On distance-3 matchings and induced matchings

For a finite undirected graph G=(V,E) and positive integer k≥1, an edge set M⊆E is a distance-k matching if the pairwise distance of edges in M is at least k in G. For k=1, this gives the usual notion of matching in graphs, and for general k≥1, distance-k matchings were called k-separated matchings by Stockmeyer and Vazirani. The special case k=2 has been studied under the names induced matching (i.e., a matching which forms an induced subgraph in G) by Cameron and strong matching by Golumbic and Laskar in various papers.Finding a maximum induced matching is NP-complete even on very restricted bipartite graphs and on claw-free graphs but it can be done efficiently on various classes of graphs such as chordal graphs, based on the fact that an induced matching in G corresponds to an independent vertex set in the square L(G)² of the line graph L(G) of G which, by a result of Cameron, is chordal for any chordal graph G.We show that, unlike for k=2, for a chordal graph G, L(G)³ is not necessarily chordal, and finding a maximum distance-3 matching, and more generally, finding a maximum distance-(2k+1) matching for k≥1, remains NP-complete on chordal graphs. For strongly chordal graphs and interval graphs, however, the maximum distance-k matching problem can be solved in polynomial time for every k≥1. Moreover, we obtain various new results for maximum induced matchings on subclasses of claw-free graphs.     

Tree 3-spanners in 2-sep chordal graphs: Characterization and algorithms

A spanning tree T of a graph G is said to be a treet-spanner if the distance between any two vertices in T is at most t times their distance in G. A graph that has a tree t-spanner is called a treet-spanner admissible graph. The problem of deciding whether a graph is tree t-spanner admissible is NP-complete for any fixed t≥4 and is linearly solvable for t≤2. The case t=3 still remains open. A chordal graph is called a 2-sep chordal graph if all of its minimal a−b vertex separators for every pair of non-adjacent vertices a and b are of size two. It is known that not all 2-sep chordal graphs admit tree 3-spanners. This paper presents a structural characterization and a linear time recognition algorithm of tree 3-spanner admissible 2-sep chordal graphs. Finally, a linear time algorithm to construct a tree 3-spanner of a tree 3-spanner admissible 2-sep chordal graph is proposed.     

3-Factor-criticality in domination critical graphs

A graph G is said to be k-γ-critical if the size of any minimum dominating set of vertices is k, but if any edge is added to G the resulting graph can be dominated with k-1 vertices. The structure of k-γ-critical graphs remains far from completely understood when k?3.A graph G is factor-critical if G-v has a perfect matching for every vertex v∈V(G) and is bicritical if G-u-v has a perfect matching for every pair of distinct vertices u,v∈V(G). More generally, a graph is said to be k-factor-critical if G-S has a perfect matching for every set S of k vertices in G. In three previous papers [N. Ananchuen, M.D. Plummer, Some results related to the toughness of 3-domination-critical graphs, Discrete Math. 272 (2003) 5-15; N. Ananchuen, M.D. Plummer, Matching properties in domination critical graphs, Discrete Math. 277 (2004) 1-13; N. Ananchuen, M.D. Plummer, Some results related to the toughness of 3-domination-critical graphs. II. Utilitas Math. 70 (2006) 11-32], we explored the toughness of 3-γ-critical graphs and some of their matching properties. In particular, we obtained some properties which are sufficient for a 3-γ-critical graph to be factor-critical and, respectively, bicritical. In the present work, we obtain similar results for k-factor-critical graphs when k=3.     

Forcing faces in plane bipartite graphs

Let Ω denote the class of connected plane bipartite graphs with no pendant edges. A finite face s of a graph G∈Ω is said to be a forcing face of G if the subgraph of G obtained by deleting all vertices of s together with their incident edges has exactly one perfect matching. This is a natural generalization of the concept of forcing hexagons in a hexagonal system introduced in Che and Chen [Forcing hexagons in hexagonal systems, MATCH Commun. Math. Comput. Chem. 56 (3) (2006) 649-668]. We prove that any connected plane bipartite graph with a forcing face is elementary. We also show that for any integers n and k with n?4 and n?k?0, there exists a plane elementary bipartite graph such that exactly k of the n finite faces of G are forcing. We then give a shorter proof for a recent result that a connected cubic plane bipartite graph G has at least two disjoint M-resonant faces for any perfect matching M of G, which is a main theorem in the paper [S. Bau, M.A. Henning, Matching transformation graphs of cubic bipartite plane graphs, Discrete Math. 262 (2003) 27-36]. As a corollary, any connected cubic plane bipartite graph has no forcing faces. Using the tool of Z-transformation graphs developed by Zhang et al. [Z-transformation graphs of perfect matchings of hexagonal systems, Discrete Math. 72 (1988) 405-415; Plane elementary bipartite graphs, Discrete Appl. Math. 105 (2000) 291-311], we characterize the plane elementary bipartite graphs whose finite faces are all forcing. We also obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for a finite face in a plane elementary bipartite graph to be forcing, which enables us to investigate the relationship between the existence of a forcing edge and the existence of a forcing face in a plane elementary bipartite graph, and find out that the former implies the latter but not vice versa. Moreover, we characterize the plane bipartite graphs that can be turned to have all finite faces forcing by subdivisions.     

