Balanced judicious bipartitions of graphs

A bipartition of the vertex set of a graph is called balanced if the sizes of the sets in the bipartition differ by at most one. B. Bollobás and A. D. Scott, Random Struct Alg 21 (2002), 414–430 conjectured that if G is a graph with minimum degree of at least 2 then V(G) admits a balanced bipartition V₁, V₂ such that for each i, G has at most |E(G)|/3 edges with both ends in V_i. The minimum degree condition is necessary, and a result of B. Bollobás and A. D. Scott, J. Graph Theory 46 (2004), 131–143 shows that this conjecture holds for regular graphs G(i.e., when Δ(G)=δ(G)). We prove this conjecture for graphs G with \begin{eqnarray*}\Delta(G)\le\frac{7}{5}\delta(G)\end{eqnarray*}; hence, it holds for graphs ]ensuremathG with \begin{eqnarray*}\delta(G)\ge\frac{5}{7}|V(G)|\end{eqnarray*}. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 63: 210–225, 2010     

C‐perfect hypergraphs

Let ${\mathcal{H}}=({{X}},{\mathcal{E}})Let ${\mathcal{H}}=({{X}},{\mathcal{E}})$ be a hypergraph with vertex set X and edge set ${\mathcal{E}}$. A C‐coloring of ${\mathcal{H}}$ is a mapping ?:X→? such that |?(E)|<|E| holds for all edges ${{E}}\in{\mathcal{E}}$ (i.e. no edge is multicolored). We denote by $\bar{\chi}({\mathcal{H}})$ the maximum number |?(X)| of colors in a C‐coloring. Let further $\alpha({\mathcal{H}})$ denote the largest cardinality of a vertex set S?X that contains no ${{E}}\in{\mathcal{E}}$, and $\tau({\mathcal{H}})=|{{X}}|-\alpha({\mathcal{H}})$ the minimum cardinality of a vertex set meeting all $E \in {\mathcal{E}}$. The hypergraph ${\mathcal{H}}$ is called C‐perfect if $\bar{\chi}({\mathcal{H}}\prime)=\alpha({\mathcal{H}}\prime)$ holds for every induced subhypergraph ${\mathcal{H}}\prime\subseteq{\mathcal{H}}$. If ${\mathcal{H}}$ is not C‐perfect but all of its proper induced subhypergraphs are, then we say that it is minimally C‐imperfect. We prove that for all r, k∈? there exists a finite upper bound h(r, k) on the number of minimally C‐imperfect hypergraphs ${\mathcal{H}}$ with $\tau({\mathcal{H}})\le {{k}}$ and without edges of more than r vertices. We give a characterization of minimally C‐imperfect hypergraphs that have τ=2, which also characterizes implicitly the C‐perfect ones with τ=2. From this result we derive an infinite family of new constructions that are minimally C‐imperfect. A characterization of minimally C‐imperfect circular hypergraphs is presented, too. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 64: 132–149, 2010     

Correlations for paths in random orientations of G(n,p) and G(n,m)

We study random graphs, both G( n,p) and G( n,m), with random orientations on the edges. For three fixed distinct vertices s,a,b we study the correlation, in the combine probability space, of the events $\{a\to s\}$ and $\{s\to b\}$ . For G(n,p), we prove that there is a $pc = 1/2$ such that for a fixed $p < pc$ the correlation is negative for large enough n and for $p > pc$ the correlation is positive for large enough n. We conjecture that for a fixed $n \ge 27$ the correlation changes sign three times for three critical values of p. For G(n,m) it is similarly proved that, with $p=m/({{n}\atop {2}})$ , there is a critical pc that is the solution to a certain equation and approximately equal to 0.7993. A lemma, which computes the probability of non existence of any $\ell$ directed edges in G(n,m), is thought to be of independent interest. We present exact recursions to compute \input amssym $\Bbb{P}(a\to s)$ and \input amssym $\Bbb{P}(a\to s, s\to b)$ . We also briefly discuss the corresponding question in the quenched version of the problem. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2011     

