A plurality problem with three colors and query size three

The Plurality problem - introduced by Aigner - has many variants. In this article we deal with the following version: suppose we are given n balls, each of them colored by one of three colors. A plurality ball is one such that its color class is strictly larger than any other color class. Questioner asks a triplet (or a k-set in general), and Adversary as an answer gives the partition of the triplet (or the k-set) into color classes. Questioner wants to find a plurality ball as soon as possible or show that there is no such ball, while Adversary wants to postpone this.We denote by $A_p(n,k)$ the largest number of queries needed to ask in the worst case if both play optimally. We provide an almost precise result in the case of even n by proving that for $n\ge 4$ even we have$\frac{3}{4}n?2\le A_p(n,3)\le \frac{3}{4}n?\frac{1}{2},$ and for $n\ge 3$ odd we have$\frac{3}{4}n?O(\log ?n)\le A_p(n,3)\le \frac{3}{4}n?\frac{1}{2}.$We also prove some bounds on the number of queries needed to ask in the case $k\ge 3$.     

Note on rainbow cycles in edge-colored graphs

Let G be a graph of order n with an edge-coloring c, and let ${\delta }^c(G)$ denote the minimum color-degree of G. A subgraph F of G is called rainbow if all edges of F have pairwise distinct colors. There have been a lot of results on rainbow cycles of edge-colored graphs. In this paper, we show that (i) if ${\delta }^c(G)>\frac{2n?1}{3}$, then every vertex of G is contained in a rainbow triangle; (ii) if ${\delta }^c(G)>\frac{2n?1}{3}$ and $n\ge 13$, then every vertex of G is contained in a rainbow $C_4$; (iii) if G is complete, $n\ge 7k?17$ and ${\delta }^c(G)>\frac{n?1}{2}+k$, then G contains a rainbow cycle of length at least k, where $k\ge 5$.     

An improvement to the Hilton-Zhao vertex-splitting conjecture

For a simple graph G, denote by n, $\mathrm{\Delta }(G)$, and ${\chi }^{\prime }(G)$ its order, maximum degree, and chromatic index, respectively. A graph G is edge-chromatic critical if ${\chi }^{\prime }(G)=\mathrm{\Delta }(G)+1$ and ${\chi }^{\prime }(H)<{\chi }^{\prime }(G)$ for every proper subgraph H of G. Let G be an n-vertex connected regular class 1 graph, and let $G^{?}$ be obtained from G by splitting one vertex of G into two vertices. Hilton and Zhao in 1997 conjectured that $G^{?}$ must be edge-chromatic critical if $\mathrm{\Delta }(G)>n/3$, and they verified this when $\mathrm{\Delta }(G)\ge \frac{n}{2}(\sqrt{7}?1)\approx 0.82n$. In this paper, we prove it for $\mathrm{\Delta }(G)\ge 0.75n$.     

Domination versus total domination in claw-free cubic graphs

A set S of vertices in a graph G is a dominating set if every vertex not in S is adjacent to a vertex in S. If, in addition, every vertex in S is adjacent to some other vertex in S, then S is a total dominating set. The domination number $\gamma (G)$ of G is the minimum cardinality of a dominating set in G, while the total domination number ${\gamma }_t(G)$ of G is the minimum cardinality of total dominating set in G. A claw-free graph is a graph that does not contain $K_{1,3}$ as an induced subgraph. Let G be a connected, claw-free, cubic graph of order n. We show that if we exclude two graphs, then $\frac{{\gamma }_t(G)}{\gamma (G)}\le \frac{12}{7}$, and this bound is best possible. In order to prove this result, we prove that if we exclude four graphs, then ${\gamma }_t(G)\le \frac{3}{7}n$, and this bound is best possible. These bounds improve previously best known results due to Favaron and Henning (2008) [7], Southey and Henning (2010) [19].     

A characterization of graphs with given maximum degree and smallest possible matching number: II

Let ${\alpha }^{\prime }(G)$ be the matching number of a graph G. A characterization of the graphs with given maximum odd degree and smallest possible matching number is given by Henning and Shozi (2021) [13]. In this paper we complete our study by giving a characterization of the graphs with given maximum even degree and smallest possible matching number. In 2018 Henning and Yeo [10] proved that if G is a connected graph of order n, size m and maximum degree k where $k\ge 4$ is even, then ${\alpha }^{\prime }(G)\ge \frac{n}{k(k+1)}+\frac{m}{k+1}?\frac{1}{k(k+1)}$, unless G is k-regular and $n\in \{k+1,k+3\}$. In this paper, we give a complete characterization of the graphs that achieve equality in this bound when the maximum degree k is even, thereby completing our study of graphs with given maximum degree and smallest possible matching number.     

Compactness of sign-changing solutions to scalar curvature-type equations with bounded negative part

We consider the equation ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{g}u+hu=|u{|}^{2^{?}?2}u$ in a closed Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$, where $h\in C^{0,\theta }(M)$, $\theta \in (0,1)$ and $2^{?}=\frac{2n}{n?2}$, $n:=\dim ?(M)\ge 3$. We obtain a sharp compactness result on the sets of sign-changing solutions whose negative part is a priori bounded. We obtain this result under the conditions that $n\ge 7$ and $h<\frac{n?2}{4(n?1)}{\text{Scal}}_g$ in M, where ${\text{Scal}}_g$ is the Scalar curvature of the manifold. We show that these conditions are optimal by constructing examples of blowing-up solutions, with arbitrarily large energy, in the case of the round sphere with a constant potential function h.     

A note on the distribution of weights of fixed-rank matrices over the binary field

Let M be a random $m\times n$ rank-r matrix over the binary field ${\mathbb{F}}_2$, and let $\mathrm{wt}(\mathbf{M})$ be its Hamming weight, that is, the number of nonzero entries of M.We prove that, as $m,n\to +\infty$ with r fixed and $m/n$ tending to a constant, we have that$\frac{\mathrm{wt}(\mathbf{M})-\frac{1-2^{-r}}{2}mn}{\sqrt{\frac{2^{-r}(1-2^{-r})}{4}(m+n)mn}}$ converges in distribution to a standard normal random variable.