Independence polynomials of k-tree related graphs

An independent set of a graph G is a set of pairwise non-adjacent vertices. Let α(G) denote the cardinality of a maximum independent set and f_s(G) for 0≤s≤α(G) denote the number of independent sets of s vertices. The independence polynomial defined first by Gutman and Harary has been the focus of considerable research recently. Wingard bounded the coefficients f_s(T) for trees T with n vertices: for s≥2. We generalize this result to bounds for a very large class of graphs, maximal k-degenerate graphs, a class which includes all k-trees. Additionally, we characterize all instances where our bounds are achieved, and determine exactly the independence polynomials of several classes of k-tree related graphs. Our main theorems generalize several related results known before.     

Edge-deletable IM-extendable graphs with minimum number of edges

A graph G is induced matching extendable, shortly IM-extendable, if every induced matching of G is included in a perfect matching of G. For a nonnegative integer k, a graph G is called a k-edge-deletable IM-extendable graph, if, for every F⊆E(G) with |F|=k, G−F is IM-extendable. In this paper, we characterize the k-edge-deletable IM-extendable graphs with minimum number of edges. We show that, for a positive integer k, if G is ak-edge-deletable IM-extendable graph on 2n vertices, then |E(G)|≥(k+2)n; furthermore, the equality holds if and only if either G≅K_k+2,k+2, or k=4r−2 for some integer r≥3 and G≅C₅[N_2r], where N_2r is the empty graph on 2r vertices and C₅[N_2r] is the graph obtained from C₅ by replacing each vertex with a graph isomorphic to N_2r.     

On the minimum real roots of the adjoint polynomial of a graph

For a graph G, we denote by h(G,x) the adjoint polynomial of G. Let β(G) denote the minimum real root of h(G,x). In this paper, we characterize all the connected graphs G with .     

Generalization of matching extensions in graphs (III)

Proposing them as a general framework, Liu and Yu (2001) [6] introduced (n,k,d)-graphs to unify the concepts of deficiency of matchings, n-factor-criticality and k-extendability. Let G be a graph and let n,k and d be non-negative integers such that n+2k+d+2?|V(G)| and |V(G)|−n−d is even. If on deleting any n vertices from G the remaining subgraph H of G contains a k-matching and each k-matching can be extended to a defect-d matching in H, then G is called an (n,k,d)-graph. In this paper, we obtain more properties of (n,k,d)-graphs, in particular the recursive relations of (n,k,d)-graphs for distinct parameters n,k and d. Moreover, we provide a characterization for maximal non-(n,k,d)-graphs.     

Triangular line graphs and word sense disambiguation

Linguists often represent the relationships between words in a collection of text as an undirected graph G=(V,E), where V is the vocabulary and vertices are adjacent in G if and only if the words that they represent co-occur in a relevant pattern in the text. Ideally, the words with similar meanings give rise to the vertices of a component of the graph. However, many words have several distinct meanings, preventing components from characterizing distinct semantic fields. This paper examines how the structural properties of triangular line graphs motivate the use of a clustering coefficient on the triangular line graph, thereby helping to identify polysemous words. The triangular line graph of G, denoted by T(G), is the subgraph of the line graph of G where two vertices are adjacent if the corresponding edges in G belong to a K₃.     

