The most vital nodes with respect to independent set and vertex cover

Given an undirected graph with weights on its vertices, the k most vital nodes independent set (k most vital nodes vertex cover) problem consists of determining a set of k vertices whose removal results in the greatest decrease in the maximum weight of independent sets (minimum weight of vertex covers, respectively). We also consider the complementary problems, minimum node blocker independent set (minimum node blocker vertex cover) that consists of removing a subset of vertices of minimum size such that the maximum weight of independent sets (minimum weight of vertex covers, respectively) in the remaining graph is at most a specified value. We show that these problems are NP-hard on bipartite graphs but polynomial-time solvable on unweighted bipartite graphs. Furthermore, these problems are polynomial also on cographs and graphs of bounded treewidth. Results on the non-existence of ptas are presented, too.     

A hybridized tabu search approach for the minimum weight vertex cover problem

The minimum weight vertex cover problem is a basic combinatorial optimization problem defined as follows. Given an undirected graph and positive weights for all vertices the objective is to determine a subset of the vertices which covers all edges such that the sum of the related cost values is minimized. In this paper we apply a modified reactive tabu search approach for solving the problem. While the initial concept of reactive tabu search involves a random walk we propose to replace this random walk by a controlled simulated annealing. Numerical results are presented outperforming previous metaheuristic approaches in most cases.     

The vertex (edge) independence number, vertex (edge) cover number and the least eigenvalue of a graph

In this paper we characterize the unique graph whose least eigenvalue attains the minimum among all graphs of a fixed order and a given vertex (edge) independence number or vertex (edge) cover number, and get some bounds for the vertex (edge) independence number, vertex (edge) cover number of a graph in terms of the least eigenvalue of the graph.     

An Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm for the Minimum Weight Vertex Cover Problem

Given an undirected graph and a weighting function defined on the vertex set, the minimum weight vertex cover problem is to find a vertex subset whose total weight is minimum subject to the premise that the selected vertices cover all edges in the graph. In this paper, we introduce a meta-heuristic based upon the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) approach, to find approximate solutions to the minimum weight vertex cover problem. In the literature, the ACO approach has been successfully applied to several well-known combinatorial optimization problems whose solutions might be in the form of paths on the associated graphs. A solution to the minimum weight vertex cover problem however needs not to constitute a path. The ACO algorithm proposed in this paper incorporates several new features so as to select vertices out of the vertex set whereas the total weight can be minimized as much as possible. Computational experiments are designed and conducted to study the performance of our proposed approach. Numerical results evince that the ACO algorithm demonstrates significant effectiveness and robustness in solving the minimum weight vertex cover problem.     

Crown reductions for the Minimum Weighted Vertex Cover problem

The paper studies crown reductions for the Minimum Weighted Vertex Cover problem introduced recently in the unweighted case by Fellows et al. [Blow-Ups, Win/Win's and crown rules: some new directions in FPT, in: Proceedings of the 29th International Workshop on Graph Theoretic Concepts in Computer Science (WG’03), Lecture notes in computer science, vol. 2880, 2003, pp. 1-12, Kernelization algorithms for the vertex cover problem: theory and experiments, in: Proceedings of the Workshop on Algorithm Engineering and Experiments (ALENEX), New Orleans, Louisiana, January 2004, pp. 62-69]. We describe in detail a close relation of crown reductions to Nemhauser and Trotter reductions that are based on the linear programming relaxation of the problem. We introduce and study the so-called strong crown reductions, suitable for finding (or counting) all minimum vertex covers, or finding a minimum vertex cover under some additional constraints. It is described how crown decompositions and strong crown decompositions suitable for such problems can be computed in polynomial time. For weighted König-Egerváry graphs (G,w) we observe that the set of vertices belonging to all minimum vertex covers, and the set of vertices belonging to no minimum vertex covers, can be efficiently computed.Further, for some specific classes of graphs, simple algorithms for the MIN-VC problem with a constant approximation factor r<2 are provided. On the other hand, we conclude that for the regular graphs, or for the Hamiltonian connected graphs, the problem is as hard to approximate as for general graphs.It is demonstrated how the results about strong crown reductions can be used to achieve a linear size problem kernel for some related vertex cover problems.     

