Characterizing and bounding the imperfection ratio for some classes of graphs

Perfect graphs constitute a well-studied graph class with a rich structure, which is reflected by many characterizations with respect to different concepts. Perfect graphs are, for instance, precisely those graphs G where the stable set polytope STAB(G) equals the fractional stable set polytope QSTAB(G). The dilation ratio of the two polytopes yields the imperfection ratio of G. It is NP-hard to compute and, for most graph classes, it is even unknown whether it is bounded. For graphs G such that all facets of STAB(G) are rank constraints associated with antiwebs, we characterize the imperfection ratio and bound it by 3/2. Outgoing from this result, we characterize and bound the imperfection ratio for several graph classes, including near-bipartite graphs and their complements, namely quasi-line graphs, by means of induced antiwebs and webs, respectively.      

Dirac’s Type Sufficient Conditions for Hamiltonicity and Pancyclicity

Let G = (V, E) be a any simple, undirected graph on n ≥ 3 vertices with the degree sequence . We consider the class of graphs satisfying the condition where , is a positive integer. It is known that is hamiltonian if θ ≤ δ. In this paper,

An Extension of Sums of Squares Relaxations to Polynomial Optimization Problems Over Symmetric Cones

This paper is based on a recent work by Kojima which extended sums of squares relaxations of polynomial optimization problems to polynomial semidefinite programs. Let and be a finite dimensional real vector space and a symmetric cone embedded in ; examples of and include a pair of the N-dimensional Euclidean space and its nonnegative orthant, a pair of the N-dimensional Euclidean space and N-dimensional second-order cones, and a pair of the space of m × m real symmetric (or complex Hermitian) matrices and the cone of their positive semidefinite matrices. Sums of squares relaxations are further extended to a polynomial optimization problem over , i.e., a minimization of a real valued polynomial a(x) in the n-dimensional real variable vector x over a compact feasible region , where b(x) denotes an - valued polynomial in x. It is shown under a certain moderate assumption on the -valued polynomial b(x) that optimal values of a sequence of sums of squares relaxations of the problem, which are converted into a sequence of semidefinite programs when they are numerically solved, converge to the optimal value of the problem. Research supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas 16016234.     

Pan-connectedness of graphs with large neighborhood unions

Let G be a simple graph with n vertices. For any , let , and , and and u and v has distance 2 in E(G)}. Let l ≥ 1 be an integer. A graph G on n ≥ l vertices is [l, n]-pan-connected if for any , and any integer m with l ≤ m ≤ n, G has a (u, v)-path of length m. In 1998, Wei and Zhu (Graphs Combinatorics 14:263–274, 1998) proved that for a three-connected graph on n ≥ 7 vertices, if NC(G) ≥ n − δ(G) + 1, then G is [6, n]-pan-connected. They conjectured that such graphs should be [5, n]-pan-connected. In this paper, we prove that for a three-connected graph on n ≥ 7 vertices, if NC ₂(G) ≥ n − δ(G) + 1, then G is [5, n]-pan-connected. Consequently, the conjecture of Wei and Zhu is proved as NC ₂(G) ≥ NC(G). Furthermore, we show that the lower bound is best possible and characterize all 2-connected graphs with NC ₂(G) ≥ n − δ(G) + 1 which are not [4, n]-pan-connected.      

On Characterizations of Rigid Graphs in the Plane Using Spanning Trees

We study characterizations of generic rigid graphs and generic circuits in the plane using only few decompositions into spanning trees. Generic rigid graphs in the plane can be characterized by spanning tree decompositions [5,6]. A graph G with n vertices and 2n − 3 edges is generic rigid in the plane if and only if doubling any edge results in a graph which is the union of two spanning trees. This requires 2n − 3 decompositions into spanning trees. We show that n − 2 decompositions suffice: only edges of G − T can be doubled where T is a spanning tree of G. A recent result on tensegrity frameworks by Recski [7] implies a characterization of generic circuits in the plane. A graph G with n vertices and 2n − 2 edges is a generic circuit in the plane if and only if replacing any edge of G by any (possibly new) edge results in a graph which is the union of two spanning trees. This requires decompositions into spanning trees. We show that 2n − 2 decompositions suffice. Let be any circular order of edges of G (i.e. ). The graph G is a generic circuit in the plane if and only if is the union of two spanning trees for any . Furthermore, we show that only n decompositions into spanning trees suffice.     

