Covering graphs with matchings of fixed size

Let m be a positive integer and let G be a graph. We consider the question: can the edge set E(G) of G be expressed as the union of a set M of matchings of G each of which has size exactly m? If this happens, we say that G is [m]-coverable and we call M an [m]-covering of G. It is interesting to consider minimum[m]-coverings, i.e. [m]-coverings containing as few matchings as possible. Such [m]-coverings will be called excessive[m]-factorizations. The number of matchings in an excessive [m]-factorization is a graph parameter which will be called the excessive[m]-index and denoted by . In this paper we begin the study of this new parameter as well as of a number of other related graph parameters.     

On the complexity of the multicut problem in bounded tree-width graphs and digraphs

Given an edge- or vertex-weighted graph or digraph and a list of source-sink pairs, the minimum multicut problem consists in selecting a minimum weight set of edges or vertices whose removal leaves no path from each source to the corresponding sink. This is a classical NP-hard problem, and we show that the edge version becomes tractable in bounded tree-width graphs if the number of source-sink pairs is fixed, but remains NP-hard in directed acyclic graphs and APX-hard in bounded tree-width and bounded degree unweighted digraphs. The vertex version, although tractable in trees, is proved to be NP-hard in unweighted cacti of bounded degree and bounded path-width.     

Facility location problems: A parameterized view

Facility location problems have been investigated in the Operations Research literature from a variety of algorithmic perspectives, including those of approximation algorithms, heuristics, and linear programming. We introduce the study of these problems from the point of view of parameterized algorithms and complexity. Some applications of algorithms for these problems in the processing of semistructured documents and in computational biology are also described.     

The profile of the Cartesian product of graphs

Given a graph G, a proper labelingf of G is a one-to-one function from V(G) onto {1,2,…,|V(G)|}. For a proper labeling f of G, the profile widthw_f(v) of a vertex v is the minimum value of f(v)−f(x), where x belongs to the closed neighborhood of v. The profile of a proper labelingfofG, denoted by P_f(G), is the sum of all the w_f(v), where v∈V(G). The profile ofG is the minimum value of P_f(G), where f runs over all proper labeling of G. In this paper, we show that if the vertices of a graph G can be ordered to satisfy a special neighborhood property, then so can the graph G×Q_n. This can be used to determine the profile of Q_n and K_m×Q_n.     

Graph classes and the complexity of the graph orientation minimizing the maximum weighted outdegree

Given an undirected graph with edge weights, we are asked to find an orientation, that is, an assignment of a direction to each edge, so as to minimize the weighted maximum outdegree in the resulted directed graph. The problem is called MMO, and is a restricted variant of the well-known minimum makespan problem. As in previous studies, it is shown that MMO is in P for trees, weak NP-hard for planar bipartite graphs, and strong NP-hard for general graphs. There are still gaps between those graph classes. The objective of this paper is to show tighter thresholds of complexity: We show that MMO is (i) in P for cactus graphs, (ii) weakly NP-hard for outerplanar graphs, and also (iii) strongly NP-hard for graphs which are both planar and bipartite. This implies the NP-hardness for P₄-bipartite, diamond-free or house-free graphs, each of which is a superclass of cactus. We also show (iv) the NP-hardness for series-parallel graphs and multi-outerplanar graphs, and (v) present a pseudo-polynomial time algorithm for graphs with bounded treewidth.     

On time-relaxed broadcasting networks

Given a communication network (modelled as a graph), a message is transmitted to at one vertex transmits to all other vertices in such a way that each message transmission takes one time unit and each vertex participates in at most one transmission to its neighbor per time step. We call this process broadcasting. For t≥0, let B_t(n) be the number of edges in the sparsest possible graph on n vertices in which broadcasting can be accomplished in ⌈log₂n⌉+t steps regardless of the originator. Shastri [A. Shastri, Time-relaxed broadcasting in communication networks, Discrete Applied mathematics 83 (1998) 263-278] conjectured that B₁(22)=24 and B₂(n)=n+1 for 25≤n≤29. In this paper, we show that B₁(22)=24, B₂(n)=n for 25≤n≤28 and 37≤n≤44, B₂(n)≤n+1 for 45≤n≤49, B₂(n)≤n+4 for 50≤n≤56, and B₃(n)=n for 55≤n≤64.     