Bounds on Special Subsets in Graphs, Eigenvalues and Association Schemes

We give a bound on the sizes of two sets of vertices at a given minimum distance in a graph in terms of polynomials and the Laplace spectrum of the graph. We obtain explicit bounds on the number of vertices at maximal distance and distance two from a given vertex, and on the size of two equally large sets at maximal distance. For graphs with four eigenvalues we find bounds on the number of vertices that are not adjacent to a given vertex and that have µ common neighbours with that vertex. Furthermore we find that the regular graphs for which the bounds are tight come from association schemes.     

Graphs with equal eternal vertex cover and eternal domination numbers

Mobile guards on the vertices of a graph are used to defend it against an infinite sequence of attacks on either its vertices or its edges. If attacks occur at vertices, this is known at the eternal domination problem. If attacks occur at edges, this is known as the eternal vertex cover problem. We focus on the model in which all guards can move to neighboring vertices in response to an attack. Motivated by the question of which graphs have equal eternal vertex cover and eternal domination numbers, a number of results are presented; one of the main results of the paper is that the eternal vertex cover number is greater than the eternal domination number (in the all-guards move model) in all graphs of minimum degree at least two.     

Bounds on the cover time

Consider a particle that moves on a connected, undirected graphG withn vertices. At each step the particle goes from the current vertex to one of its neighbors, chosen uniformly at random. Tocover time is the first time when the particle has visited all the vertices in the graph starting from a given vertex. In this paper, we present upper and lower bounds that relate the expected cover time for a graph to the eigenvalues of the Markov chain that describes the random walk above. An interesting consequence is that regular expander graphs have expected cover time (n logn).This research was done while this author was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, and it was supported in part by DNR grant N00014-87-K-0467.     

The local spectra of regular line graphs

The local spectrum of a graph G=(V,E), constituted by the standard eigenvalues of G and their local multiplicities, plays a similar role as the global spectrum when the graph is “seen” from a given vertex. Thus, for each vertex i∈V, the i-local multiplicities of all the eigenvalues add up to 1; whereas the multiplicity of each eigenvalue λ of G is the sum, extended to all vertices, of its local multiplicities.In this work, using the interpretation of an eigenvector as a charge distribution on the vertices, we compute the local spectrum of the line graph LG in terms of the local spectrum of the regular graph G it derives from. Furthermore, some applications of this result are derived as, for instance, some results about the number of circuits of LG.     

Vertex covers and eternal dominating sets

The eternal domination problem requires a graph to be protected against an infinitely long sequence of attacks on vertices by guards located at vertices, the configuration of guards inducing a dominating set at all times. An attack at a vertex with no guard is defended by sending a guard from a neighboring vertex to the attacked vertex. We allow any number of guards to move to neighboring vertices at the same time in response to an attack. We compare the eternal domination number with the vertex cover number of a graph. One of our main results is that the eternal domination number is less than the vertex cover number of any graph of minimum degree at least two having girth at least nine.     

The cover pebbling number of graphs

A pebbling move on a graph consists of taking two pebbles off of one vertex and placing one pebble on an adjacent vertex. In the traditional pebbling problem we try to reach a specified vertex of the graph by a sequence of pebbling moves. In this paper we investigate the case when every vertex of the graph must end up with at least one pebble after a series of pebbling moves. The cover pebbling number of a graph is the minimum number of pebbles such that however the pebbles are initially placed on the vertices of the graph we can eventually put a pebble on every vertex simultaneously. We find the cover pebbling numbers of trees and some other graphs. We also consider the more general problem where (possibly different) given numbers of pebbles are required for the vertices.     

Transportation in graphs and the admittance spectrum

The admittance spectrum of the underlying graph is used in order to describe the behaviour of a liquid flowing through a system of communicating pipes. The performance of this process enables us to define the ‘permeability’ of a graph, the ‘well-connectedness’ of pairs of vertices and the ‘good position’ of vertices in terms of the second eigenvalue of the admittance matrix and its corresponding eigenvectors. Furthermore, bounds are given for the decrease of the second eigenvalue caused by the insertion of an edge into a graph.     

