminal recursively constructed hypergraph.