The cover time of random geometric graphs

We study the cover time of random geometric graphs. Let $I(d)=[0,1]^{d}$ denote the unit torus in d dimensions. Let $D(x,r)$ denote the ball (disc) of radius r. Let $\Upsilon_d$ be the volume of the unit ball $D(0,1)$ in d dimensions. A random geometric graph $G=G(d,r,n)$ in d dimensions is defined as follows: Sample n points V independently and uniformly at random from $I(d)$ . For each point x draw a ball $D(x,r)$ of radius r about x. The vertex set $V(G)=V$ and the edge set $E(G)=\{\{v,w\}: w\ne v,\,w\in D(v,r)\}$ . Let $G(d,r,n),\,d\geq 3$ be a random geometric graph. Let $C_G$ denote the cover time of a simple random walk on G. Let $c>1$ be constant, and let $r=(c\log n/(\Upsilon_dn))^{1/d}$ . Then whp the cover time satisfies © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 38, 324–349, 2011     

Increasing the output length of zero‐error dispersers

Let $\cal{C}$ be a class of probability distributions over a finite set Ω. A function $D : \Omega \mapsto\{0,1\}^{m}$ is a disperser for $\cal{C}$ with entropy threshold $k$ and error $\epsilon$ if for any distribution X in $\cal{C}$ such that X gives positive probability to at least $2^{k}$ elements we have that the distribution $D(X)$ gives positive probability to at least $(1-\epsilon)2^{m}$ elements. A long line of research is devoted to giving explicit (that is polynomial time computable) dispersers (and related objects called “extractors”) for various classes of distributions while trying to maximize m as a function of k. For several interesting classes of distributions there are explicit constructions in the literature of zero‐error dispersers with “small” output length m. In this paper we develop a general technique to improve the output length of zero‐error dispersers. This strategy works for several classes of sources and is inspired by a transformation that improves the output length of extractors (which was given by Shaltiel (CCC'06; Proceedings of the 21st Annual IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity, (2006) 46–60.) building on earlier work by Gabizon, Raz and Shaltiel (SIAM J Comput 36 (2006) 1072–1094). Our techniques are different than those of Shaltiel (CCC'06; Proceedings of the 21st Annual IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity (2006) 46–60) and in particular give non‐trivial results in the errorless case. Using our approach we construct improved zero‐error 2‐source dispersers. More precisely, we show that for any constant $\delta >0$ there is a constant $\eta >0$ such that for sufficiently large n there is a poly‐time computable function $D :\{0,1\}^{n}\times\{0,1\}^{n}\mapsto\{0,1\}^{\eta n}$ such that for every two independent distributions $X_1,X_2$ over $\{0,1\}^{n}$ each with support size at least $2^{\delta n}$ , the output distribution $D(X_1,X_2)$ has full support. This improves the output length of previous constructions by Barak, Kindler, Shaltiel, Sudakov and Wigderson (Proceedings of the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (2005) 1–10) and has applications in Ramsey theory and in improved constructions of certain data structures from the work of Fiat and Naor [SIAM J Comput 22 (1993)]. We also use our techniques to give explicit constructions of zero‐error dispersers for bit‐fixing sources and affine sources over polynomially large fields. These constructions improve the best known explicit constructions due to Rao (unpublished data) and Gabizon and Raz [Combinatorica 28 (2008)] and achieve $m=\Omega(k)$ for bit‐fixing sources and $m=k-o(k)$ for affine sources over polynomial size fields. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2011     

Disjoint cycles with chords in graphs

Let be integers, , , and let for each , be a cycle or a tree on vertices. We prove that every graph G of order at least n with contains k vertex disjoint subgraphs , where , if is a tree, and is a cycle with chords incident with a common vertex, if is a cycle. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 60: 87–98, 2009     

Families of pairs of graphs with a large number of common cards

The vertex‐deleted subgraph G?v, obtained from the graph G by deleting the vertex v and all edges incident to v, is called a card of G. The deck of G is the multiset of its unlabelled vertex‐deleted subgraphs. The number of common cards of G and H (or between G and H) is the cardinality of the multiset intersection of the decks of G and H. In this article, we present infinite families of pairs of graphs of order n ≥ 4 that have at least \begin{eqnarray*}2\lfloor\frac{1}{3}(n-1)\rfloor\end{eqnarray*} common cards; we conjecture that these, along with a small number of other families constructed from them, are the only pairs of graphs having this many common cards, for sufficiently large n. This leads us to propose a new stronger version of the Reconstruction Conjecture. In addition, we present an infinite family of pairs of graphs with the same degree sequence that have \begin{eqnarray*}\frac{2}{3}(n+5-2\sqrt{3n+6})\end{eqnarray*} common cards, for appropriate values of n, from which we can construct pairs having slightly fewer common cards for all other values of n≥10. We also present infinite families of pairs of forests and pairs of trees with \begin{eqnarray*}2\lfloor\frac{1}{3}(n-4)\rfloor\end{eqnarray*} and \begin{eqnarray*}2\lfloor\frac{1}{3}(n-5)\rfloor\end{eqnarray*} common cards, respectively. We then present new families that have the maximum number of common cards when one graph is connected and the other disconnected. Finally, we present a family with a large number of common cards, where one graph is a tree and the other unicyclic, and discuss how many cards are required to determine whether a graph is a tree. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 63: 146–163, 2010     