Linear-time certifying algorithms for near-graphical sequences

A sequence 〈d₁,d₂,…,d_n〉 of non-negative integers is graphical if it is the degree sequence of some graph, that is, there exists a graph G on n vertices whose ith vertex has degree d_i, for 1≤i≤n. The notion of a graphical sequence has a natural reformulation and generalization in terms of factors of complete graphs.If H=(V,E) is a graph and g and f are integer-valued functions on the vertex set V, then a (g,f)-factor of H is a subgraph G=(V,F) of H whose degree at each vertex v∈V lies in the interval [g(v),f(v)]. Thus, a (0,1)-factor is just a matching of H and a (1, 1)-factor is a perfect matching of H. If H is complete then a (g,f)-factor realizes a degree sequence that is consistent with the sequence of intervals 〈[g(v₁),f(v₁)],[g(v₂),f(v₂)],…,[g(v_n),f(v_n)]〉.Graphical sequences have been extensively studied and admit several elegant characterizations. We are interested in extending these characterizations to non-graphical sequences by introducing a natural measure of “near-graphical”. We do this in the context of minimally deficient (g,f)-factors of complete graphs. Our main result is a simple linear-time greedy algorithm for constructing minimally deficient (g,f)-factors in complete graphs that generalizes the method of Hakimi and Havel (for constructing (f,f)-factors in complete graphs, when possible). It has the added advantage of producing a certificate of minimum deficiency (through a generalization of the Erdös-Gallai characterization of (f,f)-factors in complete graphs) at no additional cost.     

More on “Connected (n, m)-graphs with minimum and maximum zeroth-order general Randi? index”

Let G be a graph and d(u) denote the degree of a vertex u in G. The zeroth-order general Randi? index ⁰R_α(G) of the graph G is defined as ∑_u∈V(G)d(u)^α, where the summation goes over all vertices of G and α is an arbitrary real number. In this paper we correct the proof of the main Theorem 3.5 of the paper by Hu et al. [Y. Hu, X. Li, Y. Shi, T. Xu, Connected (n,m)-graphs with minimum and maximum zeroth-order general Randi? index, Discrete Appl. Math. 155 (8) (2007) 1044-1054] and give a more general Theorem. We finally characterize ¹ for α<0 the connected G(n,m)-graphs with maximum value ⁰R_α(G(n,m)), where G(n,m) is a simple connected graph with n vertices and m edges.     

On a generalization of the Evans Conjecture

The Evans Conjecture states that a partial Latin square of order n with at most n-1 entries can be completed. In this paper we generalize the Evans Conjecture by showing that a partial r-multi Latin square of order n with at most n-1 entries can be completed. Using this generalization, we confirm a case of a conjecture of Häggkvist.     

The hardness of approximating the boxicity, cubicity and threshold dimension of a graph

A k-dimensional box is the Cartesian product R₁×R₂×?×R_k where each R_i is a closed interval on the real line. The boxicity of a graph G, denoted as , is the minimum integer k such that G can be represented as the intersection graph of a collection of k-dimensional boxes. A unit cube in k-dimensional space or a k-cube is defined as the Cartesian product R₁×R₂×?×R_k where each R_i is a closed interval on the real line of the form [a_i,a_i+1]. The cubicity of G, denoted as , is the minimum integer k such that G can be represented as the intersection graph of a collection of k-cubes. The threshold dimension of a graph G(V,E) is the smallest integer k such that E can be covered by k threshold spanning subgraphs of G. In this paper we will show that there exists no polynomial-time algorithm for approximating the threshold dimension of a graph on n vertices with a factor of O(n^0.5−?) for any ?>0 unless NP=ZPP. From this result we will show that there exists no polynomial-time algorithm for approximating the boxicity and the cubicity of a graph on n vertices with factor O(n^0.5−?) for any ?>0 unless NP=ZPP. In fact all these hardness results hold even for a highly structured class of graphs, namely the split graphs. We will also show that it is NP-complete to determine whether a given split graph has boxicity at most 3.     

Partitioning graphs into complete and empty graphs

Given integers j and k and a graph G, we consider partitions of the vertex set of G into j+k parts where j of these parts induce empty graphs and the remaining k induce cliques. If such a partition exists, we say G is a (j,k)-graph. For a fixed j and k we consider the maximum order n where every graph of order n is a (j,k)-graph. The split-chromatic number of G is the minimum j where G is a (j,j)-graph. Further, the cochromatic number is the minimum j+k where G is a (j,k)-graph. We examine some relations between cochromatic, split-chromatic and chromatic numbers. We also consider some computational questions related to chordal graphs and cographs.     

Graph designs for the eight-edge five-vertex graphs

The existence of graph designs for the two nonisomorphic graphs on five vertices and eight edges is determined in the case of index one, with three possible exceptions in total. It is established that for the unique graph with vertex sequence (3, 3, 3, 3, 4), a graph design of order n exists exactly when and n≠16, with the possible exception of n=48. For the unique graph with vertex sequence (2,3,3,4,4), a graph design of order n exists exactly when , with the possible exceptions of n∈{32,48}.     

