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.     

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.     

Connected domination of regular graphs

A dominating setD of a graph G is a subset of V(G) such that for every vertex v∈V(G), either v∈D or there exists a vertex u∈D that is adjacent to v in G. Dominating sets of small cardinality are of interest. A connected dominating setC of a graph G is a dominating set of G such that the subgraph induced by the vertices of C in G is connected. A weakly-connected dominating setW of a graph G is a dominating set of G such that the subgraph consisting of V(G) and all edges incident with vertices in W is connected. In this paper we present several algorithms for finding small connected dominating sets and small weakly-connected dominating sets of regular graphs. We analyse the average-case performance of these heuristics on random regular graphs using differential equations, thus giving upper bounds on the size of a smallest connected dominating set and the size of a smallest weakly-connected dominating set of random regular graphs.     

Connected graphs with maximal Q-index: The one-dominating-vertex case

By the signless Laplacian of a (simple) graph G we mean the matrix Q(G)=D(G)+A(G), where A(G),D(G) denote respectively the adjacency matrix and the diagonal matrix of vertex degrees of G. For every pair of positive integers n,k, it is proved that if 3?k?n-3, then H_n,k, the graph obtained from the star K_1,n-1 by joining a vertex of degree 1 to k+1 other vertices of degree 1, is the unique connected graph that maximizes the largest signless Laplacian eigenvalue over all connected graphs with n vertices and n+k edges.     

On a conjecture of Fink and Jacobson concerning k-domination and k-dependence

A set D of vertices of a graph is k-dependent if every vertex of D is joined to at most k?1 vertices in D. Let β_k(G) be the maximum order of a k-dependent set in G. A set D of vertices of G is k-dominating if every vertex not in D is joined to at least k vertices of D. Let γ_k(G) be the minimum order of a k-dominating set in G. Here we prove the following conjecture of Fink and Jacobson: for any simple graph G and any positive integer k, γ_k(G) ≤ β_k(G).     

Connected -tuple twin domination in de Bruijn and Kautz digraphs

For a digraph G, a k-tuple twin dominating set D of G for some fixed k≥1 is a set of vertices such that every vertex is adjacent to at least k vertices in D, and also every vertex is adjacent from at least k vertices in D. If the subgraph of G induced by D is strongly connected, then D is called a connected k-tuple twin dominating set of G. In this paper, we give constructions of minimal connected k-tuple twin dominating sets for de Bruijn digraphs and Kautz digraphs.     

A Generalization of Opsut’s Lower Bounds for the Competition Number of a Graph

The notion of a competition graph was introduced by Cohen in 1968. The competition graph C(D) of a digraph D is a (simple undirected) graph which has the same vertex set as D and has an edge between two distinct vertices x and y if and only if there exists a vertex v in D such that (x, v) and (y, v) are arcs of D. For any graph G, G together with sufficiently many isolated vertices is the competition graph of some acyclic digraph. In 1978, Roberts defined the competition number k(G) of a graph G as the minimum number of such isolated vertices. In general, it is hard to compute the competition number k(G) for a graph G and it has been one of the important research problems in the study of competition graphs to characterize a graph by its competition number. In 1982, Opsut gave two lower bounds for the competition number of a graph. In this paper, we give a generalization of these two lower bounds for the competition number of a graph.     

The competition number of a graph and the dimension of its hole space

The competition graph of a digraph D is a (simple undirected) graph which has the same vertex set as D and has an edge between x and y if and only if there exists a vertex v in D such that (x,v) and (y,v) are arcs of D. For any graph G, G together with sufficiently many isolated vertices is the competition graph of some acyclic digraph. The competition number k(G) of G is the smallest number of such isolated vertices. In general, it is hard to compute the competition number k(G) for a graph G and it has been one of the important research problems in the study of competition graphs to characterize a graph by its competition number. Recently, the relationship between the competition number and the number of holes of a graph has been studied. A hole of a graph is a cycle of length at least 4 as an induced subgraph. In this paper, we conjecture that the dimension of the hole space of a graph is not smaller than the competition number of the graph. We verify this conjecture for various kinds of graphs and show that our conjectured inequality is indeed an equality for connected triangle-free graphs.     

