  Many NP-hard problems, such as Dominating Set, are FPT parameterized by
clique-width. For graphs of clique-width $k$ given with a $k$-expression,
Dominating Set can be solved in $4^k n^{O(1)}$ time. However, no FPT algorithm
is known for computing an optimal $k$-expression. For a graph of clique-width
$k$, if we rely on known algorithms to compute a $(2^{3k}-1)$-expression via
rank-width and then solving Dominating Set using the $(2^{3k}-1)$-expression,
the above algorithm will only give a runtime of $4^{2^{3k}} n^{O(1)}$. There
have been results which overcome this exponential jump; the best known
algorithm can solve Dominating Set in time $2^{O(k^2)} n^{O(1)}$ by avoiding
constructing a $k$-expression [Bui-Xuan, Telle, and Vatshelle. Fast dynamic
programming for locally checkable vertex subset and vertex partitioning
problems. Theoret. Comput. Sci., 2013. doi:10.1016/j.tcs.2013.01.009]. We
improve this to $2^{O(k\log k)}n^{O(1)}$. Indeed, we show that for a graph of
clique-width $k$, a large class of domination and partitioning problems
(LC-VSP), including Dominating Set, can be solved in $2^{O(k\log{k})}
n^{O(1)}$. Our main tool is a variant of rank-width using the rank of a $0$-$1$
matrix over the rational field instead of the binary field.