Ore‐type condition for the existence of connected factors

In this article, we obtain some Ore‐type sufficient conditions for a graph to have a connected factor with degree restrictions. Let α and k be positive integers with if and if . Let G be a connected graph with a spanning subgraph F, each component of which has order at least α. We show that if the degree sum of two nonadjacent vertices is greater than then G has a connected subgraph in which F is contained and every vertex has degree at most . From the result, we derive that a graph G has a connected ‐factor if the degree sum of two nonadjacent vertices is at least . © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Graph Theory 56: 241–248, 2007     

On k‐detour subgraphs of hypercubes

A spanning subgraph G of a graph H is a k‐detour subgraph of H if for each pair of vertices , the distance, , between x and y in G exceeds that in H by at most k. Such subgraphs sometimes also are called additive spanners. In this article, we study k‐detour subgraphs of the n‐dimensional cube, , with few edges or with moderate maximum degree. Let denote the minimum possible maximum degree of a k‐detour subgraph of . The main result is that for every and On the other hand, for each fixed even and large n, there exists a k‐detour subgraph of with average degree at most . © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 57: 55–64, 2008     

A Self‐Dual Polar Factorization for Vector Fields

We show that any nondegenerate vector field u in \begin{align*}L^{\infty}(\Omega, \mathbb{R}^N)\end{align*}, where Ω is a bounded domain in \begin{align*}\mathbb{R}^N\end{align*}, can be written as \begin{align*}u(x)= \nabla_1 H(S(x), x)\quad {\text for a.e.\ x \in \Omega}\end{align*}}, where S is a measure‐preserving point transformation on Ω such that \begin{align*}S^2=I\end{align*} a.e. (an involution), and \begin{align*}H: \mathbb{R}^N \times \mathbb{R}^N \to \mathbb{R}\end{align*} is a globally Lipschitz antisymmetric convex‐concave Hamiltonian. Moreover, u is a monotone map if and only if S can be taken to be the identity, which suggests that our result is a self‐dual version of Brenier's polar decomposition for the vector field as \begin{align*}u(x)=\nabla \phi (S(x))\end{align*}, where ? is convex and S is a measure‐preserving transformation. We also describe how our polar decomposition can be reformulated as a (self‐dual) mass transport problem. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Piercing random boxes

Consider a set of n random axis parallel boxes in the unit hypercube in ${\bf R}^{d}$ , where d is fixed and n tends to infinity. We show that the minimum number of points one needs to pierce all these boxes is, with high probability, at least $\Omega_d(\sqrt{n}(\log n)^{d/2-1})$ and at most $O_d(\sqrt{n}(\log n)^{d/2-1}\log \log n)$ . © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 38, 365–380, 2011     

Vertex suppression in 3‐connected graphs

To suppress a vertex in a finite graph G means to delete it and add an edge from a to b if a, b are distinct nonadjacent vertices which formed the neighborhood of . Let be the graph obtained from by suppressing vertices of degree at most 2 as long as it is possible; this is proven to be well defined. Our main result states that every 3‐connected graph G has a vertex x such that is 3‐connected unless G is isomorphic to , , or to a wheel for some . This leads to a generator theorem for 3‐connected graphs in terms of series parallel extensions. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 57: 41–54, 2008     

Graph classes characterized both by forbidden subgraphs and degree sequences

Given a set of graphs, a graph G is ‐free if G does not contain any member of as an induced subgraph. We say that is a degree‐sequence‐forcing set if, for each graph G in the class of ‐free graphs, every realization of the degree sequence of G is also in . We give a complete characterization of the degree‐sequence‐forcing sets when has cardinality at most two. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 57: 131–148, 2008     

