Length-bounded disjoint paths in planar graphs

The following problem is considered: given: an undirected planar graph G=(V,E) embedded in , distinct pairs of vertices {r₁,s₁},…,{r_k,s_k} of G adjacent to the unbounded face, positive integers b₁,…,b_k and a function ; find: pairwise vertex-disjoint paths P₁,…,P_k such that for each i=1,…,k, P_i is a r_i−s_i-path and the sum of the l-length of all edges in P_i is at most b_i. It is shown that the problem is NP-hard in the strong sense. A pseudo-polynomial-time algorithm is given for the case of k=2.     

The existence of Schröder designs with equal-sized holes

A holey Schröder design of type h₁^n₁h₂^n₂ … h_k^n_k (HSD(h₁^n₁h₂^n₂ … h_k^n_k)) is equivalent to a frame idempotent Schröder quasigroup (FISQ(h₁^n₁h₂^n₂ … h_k^n_k)) of order n with n_i missing subquasigroups (holes) of order h_i, (1 i k), which are disjoint and spanning, that is, Σ_{1 i k} n_ih_i = n. In this paper, it is shown that an HSD(hⁿ) exists if and only if h²n(n − 1) 0 (mod 4) with expceptions (h, n) ε {{(1,5),(1,9),(2,4)}} and the possible exception of (h, n) = (6,4).     

Ramsey linear families and generalized subdivided graphs

The following results are obtained. (i) Let p, d, and k be fixed positive integers, and let G be a graph whose vertex set can be partitioned into parts V₁, V₂,…, V_a such that for each i at most d vertices in V₁ … V_i have neighbors in V_i+1 and r(K_k, V_i) p | V(G) |, where V_i denotes the subgraph of G induced by V_i. Then there exists a number c depending only on p, d, and k such that r(K_k, G)c | V(G) |. (ii) Let d be a positive integer and let G be a graph in which there is an independent set I V(G) such that each component of G−I has at most d vertices and at most two neighbors in I. Then r(G,G)c | V(G) |, where c is a number depending only on d. As a special case, r(G, G) 6 | V(G) | for a graph G in which all vertices of degree at least three are independent. The constant 6 cannot be replaced by one less than 4.     

Polyhedral graphs with extreme numbers of types of faces

A face F of a polyhedral graph G(V,E,F) is an a₁,a₂,…,a_l-face if is an l-gon and the degrees d(x_i) of the vertices x_iV incident with in the cyclic order are a_i,i=1,2,…,l. The lexicographic minimum b₁,b₂,…,b_l such that is a b₁,b₂,…,b_l-face is the type of . All polyhedral graphs having only one type of faces are listed. It is proved that the set of triangulations having only faces of different types is non-empty and finite.     

Multicolored forests in complete bipartite graphs

If the edges of a graph G are colored using k colors, we consider the color distribution for this coloring a=(a₁,a₂,…,a_k), in which a_i denotes the number of edges of color i for i=1,2,…,k. We find inequalities and majorization conditions on color distributions of the complete bipartite graph K_n,n which guarantee the existence of multicolored subgraphs: in particular, multicolored forests and trees. We end with a conjecture on partitions of K_n,n into multicolored trees.     

On neighborhood condition for graphs to have [a,b]-factors

Let G be a graph of order n, and let a and b be integers such that 1a<b. Let δ(G) be the minimum degree of G. Then we prove that if δ(G)(k−1)a, n(a+b)(k(a+b)−2)/b, and |N_G(x₁)N_G(x₂)N_G(x_k)|an/(a+b) for any independent subset {x₁,x₂,…,x_k} of V(G), where k2, then G has an [a,b]-factor. This result is best possible in some sense.     

Graph spectra

The k-spectrum s_k(G) of a graph G is the set of all positive integers that occur as the size of an induced k-vertex subgraph of G. In this paper we determine the minimum order and size of a graph G with s_k (G) = {0, 1, …,(₂^k)} and consider the more general question of describing those sets S {0,1, … ,(₂^k)} such that S = s_k(G) for some graph G.     

The game of n-times nim

The following game is considered. The first player can take any number of stones, but not all the stones, from a single pile of stones. After that, each player can take at most n-times as many as the previous one. The player first unable to move loses and his opponent wins. Let f₁,f₂,… be an initial sequence of stones in increasing order, such that the second player has a winning strategy when play begins from a pile of size f_i. It is proved that there exist constants c=c(n) and k₀=k₀(n) such that f_k+1=f_k+f_k−c for all k>k₀, and lim_n→∞ c(n)/(nlogn)=1.     