Improving the high order nonlinearity lower bound for Boolean functions with given algebraic immunity

Algebraic immunity is a recently introduced cryptographic parameter for Boolean functions used in stream ciphers. If pAI(f) and pAI(f⊕1) are the minimum degree of all annihilators of f and f⊕1 respectively, the algebraic immunity AI(f) is defined as the minimum of the two values. Several relations between the new parameter and old ones, like the degree, the r-th order nonlinearity and the weight of the Boolean function, have been proposed over the last few years.In this paper, we improve the existing lower bounds of the r-th order nonlinearity of a Boolean function f with given algebraic immunity. More precisely, we introduce the notion of complementary algebraic immunity defined as the maximum of pAI(f) and pAI(f⊕1). The value of can be computed as part of the calculation of AI(f), with no extra computational cost. We show that by taking advantage of all the available information from the computation of AI(f), that is both AI(f) and , the bound is tighter than all known lower bounds, where only the algebraic immunity AI(f) is used.     

On the two-dimensional orthogonal drawing of series-parallel graphs

It has been known that every planar 4-graph has a 2-bend 2-D orthogonal drawing, with the only exception being the octahedron, every planar 3-graph has a 1-bend 2-D orthogonal drawing with the only exception being K₄, and every outerplanar 3-graph with no triangles has a 0-bend 2-D orthogonal drawing. We show in this paper that every series-parallel 4-graph has a 1-bend 2-D orthogonal drawing.     

Note on the m-step competition numbers of paths and cycles

Since Cohen introduced the competition graph in 1968, the competition graph has been studied widely and many variations of it have been discussed. In 2000, Cho, Kim and Nam defined and studied the m-step competition graph and computed the 2-step competition numbers of paths and cycles. Recently, Ho gave bounds for the m-step competition numbers of paths and cycles. In this paper we continue to study the m-step competition numbers of paths and cycles, partially improve the results of Ho on the upper bounds of the m-step competition numbers of paths and cycles, and show that a conjecture posed by Ho is not true.     

A new construction of vertex algebras and quasi-modules for vertex algebras

In this paper, a new construction of vertex algebras from more general vertex operators is given and a notion of quasimodule for vertex algebras is introduced and studied. More specifically, a notion of quasilocal subset(space) of for any vector space W is introduced and studied, generalizing the notion of usual locality in the most possible way, and it is proved that on any maximal quasilocal subspace there exists a natural vertex algebra structure and that any quasilocal subset of generates a vertex algebra. Furthermore, it is proved that W is a quasimodule for each of the vertex algebras generated by quasilocal subsets of . A notion of Γ-vertex algebra is also introduced and studied, where Γ is a subgroup of the multiplicative group C^× of nonzero complex numbers. It is proved that any maximal quasilocal subspace of is naturally a Γ-vertex algebra and that any quasilocal subset of generates a Γ-vertex algebra. It is also proved that a Γ-vertex algebra exactly amounts to a vertex algebra equipped with a Γ-module structure which satisfies a certain compatibility condition. Finally, two families of examples are given, involving twisted affine Lie algebras and certain quantum torus Lie algebras.     

An improved randomized approximation algorithm for maximum triangle packing

This paper deals with the maximum triangle packing problem. For this problem, Hassin and Rubinstein gave a randomized polynomial-time approximation algorithm that achieves an expected ratio of for any constant ?>0. By modifying their algorithm, we obtain a new randomized polynomial-time approximation algorithm for the problem which achieves an expected ratio of 0.5257(1−?) for any constant ?>0.     

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.     

Solution to a conjecture on the norm of the Hardy operator minus the identity

We prove that for a decreasing weight w, the following inequality is sharp:

     

Atom-bond connectivity index of graphs

The recently introduced atom-bond connectivity (ABC) index has been applied up until now to study the stability of alkanes and the strain energy of cycloalkanes. Furtula et al. (2009) [3] obtained extremal ABC values for chemical trees, and also, it has been shown that the star K_1,n−1, has the maximal ABC value of trees. In this paper, we present the lower and upper bounds on ABC index of graphs and trees, and characterize graphs for which these bounds are best possible.     

