Circular mixed hypergraphs II:The upper chromatic number

A mixed hypergraph is a triple H=(X,C,D), where X is the vertex set and each of C, D is a family of subsets of X, the C-edges and D-edges, respectively. A proper k-coloring of H is a mapping c:X→[k] such that each C-edge has two vertices with a common color and each D-edge has two vertices with distinct colors. A mixed hypergraph H is called circular if there exists a host cycle on the vertex set X such that every edge (C- or D-) induces a connected subgraph of this cycle.We suggest a general procedure for coloring circular mixed hypergraphs and prove that if H is a reduced colorable circular mixed hypergraph with n vertices, upper chromatic number and sieve number s, then

     

Spectrum of Mixed Bi-uniform Hypergraphs

A mixed hypergraph is a triple \(H=(V,{\mathcal {C}},{\mathcal {D}})\), where V is a set of vertices, \({\mathcal {C}}\) and \({\mathcal {D}}\) are sets of hyperedges. A vertex-coloring of H is proper if C-edges are not totally multicolored and D-edges are not monochromatic. The feasible set S(H) of H is the set of all integers, s, such that H has a proper coloring with s colors. Bujtás and Tuza (Graphs Combin 24:1–12, 2008) gave a characterization of feasible sets for mixed hypergraphs with all C- and D-edges of the same size \(r, r\ge 3\). In this note, we give a short proof of a complete characterization of all possible feasible sets for mixed hypergraphs with all C-edges of size \(\ell \) and all D-edges of size m, where \(\ell , m \ge 2\). Moreover, we show that for every sequence \((r(s))_{s=\ell }^n, n \ge \ell \), of natural numbers there exists such a hypergraph with exactly r(s) proper colorings using s colors, \(s = \ell ,\ldots ,n\), and no proper coloring with more than n colors. Choosing \(\ell = m=r\) this answers a question of Bujtás and Tuza, and generalizes their result with a shorter proof.     

Decomposing Hypergraphs into Simple Hypertrees

T be a simple k-uniform hypertree with t edges. It is shown that if H is any k-uniform hypergraph with n vertices and with minimum degree at least , and the number of edges of H is a multiple of t then H has a T-decomposition. This result is asymptotically best possible for all simple hypertrees with at least two edges. Received December 28, 1998     

Orderings of uniquely colorable hypergraphs

For a mixed hypergraph H=(X,C,D), where C and D are set systems over the vertex set X, a coloring is a partition of X into ‘color classes’ such that every C∈C meets some class in more than one vertex, and every D∈D has a nonempty intersection with at least two classes. A vertex-orderx₁,x₂,…,x_n on X (n=|X|) is uniquely colorable if the subhypergraph induced by {x_j:1?j?i} has precisely one coloring, for each i (1?i?n). We prove that it is NP-complete to decide whether a mixed hypergraph admits a uniquely colorable vertex-order, even if the input is restricted to have just one coloring. On the other hand, via a characterization theorem it can be decided in linear time whether a given color-sequence belongs to a mixed hypergraph in which the uniquely colorable vertex-order is unique.     

A common generalization of line graphs and clique graphs

Both the line graph and the clique graph are defined as intersection graphs of certain families of complete subgraphs of a graph. We generalize this concept. By a k-edge of a graph we mean a complete subgraph with k vertices or a clique with fewer than k vertices. The k-edge graph Δ_k(G) of a graph G is defined as the intersection graph of the set of all k-edges of G. The following three problems are investigated for k-edge graphs. The first is the characterization problem. Second, sets of graphs closed under the k-edge graph operator are found. The third problem is the question of convergence: What happens to a graph if we take iterated k-edge graphs?     

Local edge-connectivity augmentation in hypergraphs is NP-complete

We consider a local edge-connectivity hypergraph augmentation problem. Specifically, we are given a hypergraph G=(V,E) and a subpartition of V. We are asked to find the smallest possible integer γ, for which there exists a set of size-two edges F, with |F|=γ, such that in G^′=(V,E∪F), the local edge-connectivity between any pair of vertices lying in the same part of the subpartition is at least a given value k. Using a transformation from the bin-packing problem, we show that the associated decision problem is NP-complete, even when k=2.     

Game-perfect digraphs

In the A-coloring game, two players, Alice and Bob, color uncolored vertices of a given uncolored digraph D with colors from a given color set C, so that, at any time a vertex is colored, its color has to be different from the colors of its previously colored in-neighbors. Alice begins. The players move alternately, where a move of Bob consists in coloring a vertex, and a move of Alice in coloring a vertex or missing the turn. The game ends when Bob is unable to move. Alice wins if every vertex is colored at the end, otherwise Bob wins. This game is a variant of a graph coloring game proposed by Bodlaender (Int J Found Comput Sci 2:133?C147, 1991). The A-game chromatic number of D is the smallest cardinality of a color set C, so that Alice has a winning strategy for the game played on D with C. A digraph is A-perfect if, for any induced subdigraph H of D, the A-game chromatic number of H equals the size of the largest symmetric clique of H. We characterize some basic classes of A-perfect digraphs, in particular all A-perfect semiorientations of paths and cycles. This gives us, as corollaries, similar results for other games, in particular concerning the digraph version of the usual game chromatic number.     

