On the connected components of the space of line transversals to a family of convex sets

Let ℒ be the space of line transversals to a finite family of pairwise disjoint compact convex sets in ℝ³. We prove that each connected component of ℒ can itself be represented as the space of transversals to some finite family of pairwise disjoint compact convex sets. The research of J. E. Goodman was supported in part by NSF Grant DMS91-22065 and by NSA Grant MDA904-92-H-3069. R. Pollack's research was supported in part by NSF Grant CCR91-22103 and by NSA Grant MDA904-92-H-3075. The research of R. Wenger was supported in part by NSA Grant MDA904-93-H-3026 and by the NSF Regional Geometry Institute (Smith College, July 1993) Grant DMS90-13220.     

On the degree of standard geometric predicates for line transversals in 3D

In this paper we study various geometric predicates for determining the existence of and categorizing the configurations of lines in 3D that are transversal to lines or segments. We compute the degrees of standard procedures of evaluating these predicates. The degrees of some of these procedures are surprisingly high (up to 168), which may explain why computing line transversals with finite-precision floating-point arithmetic is prone to error. Our results suggest the need to explore alternatives to the standard methods of computing these quantities.     

Small transversals in hypergraphs

For each positive integerk, we consider the setA _k of all ordered pairs [a, b] such that in everyk-graph withn vertices andm edges some set of at mostam+bn vertices meets all the edges. We show that eachA _k withk2 has infinitely many extreme points and conjecture that, for every positive , it has only finitely many extreme points [a, b] witha. With the extreme points ordered by the first coordinate, we identify the last two extreme points of everyA _k , identify the last three extreme points ofA ₃, and describeA ₂ completely. A by-product of our arguments is a new algorithmic proof of Turán's theorem.     

Lower bounds to helly numbers of line transversals to disjoint congruent balls

A line ℓ is a transversal to a family F of convex objects in ℝ ^d if it intersects every member of F. In this paper we show that for every integer d ⩾ 3 there exists a family of 2d−1 pairwise disjoint unit balls in ℝ ^d with the property that every subfamily of size 2d − 2 admits a transversal, yet any line misses at least one member of the family. This answers a question of Danzer from 1957. Crucial to the proof is the notion of a pinned transversal, which means an isolated point in the space of transversals. Here we investigate minimal pinning configurations and construct a family F of 2d−1 disjoint unit balls in ℝ ^d with the following properties: (i) The space of transversals to F is a single point and (ii) the space of transversals to any proper subfamily of F is a connected set with non-empty interior.     

Vector transversals

The max-flow min-cut theorem is used to give a necessary and sufficient condition for one or two finite families of finite non-negative vectors to have a (common) vector transversal. The duality theorem of linear programming is then used to prove the polymatroid intersection theorem for any finite number of polymatroids, which in turn is used to give a necessary and sufficient condition for any finite number of finite families of finite sets to have a common vector transversal. (This result was announced without proof in [D. R. Woodall, in “Combinatorics (Proceedings, 4th British Combinatorial Conference)” pp. 195–200, London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series No. 13, Cambridge Univ. Press, London/New York 1974].) This provides a weak generalization of the well-known conditions of Hall and of Ford and Fulkerson for one and two families of sets, respectively, to have a (common) transversal. It also provides a stronger necessary condition than was previously known for three or more families of sets to have a common transversal.     

Additive latin transversals

We prove that for every odd primep, everyk≤p and every two subsets A={a ₁, …,a _k } andB={b ₁, …,b _k } of cardinalityk each ofZ _p , there is a permutationπ ∈S _k such that the sumsa _i +b _π(i) (inZ _p ) are pairwise distinct. This partially settles a question of Snevily. The proof is algebraic, and implies several related results as well. Research supported in part by a State of New Jersey grant and by the Hermann Minkowski Minerva Center for Geometry at Tel Aviv University.     

Common transversals

Given t families, each family consisting of s finite sets, we show that if the families “separate points” in a natural way, and if the union of all the sets in all the families contains more than (s + 1)^t ? s^t?1 ? 1 elements, then a common transversal of the t families exists. In case each family is a covering family, the bound is s^t ? s^t?1. Both of these bounds are best possible. This work extends recent work of Longyear [2].     

Blockers and transversals

Given an undirected graph G=(V,E) with matching number ν(G), we define d-blockers as subsets of edges B such that ν((V,E?B))≤ν(G)−d. We define d-transversals T as subsets of edges such that every maximum matching M has |M∩T|≥d. We explore connections between d-blockers and d-transversals. Special classes of graphs are examined which include complete graphs, regular bipartite graphs, chains and cycles and we construct minimum d-transversals and d-blockers in these special graphs. We also study the complexity status of finding minimum transversals and blockers in arbitrary graphs.     

On generalized inverse transversals

Let S be a regular semigroup, S° an inverse subsemigroup of S.S° is called a generalized inverse transversal of S, if V（x）∩S°≠Ф. In this paper, some properties of this kind of semigroups are discussed. In particular, a construction theorem is obtained which contains some recent results in the literature as its special cases.     

Minimum size transversals in uniform hypergraphs

A set of vertices in a hypergraph which meets all the edges is called a transversal. The transversal number τ(H)$\tau \left(H\right)$ of a hypergraph H$H$ is the minimum cardinality of a transversal in H$H$. A classical greedy algorithm for constructing a transversal of small size selects in each step a vertex which has the largest degree in the hypergraph formed by the edges not met yet. The analysis of this algorithm (by Chvátal and McDiarmid (1992)  [3]) gave some upper bounds for τ(H)$\tau \left(H\right)$ in a uniform hypergraph H$H$ with a given number of vertices and edges. We discuss a variation of this greedy algorithm. Analyzing this new algorithm, we obtain upper bounds for τ(H)$\tau \left(H\right)$ which improve the bounds by Chvátal and McDiarmid.     

Vertex transversals that dominate

For any graph, there is a largest integer k such that given any partition of the vertex set with at most k elements in each class of the partition, there is transversal of the partition that is a dominating set in the graph. Some basic results about this parameter, the partition domination number, are obtained. In particular, it is shown that its value is 2 for the two-dimensional infinite grid, and that determining whether a given vertex partition admits a dominating transversal is NP-complete, even for a graph which is a simple path. The existence of various dominating transversals in certain partitions in regular graphs is studied as well. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Existence of partial transversals

We use the polynomial method to study the existence of partial transversals in the Cayley addition table of Abelian groups.     

Finding odd cycle transversals

We present an O(mn) algorithm to determine whether a graph G with m edges and n vertices has an odd cycle transversal of order at most k, for any fixed k. We also obtain an algorithm that determines, in the same time, whether a graph has a half integral packing of odd cycles of weight k.     

On left Hadamard transversals in non-solvable groups

Let G be a group of order 4n and t an involution of G. A 2n-subset R of G is called a left Hadamard transversal of G with respect to 〈t〉 if G=R〈t〉 and for some subsets S₁ and S₂ of G. Let H be a subgroup of G such that G=[G,G]H, t∈H, and t^G⊄H, where t^G is the conjugacy class of t and [G,G] is the commutator subgroup of G. In this article, we show that if R satisfies a condition , then R is a (2n,2,2n,n) relative difference set and one can construct a v×v integral matrix B such that BB^T=B^TB=(n/2)I, where v is a positive integer determined by H and t^G (see Theorem 2.6). Using this we show that there is no left Hadamard transversal R satisfying (*) in some simple groups.