On the Structure of Graphs with Bounded Asteroidal Number

 A set A⊆V of the vertices of a graph G=(V,E) is an asteroidal set if for each vertex a∈A, the set A\{a} is contained in one component of G−N[a]. The maximum cardinality of an asteroidal set of G, denoted by an (G), is said to be the asteroidal number of G. We investigate structural properties of graphs of bounded asteroidal number. For every k≥1, an (G)≤k if and only if an (H)≤k for every minimal triangulation H of G. A dominating target is a set D of vertices such that D∪S is a dominating set of G for every set S such that G[D∪S] is connected. We show that every graph G has a dominating target with at most an (G) vertices. Finally, a connected graph G has a spanning tree T such that d _T (x,y)−d _G (x,y)≤3·|D|−1 for every pair x,y of vertices and every dominating target D of G. Received: July 3, 1998 Final version received: August 10, 1999     

Average distances and distance domination numbers

Let k be a positive integer and G be a simple connected graph with order n. The average distance μ(G) of G is defined to be the average value of distances over all pairs of vertices of G. A subset D of vertices in G is said to be a k-dominating set of G if every vertex of V(G)−D is within distance k from some vertex of D. The minimum cardinality among all k-dominating sets of G is called the k-domination number γ_k(G) of G. In this paper tight upper bounds are established for μ(G), as functions of n, k and γ_k(G), which generalizes the earlier results of Dankelmann [P. Dankelmann, Average distance and domination number, Discrete Appl. Math. 80 (1997) 21-35] for k=1.     

Locating and total dominating sets in trees

A set S of vertices in a graph G=(V,E) is a total dominating set of G if every vertex of V is adjacent to a vertex in S. We consider total dominating sets of minimum cardinality which have the additional property that distinct vertices of V are totally dominated by distinct subsets of the total dominating set.     

Matching properties in connected domination critical graphs

A dominating set of vertices S of a graph G is connected if the subgraph G[S] is connected. Let γ_c(G) denote the size of any smallest connected dominating set in G. A graph G is k-γ-connected-critical if γ_c(G)=k, but if any edge is added to G, then γ_c(G+e)?k-1. This is a variation on the earlier concept of criticality of edge addition with respect to ordinary domination where a graph G was defined to be k-critical if the domination number of G is k, but if any edge is added to G, the domination number falls to k-1.A graph G is factor-critical if G-v has a perfect matching for every vertex v∈V(G), bicritical if G-u-v has a perfect matching for every pair of distinct vertices u,v∈V(G) or, more generally, k-factor-critical if, for every set S⊆V(G) with |S|=k, the graph G-S contains a perfect matching. In two previous papers [N. Ananchuen, M.D. Plummer, Matching properties in domination critical graphs, Discrete Math. 277 (2004) 1-13; N. Ananchuen, M.D. Plummer, 3-factor-criticality in domination critical graphs, Discrete Math. 2007, to appear [3].] on ordinary (i.e., not necessarily connected) domination, the first and third authors showed that under certain assumptions regarding connectivity and minimum degree, a critical graph G with (ordinary) domination number 3 will be factor-critical (if |V(G)| is odd), bicritical (if |V(G)| is even) or 3-factor-critical (again if |V(G)| is odd). Analogous theorems for connected domination are presented here. Although domination and connected domination are similar in some ways, we will point out some interesting differences between our new results for the case of connected domination and the results in [N. Ananchuen, M.D. Plummer, Matching properties in domination critical graphs, Discrete Math. 277 (2004) 1-13; N. Ananchuen, M.D. Plummer, 3-factor-criticality in domination critical graphs, Discrete Math. 2007, to appear [3].].     

Geodetic and Steiner geodetic sets in 3-Steiner distance hereditary graphs

Let G be a connected graph and S⊆V(G). Then the Steiner distance of S, denoted by d_G(S), is the smallest number of edges in a connected subgraph of G containing S. Such a subgraph is necessarily a tree called a Steiner tree for S. The Steiner interval for a set S of vertices in a graph, denoted by I(S) is the union of all vertices that belong to some Steiner tree for S. If S={u,v}, then I(S) is the interval I[u,v] between u and v. A connected graph G is 3-Steiner distance hereditary (3-SDH) if, for every connected induced subgraph H of order at least 3 and every set S of three vertices of H, d_H(S)=d_G(S). The eccentricity of a vertex v in a connected graph G is defined as e(v)=max{d(v,x)|x∈V(G)}. A vertex v in a graph G is a contour vertex if for every vertex u adjacent with v, e(u)?e(v). The closure of a set S of vertices, denoted by I[S], is defined to be the union of intervals between pairs of vertices of S taken over all pairs of vertices in S. A set of vertices of a graph G is a geodetic set if its closure is the vertex set of G. The smallest cardinality of a geodetic set of G is called the geodetic number of G and is denoted by g(G). A set S of vertices of a connected graph G is a Steiner geodetic set for G if I(S)=V(G). The smallest cardinality of a Steiner geodetic set of G is called the Steiner geodetic number of G and is denoted by sg(G). We show that the contour vertices of 3-SDH and HHD-free graphs are geodetic sets. For 3-SDH graphs we also show that g(G)?sg(G). An efficient algorithm for finding Steiner intervals in 3-SDH graphs is developed.     