Nowhere-zero eigenvectors of graphs

A vector is called nowhere-zero if it has no zero entry. In this article we search for graphs with nowhere-zero eigenvectors. We prove that distance-regular graphs and vertex-transitive graphs have nowhere-zero eigenvectors for all of their eigenvalues and edge-transitive graphs have nowhere-zero eigenvectors for all non-zero eigenvalues. Among other results, it is shown that a graph with three distinct eigenvalues has a nowhere-zero eigenvector for its smallest eigenvalue.     

On the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of certain finite,vertex-weighted,bipartite graphs

The established, spectral characterisation of bipartite graphs with unweighted vertices (which are here termed homogeneous graphs) is extended to those bipartite graphs (called heterogeneous) in which all of the vertices in one set are weighted h₁ , and each of those in the other set of the bigraph is weighted h₂. All the eigenvalues of a homogeneous bipartite graph occur in pairs, around zero, while some of the eigenvalues of an arbitrary, heterogeneous graph are paired around $\text{1}\text{2}$(h₁ + h₂), the remainder having the value h₂ (or h_l). The well-documented, explicit relations between the eigenvectors belonging to “paired” eigenvalues of homogeneous graphs are extended to relate the components of the eigenvectors associated with each couple of “paired” eigenvalues of the corresponding heterogeneous graph. Details are also given of the relationships between the eigenvectors of an arbitrary, homogeneous, bipartite graph and those of its heterogeneous analogue.     

无$K_{1,4}$子图的图的路覆盖

For a graph G, a path cover is a set of vertex disjoint paths covering all the vertices of G, and a path cover number of G, denoted by p(G), is the minimum number of paths in a path cover among all the path covers of G. In this paper, we prove that if G is a K_(1,4)-free graph of order n and σ_(k+1)(G) ≥ n-k, then p(G) ≤ k, where σ_(k+1)(G) = min{∑v∈S d(v) : S is an independent set of G with |S| = k + 1}.     

On the least eigenvalue of a unicyclic mixed graph

Using the result on Fiedler vectors of a simple graph, we obtain a property on the structure of the eigenvectors of a nonsingular unicyclic mixed graph corresponding to its least eigenvalue. With the property, we get some results on minimizing and maximizing the least eigenvalue over all nonsingular unicyclic mixed graphs on n vertices with fixed girth. In particular, the graphs which minimize and maximize, respectively, the least eigenvalue are given over all such graphs with girth 3.     

The smallest positive eigenvalue of graphs under perturbation

The effect on the smallest positive eigenvalue of a bipartite graph is studied when the graph is perturbed by attaching a pendant vertex at one of its vertices. Let $${\widehat{T}}(v)$$ be the graph obtained by attaching a pendant at vertex v of T. We characterize the vertices v such that the smallest positive eigenvalue of $${\widehat{T}}(v)$$ is equal or greater than that of T. As an application, we obtain the pairs of nonisomorphic noncospectral trees having the same smallest positive eigenvalue.     

笛卡尔乘积图里的最小k-路点覆盖

对于子集$S\subseteq V(G)$,如果图$G$里的每一条$k$路都至少包含$S$中的一个点,那么我们称集合$S$是图$G$的一个$k$-路点覆盖.很明显,这个子集并不唯一.我们称最小的$k$-路点覆盖的基数为$k$-路点覆盖数, 记作$\psi_k(G)$.本文给出了一些笛卡尔乘积图上$\psi_k(G)$值的上界或下界.     

电阻-距离谱的若干结果

对连通图$G$的顶点$u$和$v$, $u$与$v$在$G$中的电阻距离$r_G(u,v)$等于相邻顶点之间的电阻为单位电阻的$G$对应的电网中$u$与$v$之间的等效电阻. 图$G$的电阻-距离特征值是$G$的电阻-距离矩阵$R(G)=(r_G(u,v))_{u,v\in V(G)}$的特征值. 我们分别确定了不同于完全图与完全图删去一条边后得到的图及给定割边数目的使得最大电阻-距离特征值取得最小值的唯一的连通图, 还讨论了最小电阻-距离特征值的性质.     

The normal curvatures of a graph

A set of arithmetical invariants for each vertex of a graph was defined in [1]. In this paper these invariants are expressed by the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the graph.