An inexact primal–dual path following algorithm for convex quadratic SDP

We propose primal–dual path-following Mehrotra-type predictor–corrector methods for solving convex quadratic semidefinite programming (QSDP) problems of the form: , where is a self-adjoint positive semidefinite linear operator on , b∈R ^m , and is a linear map from to R ^m . At each interior-point iteration, the search direction is computed from a dense symmetric indefinite linear system (called the augmented equation) of dimension m + n(n + 1)/2. Such linear systems are typically very large and can only be solved by iterative methods. We propose three classes of preconditioners for the augmented equation, and show that the corresponding preconditioned matrices have favorable asymptotic eigenvalue distributions for fast convergence under suitable nondegeneracy assumptions. Numerical experiments on a variety of QSDPs with n up to 1600 are performed and the computational results show that our methods are efficient and robust. Research supported in part by Academic Research Grant R146-000-076-112.     

Projective re-normalization for improving the behavior of a homogeneous conic linear system

In this paper we study the homogeneous conic system . We choose a point that serves as a normalizer and consider computational properties of the normalized system . We show that the computational complexity of solving F via an interior-point method depends only on the complexity value of the barrier for C and on the symmetry of the origin in the image set , where the symmetry of 0 in is

Corrector–predictor methods for monotone linear complementarity problems in a wide neighborhood of the central path

Two corrector–predictor interior point algorithms are proposed for solving monotone linear complementarity problems. The algorithms produce a sequence of iterates in the neighborhood of the central path. The first algorithm uses line search schemes requiring the solution of higher order polynomial equations in one variable, while the line search procedures of the second algorithm can be implemented in arithmetic operations, where n is the dimension of the problems, is a constant, and m is the maximum order of the predictor and the corrector. If then both algorithms have iteration complexity. They are superlinearly convergent even for degenerate problems.      

Disproof of a Conjecture on the Subdivision Domination Number of a Graph

A set S of vertices of a graph G = (V,E) is a dominating set if every vertex of is adjacent to some vertex in S. The domination number γ(G) is the minimum cardinality of a dominating set of G. The domination subdivision number sd_γ(G) is the minimum number of edges that must be subdivided (each edge in G can be subdivided at most once) in order to increase the domination number. Haynes et al. (Discussiones Mathematicae Graph Theory 21 (2001) 239-253) conjectured that for any graph G with . In this note we first give a counterexample to this conjecture in general and then we prove it for a particular class of graphs.     

Convex sets with semidefinite representation

We provide a sufficient condition on a class of compact basic semialgebraic sets for their convex hull co(K) to have a semidefinite representation (SDr). This SDr is explicitly expressed in terms of the polynomials g _j that define K. Examples are provided. We also provide an approximate SDr; that is, for every fixed , there is a convex set such that (where B is the unit ball of ), and has an explicit SDr in terms of the g _j ’s. For convex and compact basic semi-algebraic sets K defined by concave polynomials, we provide a simpler explicit SDr when the nonnegative Lagrangian L _f associated with K and any linear is a sum of squares. We also provide an approximate SDr specific to the convex case.      

Paired-Domination in <Emphasis Type="Italic">P</Emphasis><Subscript>5</Subscript>-Free Graphs

A set S of vertices in a graph G is a paired-dominating set of G if every vertex of G is adjacent to some vertex in S and if the subgraph induced by S contains a perfect matching. The paired-domination number of G, denoted by , is the minimum cardinality of a paired-dominating set of G. In [1], the authors gave tight bounds for paired-dominating sets of generalized claw-free graphs. Yet, the critical cases are not claws but subdivided stars. We here give a bound for graphs containing no induced P ₅, which seems to be the critical case.     

A Note on First-Fit Coloring of Interval Graphs

We apply the Column Construction Method (Varadarajan et al., Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium On Discrete Algorithms, pp. 562–571, 2004) to a minimal clique cover of an interval graph to obtain a new proof that First-Fit is 8-competitive for online coloring interval graphs. This proof also yields a new discovery that in each minimal clique cover of an interval graph G, there is a clique of size .     