Matchings in 3-vertex-critical graphs: The odd case

A subset of vertices D of a graph G is a dominating set for G if every vertex of G not in D is adjacent to one in D. The cardinality of any smallest dominating set in G is denoted by γ(G) and called the domination number of G. Graph G is said to be γ-vertex-critical if γ(G-v)<γ(G), for every vertex v in G. A graph G is said to be factor-critical if G-v has a perfect matching for every choice of v∈V(G).In this paper, we present two main results about 3-vertex-critical graphs of odd order. First we show that any such graph with positive minimum degree and at least 11 vertices which has no induced subgraph isomorphic to the bipartite graph K_1,5 must contain a near-perfect matching. Secondly, we show that any such graph with minimum degree at least three which has no induced subgraph isomorphic to the bipartite graph K_1,4 must be factor-critical. We then show that these results are best possible in several senses and close with a conjecture.     

Connected Resolvability of Graphs

For an ordered set W = {w ₁, w ₂,..., w _k} of vertices and a vertex v in a connected graph G, the representation of v with respect to W is the k-vector r(v|W) = (d(v, w ₁), d(v, w ₂),... d(v, w _k)), where d(x, y) represents the distance between the vertices x and y. The set W is a resolving set for G if distinct vertices of G have distinct representations with respect to W. A resolving set for G containing a minimum number of vertices is a basis for G. The dimension dim(G) is the number of vertices in a basis for G. A resolving set W of G is connected if the subgraph 〈W〉 induced by W is a nontrivial connected subgraph of G. The minimum cardinality of a connected resolving set in a graph G is its connected resolving number cr(G). Thus 1 ≤ dim(G) ≤ cr(G) ≤ n?1 for every connected graph G of order n ≥ 3. The connected resolving numbers of some well-known graphs are determined. It is shown that if G is a connected graph of order n ≥ 3, then cr(G) = n?1 if and only if G = K _n or G = K _1,n?1. It is also shown that for positive integers a, b with a ≤ b, there exists a connected graph G with dim(G) = a and cr(G) = b if and only if $\left( {a,b} \right) \notin \left\{ {\left( {1,k} \right):k = 1\;{\text{or}}\;k \geqslant 3} \right\}$ Several other realization results are present. The connected resolving numbers of the Cartesian products G × K ₂ for connected graphs G are studied.     

Domination number in graphs with minimum degree two

A set D of vertices of a graph G = （V, E） is called a dominating set if every vertex of V not in D is adjacent to a vertex of D. In 1996, Reed proved that every graph of order n with minimum degree at least 3 has a dominating set of cardinality at most 3n/8. In this paper we generalize Reed＇s result. We show that every graph G of order n with minimum degree at least 2 has a dominating set of cardinality at most （3n ＋IV21）/8, where V2 denotes the set of vertices of degree 2 in G. As an application of the above result, we show that for k ≥ 1, the k-restricted domination number rk （G, γ） ≤ （3n＋5k）/8 for all graphs of order n with minimum degree at least 3.     

Competitively Tight Graphs

The competition graph of a digraph D is a (simple undirected) graph which has the same vertex set as D and has an edge between two distinct vertices x and y if and only if there exists a vertex v in D such that (x, v) and (y, v) are arcs of D. For any graph G, G together with sufficiently many isolated vertices is the competition graph of some acyclic digraph. The competition number k(G) of a graph G is the smallest number of such isolated vertices. Computing the competition number of a graph is an NP-hard problem in general and has been one of the important research problems in the study of competition graphs. Opsut [1982] showed that the competition number of a graph G is related to the edge clique cover number θ _E (G) of the graph G via θ _E (G) ? |V(G)| + 2 ≤ k(G) ≤ θ _E (G). We first show that for any positive integer m satisfying 2 ≤ m ≤ |V(G)|, there exists a graph G with k(G) = θ _E (G) ? |V(G)| + m and characterize a graph G satisfying k(G) = θ _E (G). We then focus on what we call competitively tight graphs G which satisfy the lower bound, i.e., k(G) = θ _E (G) ? |V(G)| + 2. We completely characterize the competitively tight graphs having at most two triangles. In addition, we provide a new upper bound for the competition number of a graph from which we derive a sufficient condition and a necessary condition for a graph to be competitively tight.     

The vertex linear arboricity of distance graphs

A distance graph is a graph G(R,D) with the set of all points of the real line as vertex set and two vertices u,v∈R are adjacent if and only if |u-v|∈D where the distance set D is a subset of the positive real numbers. Here, the vertex linear arboricity of G(R,D) is determined when D is an interval between 1 and δ. In particular, the vertex linear arboricity of integer distance graphs G(D) is discussed, too.