Maximum transversal in partial Latin squares and rainbow matchings

In a partial Latin square P a set of distinct entries, such that no two of which are in the same row or column is called a transversal. By the size of a transversal T, we mean the number of its entries. We define a duplex to be a partial Latin square of order n containing 2n entries such that exactly two entries lie in each row and column and each of n symbols occurs exactly twice. We show that determining the maximum size of a transversal in a given duplex is an NP-complete problem. This problem relates to independent sets in certain subfamilies of cubic graphs. Generalizing the concept of transversals in edge coloring of graphs we are led to introduce the concept of rainbow matching. We show that if each color appears at most twice then it is a polynomial time problem to know whether there exists a rainbow matching of size at least ⌊n/2⌋-t for each fixed t, where n is the order of the graph. As an application we show that for any fixed t, there is a polynomial time algorithm which decides whether α(G)?n-t, for any graph G on 2n vertices containing a perfect matching. At the end we mention some other applications of rainbow matching.     

Least and most colored bases

Consider a matroid M=(E,B), where B denotes the family of bases of M, and assign a color c(e) to every element e∈E (the same color can go to more than one element). The palette of a subset F of E, denoted by c(F), is the image of F under c. Assume also that colors have prices (in the form of a function π(?), where ? is the label of a color), and define the chromatic price as: π(F)=∑_?∈c(F)π(?). We consider the following problem: find a base B∈B such that π(B) is minimum. We show that the greedy algorithm delivers a lnr(M)-approximation of the unknown optimal value, where r(M) is the rank of matroid M. By means of a reduction from SETCOVER, we prove that the lnr(M) ratio cannot be further improved, even in the special case of partition matroids, unless . The results apply to the special case where M is a graphic matroid and where the prices π(?) are restricted to be all equal. This special case was previously known as the minimum label spanning tree (MLST) problem. For the MLST, our results improve over the ln(n-1)+1 ratio achieved by Wan, Chen and Xu in 2002. Inspired by the generality of our results, we study the approximability of coloring problems with different objective function π(F), where F is a common independent set on matroids M₁,…,M_k and, more generally, to independent systems characterized by the k-for-1 property.     

On multicolour noncomplete Ramsey graphs of star graphs

Given graphs , where k≥2, the notation

     

Complexity results on restricted instances of a paint shop problem for words

We study the following problem: an instance is a word with every letter occurring twice. A solution is a 2-coloring of its letters such that the two occurrences of every letter are colored with different colors. The goal is to minimize the number of color changes between adjacent letters.This is a special case of the paint shop problem for words, which was previously shown to be NP-complete. We show that this special case is also NP-complete and even APX-hard. Furthermore, derive lower bounds for this problem and discuss a transformation into matroid theory enabling us to solve some specific instances within polynomial time.     

Identifying codes and locating-dominating sets on paths and cycles

Let G=(V,E) be a graph and let r≥1 be an integer. For a set D⊆V, define N_r[x]={y∈V:d(x,y)≤r} and D_r(x)=N_r[x]∩D, where d(x,y) denotes the number of edges in any shortest path between x and y. D is known as an r-identifying code (r-locating-dominating set, respectively), if for all vertices x∈V (x∈V?D, respectively), D_r(x) are all nonempty and different. Roberts and Roberts [D.L. Roberts, F.S. Roberts, Locating sensors in paths and cycles: the case of 2-identifying codes, European Journal of Combinatorics 29 (2008) 72-82] provided complete results for the paths and cycles when r=2. In this paper, we provide results for a remaining open case in cycles and complete results in paths for r-identifying codes; we also give complete results for 2-locating-dominating sets in cycles, which completes the results of Bertrand et al. [N. Bertrand, I. Charon, O. Hudry, A. Lobstein, Identifying and locating-dominating codes on chains and cycles, European Journal of Combinatorics 25 (2004) 969-987].