Bubbling Solutions for the SU(3) Chern‐Simons Model on a Torus

We consider the following nonlinear system derived from the SU(3) Chern‐Simons models on a torus Ω: where $\delta_p$ denotes the Dirac measure at $p\in\Omega$ . When $\{p_j^1\}_1^{N_1}= \{p_j^2\}_1^{N_2}$ , if we look for a solution with $u_1=u_2=u$ , then (0.1) is reduced to the Chern‐Simons‐Higgs equation: The existence of bubbling solutions to (0.1) has been a longstanding problem. In this paper, we prove the existence of such solutions such that $u_1\ne u_2$ even if $\{p_j^1\}_1^{N_1}=\{p_j^2\}_1^{N_2}$ . © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Tangency sets in PG(3, q)

A tangency set of PG (d,q) is a set Q of points with the property that every point P of Q lies on a hyperplane that meets Q only in P. It is known that a tangency set of PG (3,q) has at most points with equality only if it is an ovoid. We show that a tangency set of PG (3,q) with , or points is contained in an ovoid. This implies the non‐existence of minimal blocking sets of size , , and of with respect to planes in PG (3,q), and implies the extendability of partial 1‐systems of size , , or to 1‐systems on the hyperbolic quadric . © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 16: 462–476, 2008     

Maximum number of colorings of (2k,k2)‐graphs

Let consist of all simple graphs on 2k vertices and edges. For a simple graph G and a positive integer , let denote the number of proper vertex colorings of G in at most colors, and let . We prove that and is the only extremal graph. We also prove that as . © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 56: 135–148, 2007     

Persistence of activity in threshold contact processes,an “Annealed approximation” of random Boolean networks

We consider a model for gene regulatory networks that is a modification of Kauffmann's J Theor Biol 22 (1969), 437–467 random Boolean networks. There are three parameters: $n = {\rm the}$ number of nodes, $r = {\rm the}$ number of inputs to each node, and $p = {\rm the}$ expected fraction of 1'sin the Boolean functions at each node. Following a standard practice in thephysics literature, we use a threshold contact process on a random graph on n nodes, in which each node has in degree r, to approximate its dynamics. We show that if $r\ge 3$ and $r \cdot 2p(1-p)>1$ , then the threshold contact process persists for a long time, which correspond to chaotic behavior of the Boolean network. Unfortunately, we are only able to prove the persistence time is $\ge \exp(cn^{b(p)})$ with $b(p)>0$ when $r\cdot 2p(1-p)> 1$ , and $b(p)=1$ when $(r-1)\cdot 2p(1-p)>1$ . © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2011     

Generalized surface quasi‐geostrophic equations with singular velocities

This paper establishes several existence and uniqueness results for two families of active scalar equations with velocity fields determined by the scalars through very singular integrals. The first family is a generalized surface quasigeostrophic (SQG) equation with the velocity field u related to the scalar θ by $u=\nabla^\perp\Lambda^{\beta-2}\theta$ , where $1<\beta\le 2$ and $\Lambda=(-\Delta)^{1/2}$ is the Zygmund operator. The borderline case β = 1 corresponds to the SQG equation and the situation is more singular for β > 1. We obtain the local existence and uniqueness of classical solutions, the global existence of weak solutions, and the local existence of patch‐type solutions. The second family is a dissipative active scalar equation with $u=\nabla^\perp (\log(I-\Delta))^\mu\theta\ {\rm for}\ \mu>0$ , which is at least logarithmically more singular than the velocity in the first family. We prove that this family with any fractional dissipation possesses a unique local smooth solution for any given smooth data. This result for the second family constitutes a first step towards resolving the global regularity issue recently proposed by K. Ohkitani. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

An improvement on H design

An H(m, g, 4, 3) is a triple , where X is a set of mg points, is a partition of X into m disjoint sets of size g, and is a set of 4‐element transverses of , such that each 3‐element transverse of is contained in exactly one of them. Such a design was introduced by Hanani 2 , who used it to study Steiner quadruple systems. Mills showed that for , an H(m, g, 4, 3) exists if and only if mg is even and is divisible by 3, and that for , an H(5, g, 4, 3) exists if g is divisible by 4 or 6 10 . In this article, we shall show that an H(5, g, 4, 3) exists if g is even, and . © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 17: 25–35, 2009     

Circular chromatic index of Cartesian products of graphs

The circular chromatic index of a graph G, written , is the minimum r permitting a function such that whenever e and are incident. Let □ , where □ denotes Cartesian product and H is an ‐regular graph of odd order, with (thus, G is s‐regular). We prove that , where is the minimum, over all bases of the cycle space of H, of the maximum length of a cycle in the basis. When and m is large, the lower bound is sharp. In particular, if , then □ , independent of m. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 57: 7–18, 2008