A linear algorithm for the domination number of a series-parallel graph

A vertex u in an undirected graph G = (V, E) is said to dominate all its adjacent vertices and itself. A subset D of V is a dominating set in G if every vertex in G is dominated by a vertex in D, and is a minimum dominating set in G if no other dominating set in G has fewer vertices than D. The domination number of G is the cardinality of a minimum dominating set in G.The problem of determining, for a given positive integer k and an undirected graph G, whether G has a dominating set D in G satisfying ¦D¦ ≤ k, is a well-known NP-complete problem. Cockayne have presented a linear time algorithm for finding a minimum dominating set in a tree. In this paper, we will present a linear time algorithm for finding a minimum dominating set in a series-parallel graph.     

Coloring, location and domination of corona graphs

A vertex coloring of a graph G is an assignment of colors to the vertices of G so that every two adjacent vertices of G have different colors. A coloring related property of a graphs is also an assignment of colors or labels to the vertices of a graph, in which the process of labeling is done according to an extra condition. A set S of vertices of a graph G is a dominating set in G if every vertex outside of S is adjacent to at least one vertex belonging to S. A domination parameter of G is related to those structures of a graph that satisfy some domination property together with other conditions on the vertices of G. In this article we study several mathematical properties related to coloring, domination and location of corona graphs. We investigate the distance-k colorings of corona graphs. Particularly, we obtain tight bounds for the distance-2 chromatic number and distance-3 chromatic number of corona graphs, through some relationships between the distance-k chromatic number of corona graphs and the distance-k chromatic number of its factors. Moreover, we give the exact value of the distance-k chromatic number of the corona of a path and an arbitrary graph. On the other hand, we obtain bounds for the Roman dominating number and the locating–domination number of corona graphs. We give closed formulaes for the k-domination number, the distance-k domination number, the independence domination number, the domatic number and the idomatic number of corona graphs.     

A memetic algorithm for graph coloring

Given an undirected graph G=(V,E)$G=(V\text{,}E)$ with a set V of vertices and a set E of edges, the graph coloring problem consists of partitioning all vertices into k independent sets and the number of used colors k is minimized. This paper presents a memetic algorithm (denoted by MACOL) for solving the problem of graph coloring. The proposed MACOL algorithm integrates several distinguished features such as an adaptive multi-parent crossover (AMPaX) operator and a distance-and-quality based replacement criterion for pool updating. The proposed algorithm is evaluated on the DIMACS challenge benchmarks and computational results show that the proposed MACOL algorithm achieves highly competitive results, compared with 11 state-of-the-art algorithms. The influence of some ingredients of MACOL on its performance is also analyzed.     

Colorful Strips

We study the following geometric hypergraph coloring problem: given a planar point set and an integer k, we wish to color the points with k colors so that any axis-aligned strip containing sufficiently many points contains all colors. We show that if the strip contains at least 2k − 1 points, such a coloring can always be found. In dimension d, we show that the same holds provided the strip contains at least k(4 ln k + ln d) points. We also consider the dual problem of coloring a given set of axis-aligned strips so that any sufficiently covered point in the plane is covered by k colors. We show that in dimension d the required coverage is at most d(k − 1) + 1. This complements recent impossibility results on decomposition of strip coverings with arbitrary orientations. From the computational point of view, we show that deciding whether a three-dimensional point set can be 2-colored so that any strip containing at least three points contains both colors is NP-complete. This shows a big contrast with the planar case, for which this decision problem is easy.     

The existence of regular self-complementary 3-uniform hypergraphs

A k-uniform hypergraph with vertex set V and edge set E is called t-subset-regular if every t-element subset of V lies in the same number of elements of E. In this paper we show that a 1-subset-regular self-complementary 3-uniform hypergraph with n vertices exists if and only if n≥5 and n is congruent to 1 or 2 modulo 4.     

Partitions of graphs into coverings and hypergraphs into transversals

A covering of a multigraphG is a subset of edges which meet all vertices ofG. Partitions of the edges ofG into coveringsC ₁,C ₂, ...,C _k are considered. In particular we examine how close the cardinalities of these coverings may be. A result concerning matchings is extended to the decomposition into coverings. Finally these considerations are generalized to the decompositions of the vertices of a hypergraph into transversals (a transversal is a set of vertices meeting all edges of the hypergraph).     