On the 3-restricted edge connectivity of permutation graphs

An edge cut W of a connected graph G is a k-restricted edge cut if G−W is disconnected, and every component of G−W has at least k vertices. The k-restricted edge connectivity is defined as the minimum cardinality over all k-restricted edge cuts. A permutation graph is obtained by taking two disjoint copies of a graph and adding a perfect matching between the two copies. The k-restricted edge connectivity of a permutation graph is upper bounded by the so-called minimum k-edge degree. In this paper some sufficient conditions guaranteeing optimal k-restricted edge connectivity and super k-restricted edge connectivity for permutation graphs are presented for k=2,3.     

On island sequences of labelings with a condition at distance two

An L(2,1)-labeling of a graph G is a function f from the vertex set of G to the set of nonnegative integers such that |f(x)−f(y)|≥2 if d(x,y)=1, and |f(x)−f(y)|≥1 if d(x,y)=2, where d(x,y) denotes the distance between the pair of vertices x,y. The lambda number of G, denoted λ(G), is the minimum range of labels used over all L(2,1)-labelings of G. An L(2,1)-labeling of G which achieves the range λ(G) is referred to as a λ-labeling. A hole of an L(2,1)-labeling is an unused integer within the range of integers used. The hole index of G, denoted ρ(G), is the minimum number of holes taken over all its λ-labelings. An island of a given λ-labeling of G with ρ(G) holes is a maximal set of consecutive integers used by the labeling. Georges and Mauro [J.P. Georges, D.W. Mauro, On the structure of graphs with non-surjective L(2,1)-labelings, SIAM J. Discrete Math. 19 (2005) 208-223] inquired about the existence of a connected graph G with ρ(G)≥1 possessing two λ-labelings with different ordered sequences of island cardinalities. This paper provides an infinite family of such graphs together with their lambda numbers and hole indices. Key to our discussion is the determination of the path covering number of certain 2-sparse graphs, that is, graphs containing no pair of adjacent vertices of degree greater than 2.     

Minimum monopoly in regular and tree graphs

In this paper we consider a graph optimization problem called minimum monopoly problem, in which it is required to find a minimum cardinality set S⊆V, such that, for each u∈V, |N[u]∩S|?|N[u]|/2 in a given graph G=(V,E). We show that this optimization problem does not have a polynomial-time approximation scheme for k-regular graphs (k?5), unless P=NP. We show this by establishing two L-reductions (an approximation preserving reduction) from minimum dominating set problem for k-regular graphs to minimum monopoly problem for 2k-regular graphs and to minimum monopoly problem for (2k-1)-regular graphs, where k?3. We also show that, for tree graphs, a minimum monopoly set can be computed in linear time.     

On Tutte polynomial uniqueness of twisted wheels

A graph G is called T-unique if any other graph having the same Tutte polynomial as G is isomorphic to G. Recently, there has been much interest in determining T-unique graphs and matroids. For example, de Mier and Noy [A. de Mier, M. Noy, On graphs determined by their Tutte polynomials, Graphs Combin. 20 (2004) 105-119; A. de Mier, M. Noy, Tutte uniqueness of line graphs, Discrete Math. 301 (2005) 57-65] showed that wheels, ladders, Möbius ladders, square of cycles, hypercubes, and certain class of line graphs are all T-unique. In this paper, we prove that the twisted wheels are also T-unique.     

Optimal interleaving schemes for correcting two-dimensional cluster errors

We present an elementary theory of optimal interleaving schemes for correcting cluster errors in two-dimensional digital data. It is assumed that each data page contains a fixed number of, say n, codewords with each codeword consisting of m code symbols and capable of correcting a single random error (or erasure). The goal is to interleave the codewords in the m×n array such that different symbols from each codeword are separated as much as possible, and consequently, an arbitrary error burst with size up to t can be corrected for the largest possible value of t. We show that, for any given m, n, the maximum possible interleaving distance, or equivalently, the largest size of correctable error bursts in an m×n array, is given by if n?⌈m²/2⌉, and t=m+⌊(n-⌈m²/2⌉)/m⌋ if n?⌈m²/2⌉. Furthermore, we develop a simple cyclic shifting algorithm that can provide a systematic construction of an m×n optimal interleaving array for arbitrary m and n. This extends important earlier work on the complementary problem of constructing interleaving arrays that, given the burst size t, minimize the interleaving degree, that is, the number of different codewords in a 2-D (or 3-D) array such that any error burst with given size t can be corrected. Our interleaving scheme thus provides the maximum burst error correcting power without requiring prior knowledge of the size or shape of an error burst.