  A cactus is a connected graph that does not contain $K_4 - e$ as a minor.
Given a graph $G = (V, E)$ and integer $k \ge 0$, Cactus Vertex Deletion (also
known as Diamond Hitting Set) is the problem of deciding whether $G$ has a
vertex set of size at most $k$ whose removal leaves a forest of cacti. The
current best deterministic parameterized algorithm for this problem was due to
Bonnet et al. [WG 2016], which runs in time $26^kn^{O(1)}$, where $n$ is the
number of vertices of $G$. In this paper, we design a deterministic algorithm
for Cactus Vertex Deletion, which runs in time $17.64^kn^{O(1)}$. As a
straightforward application of our algorithm, we give a $17.64^kn^{O(1)}$-time
algorithm for Even Cycle Transversal. The idea behind this improvement is to
apply the measure and conquer analysis with a slightly elaborate measure of
instances.