Concise proofs for adjacent vertex-distinguishing total colorings

Let G=(V,E) be a graph and f:(V∪E)→[k] be a proper total k-coloring of G. We say that f is an adjacent vertex- distinguishing total coloring if for any two adjacent vertices, the set of colors appearing on the vertex and incident edges are different. We call the smallest k for which such a coloring of G exists the adjacent vertex-distinguishing total chromatic number, and denote it by χ_at(G). Here we provide short proofs for an upper bound on the adjacent vertex-distinguishing total chromatic number of graphs of maximum degree three, and the exact values of χ_at(G) when G is a complete graph or a cycle.     

deBruijn-like sequences and the irregular chromatic number of paths and cycles

A deBruijn sequence of orderk, or a k-deBruijn sequence, over an alphabet A is a sequence of length |A|^k in which the last element is considered adjacent to the first and every possible k-tuple from A appears exactly once as a string of k-consecutive elements in the sequence. We will say that a cyclic sequence is deBruijn-like if for some k, each of the consecutive k-element substrings is distinct.A vertex coloring χ:V(G)→[k] of a graph G is said to be proper if no pair of adjacent vertices in G receive the same color. Let C(v;χ) denote the multiset of colors assigned by a coloring χ to the neighbors of vertex v. A proper coloring χ of G is irregular if χ(u)=χ(v) implies that C(u;χ)≠C(v;χ). The minimum number of colors needed to irregularly color G is called the irregular chromatic number of G. The notion of the irregular chromatic number pairs nicely with other parameters aimed at distinguishing the vertices of a graph. In this paper, we demonstrate a connection between the irregular chromatic number of cycles and the existence of certain deBruijn-like sequences. We then determine the exact irregular chromatic number of C_n and P_n for n≥3, thus verifying two conjectures given by Okamoto, Radcliffe and Zhang.     

Circumference, chromatic number and online coloring

Erd?s conjectured that if G is a triangle free graph of chromatic number at least k≥3, then it contains an odd cycle of length at least k ^2?o(1) [13,15]. Nothing better than a linear bound ([3], Problem 5.1.55 in [16]) was so far known. We make progress on this conjecture by showing that G contains an odd cycle of length at least Ω(k log logk). Erd?s’ conjecture is known to hold for graphs with girth at least five. We show that if a graph with girth four is C ₅ free, then Erd?s’ conjecture holds. When the number of vertices is not too large we can prove better bounds on χ. We also give bounds on the chromatic number of graphs with at most r cycles of length 1 mod k, or at most s cycles of length 2 mod k, or no cycles of length 3 mod k. Our techniques essentially consist of using a depth first search tree to decompose the graph into ordered paths, which are then fed to an online coloring algorithm. Using this technique we give simple proofs of some old results, and also obtain several other results. We also obtain a lower bound on the number of colors which an online coloring algorithm needs to use to color triangle free graphs.     

Packing seagulls

A seagull in a graph is an induced three-vertex path. When does a graph G have k pairwise vertex-disjoint seagulls? This is NP-complete in general, but for graphs with no stable set of size three we give a complete solution. This case is of special interest because of a connection with Hadwiger’s conjecture which was the motivation for this research; and we deduce a unification and strengthening of two theorems of Blasiak [2] concerned with Hadwiger’s conjecture. Our main result is that a graph G (different from the five-wheel) with no three-vertex stable set contains k disjoint seagulls if and only if

1. |V (G)|≥3k
2. G is k-connected
3. for every clique C of G, if D denotes the set of vertices in V (G)\C that have both a neighbour and a non-neighbour in C then |D|+|V (G)\C|≥2k, and
4. the complement graph of G has a matching with k edges.

We also address the analogous fractional and half-integral packing questions, and give a polynomial time algorithm to test whether there are k disjoint seagulls.     

Minimum 2-tuple dominating set of permutation graphs

For a fixed positive integer k, a k-tuple dominating set of a graph G=(V,E) is a subset D?V such that every vertex in V is dominated by at least k vertex in D. The k-tuple domination number γ _×k (G) is the minimum size of a k-tuple dominating set of G. The special case when k=1 is the usual domination. The case when k=2 was called double domination or 2-tuple domination. A 2-tuple dominating set D ₂ is said to be minimal if there does not exist any D′?D ₂ such that D′ is a 2-tuple dominating set of G. A 2-tuple dominating set D ₂, denoted by γ _×2(G), is said to be minimum, if it is minimal as well as it gives 2-tuple domination number. In this paper, we present an efficient algorithm to find a minimum 2-tuple dominating set on permutation graphs with n vertices which runs in O(n ²) time.     

Critical hypergraphs for the weak chromatic number

Instead of removing a vertex or an edge from a hypergraph H, one may add to some edges of H new vertices (not necessarily belonging to V_H). The weak chromatic number of H tends to drop by this operation. This suggests the definition of an order relation ≥ on the set $\text{S}$ of all Sperner hypergraphs on a universal set V of vertices. The corresponding criticality study leads to unifying and interesting results: reconstruction of critical hypergraphs and two general characterizations of k-chromatic critical hypergraphs (k ≥ 3), from which a special characterization of 3-chromatic critical hypergraphs can be derived.