Critical extreme points of the 2-edge connected spanning subgraph polytope

In this paper we study the extreme points of the polytope P(G), the linear relaxation of the 2-edge connected spanning subgraph polytope of a graph G. We introduce a partial ordering on the extreme points of P(G) and give necessary conditions for a non-integer extreme point of P(G) to be minimal with respect to that ordering. We show that, if is a non-integer minimal extreme point of P(G), then G and can be reduced, by means of some reduction operations, to a graph G' and an extreme point of P(G') where G' and satisfy some simple properties. As a consequence we obtain a characterization of the perfectly 2-edge connected graphs, the graphs for which the polytope P(G) is integral. Received: May, 2004 Part of this work has been done while the first author was visiting the Research Institute for Discrete Mathematics, University of Bonn, Germany.     

Semicrossed products of simple C*-algebras

Let and be C*-dynamical systems and assume that is a separable simple C*-algebra and that α and β are *-automorphisms. Then the semicrossed products and are isometrically isomorphic if and only if the dynamical systems and are outer conjugate. K. R. Davidson was partially supported by an NSERC grant. E. G. Katsoulis was partially supported by a summer grant from ECU     

MIP reformulations of the probabilistic set covering problem

In this paper, we address the following probabilistic version (PSC) of the set covering problem: where A is a 0-1 matrix, is a random 0-1 vector and is the threshold probability level. We introduce the concepts of p-inefficiency and polarity cuts. While the former is aimed at deriving an equivalent MIP reformulation of (PSC), the latter is used as a strengthening device to obtain a stronger formulation. Simplifications of the MIP model which result when one of the following conditions hold are briefly discussed: A is a balanced matrix, A has the circular ones property, the components of are pairwise independent, the distribution function of is a stationary distribution or has the disjunctive shattering property. We corroborate our theoretical findings by an extensive computational experiment on a test-bed consisting of almost 10,000 probabilistic instances. This test-bed was created using deterministic instances from the literature and consists of probabilistic variants of the set covering model and capacitated versions of facility location, warehouse location and k-median models. Our computational results show that our procedure is orders of magnitude faster than any of the existing approaches to solve (PSC), and in many cases can reduce hours of computing time to a fraction of a second. Anureet Saxena’s research was supported by the National Science Foundation through grant #DMI-0352885 and by the Office of Naval Research through contract N00014-03-1-0133. Vineet Goyal’s research was supported in part by NSF grant CCF-0430751 and ITR grant CCR-0122581.     

On the complexity of general matrix scaling and entropy minimization via the RAS algorithm

Given an n × m nonnegative matrix A = (a _ij ) and positive integral vectors and having a common one-norm h, the (r,c)-scaling problem is to obtain positive diagonal matrices X and Y, if they exist, such that XAY has row and column sums equal to r and c, respectively. The entropy minimization problem corresponding to A is to find an n × m matrix z = (z _ij ) having the same zero pattern as A, the sum of whose entries is a given number h, its row and column sums are within given integral vectors of lower and upper bounds, and such that the entropy function consisting of the sum of the terms z _ij ln (z _ij /a _ij ) is minimized. When the lower and upper bounds coincide, matrix scaling and entropy minimization are closely related. In this paper we present several complexity bounds for the -approximate (r,c)-scaling problem, polynomial in n,m,h, , and ln , where V and v are the largest and the smallest positive entries of A, respectively. These bounds, although not polynomial in , not only provide alternative complexities for the polynomial time algorithms, but could result in better overall complexities. In particular, our theoretical analysis supports the practicality of the well-known RAS algorithm. In our analysis we obtain bounds on the norm of scaling vectors which will be used in deriving not only some of the above complexities, but also a complexity for square nonnegative matrices having positive permanent. In particular, our results extend, nontrivially, many bounds for the doubly stochastic scaling of square nonnegative matrices previously given by Kalantari and Khachiyan to the case of general (r,c)-scaling. Finally, we study a more general entropy minimization problem where row and column sums are constrained to lie in prescribed intervals, and the sum of all entries is also prescribed. Balinski and Demange described an RAS type algorithm for its continuous version, but did not analyze its complexity. We show that this algorithm produces an -approximate solution within complexity polynomial in n, m, h, and .