A theorem on independence

Suppose we are given a family of sets , where S(j) = ∩^k_i=1 H_i(j), and suppose each collection of sets H_i(j₁),…,H_i(j_k+1) has a lower bound under the partial ordering defined by inclusion, then the maximal size of an independent subcollection of is k. For example, for a fixed collection of half-spaces H₁,…,H_k in , we define to be the collection of all sets of the form

where χ_i, I=1,…, k are points in . Then the maximal size of an independent collection of such sets us k. This leads to a proof of the bound of 2d due to Rényi et al. (1951) for the maximum size of an independent family of rectangles in with sides parallel to the coordinate axes, and to a bound of d+1 for the maximum size of an independent family of simplices in with sides parallel to given hyperplanes H₁,…,H_d+1.     

A sufficient and necessary condition for an OWA bag mapping having the self-identity

A mapping ƒ : _n=1^∞Iⁿ → I is called a bag mapping having the self-identity if for every (x₁,…,x_n) ε _i=1^∞Iⁿ we have (1) ƒ(x₁,…,x_n) = ƒ(x_i1,…,x_in) for any arrangement (i₁,…,i_n) of {1,…,n}; monotonic; (3) ƒ(x₁,…,x_n, ƒ(x₁,…,x_n)) = ƒ(x₁,…,x_n). Let {ω_i,n : I = 1,…,n;n = 1,2,…} be a family of non-negative real numbers satisfying Σ_i=1ⁿω_i,n = 1 for every n. Then one calls the mapping ƒ : _i=1^∞Iⁿ → I defined as follows an OWA bag mapping: for every (x₁,…,x_n) ε _i=1^∞Iⁿ, ƒ(x₁,…,x_n) = Σ_i=1ⁿω_i,ny_i, where y_i is the it largest element in the set {x₁,…,x_n}. In this paper, we give a sufficient and necessary condition for an OWA bag mapping having the self-identity.     

Algorithms for finding a Kth best valued assignment

We consider a new problem, the Kth best valued assignment problem. Given a bipartite graph G and a cost vector w on its edge set, this is the problem of finding a perfect matching M_k in G such that there exist perfect matchings M₁,…,M_K−1 satisfying w(M₁) < < w(M_K−1) < w(M_K), and w(M_K) < w(M) for all perfect matchings M with w(M) ≠ w(M₁),…,w(M_K). Here w(M) denotes the sum of costs of edges in M. In this paper, we propose two algorithms for solving this problem and verify the efficiency of our algorithms by our preliminary computational experiments.     

Invariant record processes and applications to best choice modelling

Let X₁, X₂,…be identically distributed random variables from an unknown continuous distribution. Further let I_r(1), I_r(2),…be a sequence of indicator functions defined on X₁, X₂,…by I_r(k) = 0 if k < r, I_r(k) = 1 if X_k is a r-record AND = 0 otherwise. Suppose that we observe X₁, X₂,… at times T₁ < T₂ <… where the T_k's are realisations of some regular counting process (N(τ)) defined on the positive half-line. Having observed [0, τ], say, the problem is to predict the future behaviour of the counting processes (R_r(τ, s))_sτ = # r-records in [τ, s]. More specifically the objective of this paper is to show that these processes can be (inhomogeneous) Poisson processes even if (N(τ))_τ0 has dependent increments.

The strong link between optimal selection and optimal stopping of record sequences or record processes, perhaps not fully recognized so far, is pointed out in this paper. It is shown to lead to a unification of the treatment of problems which, at first sight, are rather different. Moreover the stopping of record processes in continuous time can lead to rigorous and elegant solutions in cases where dynamic programming is bound to fail. Several examples will be given to facilitate a comparison with other methods.     

An efficient algorithm for the parametric resource allocation problem

The parametric resource allocation problem asks to minimize the sum of separable single-variable convex functions containing a parameter λ, Σ_{i = 1}ⁿ (ƒ_i(x_i + λg_i(x_i)), under simple constraints Σ_{i = 1}ⁿ x_i = M, l_i≤x_i≤u_i and x_i: nonnegative integers for i = 1, 2, …, n, where M is a given positive integer, and l_i and u_i are given lower and upper bounds on x_i. This paper presents an efficient algorithm for computing the sequence of all optimal solutions when λ is continuously changed from 0 to ∞. The required time is O(G√Mlog² n + n log n + n log(M/n)), where G = Σ_{i = 1}ⁿ u_i − Σ_{i = 1n} l_i and an evaluation of ƒ_i(·) or g_i(·) is assumed to be done in constant time.     

Error bounds on the power method for determining the largest eigenvalue of a symmetric, positive definite matrix

Let A be a positive definite, symmetric matrix. We wish to determine the largest eigenvalue, λ₁. We consider the power method, i.e. that of choosing a vector v₀ and setting v_k = A^kv₀; then the Rayleigh quotients R_k = (Av_k, v_k)/(v_k, v_k) usually converge to λ₁ as k → ∞ (here (u, v) denotes their inner product). In this paper we give two methods for determining how close R_k is to λ₁. They are both based on a bound on λ₁ − R_k involving the difference of two consecutive Rayleigh quotients and a quantity ω_k. While we do not know how to directly calculate ω_k, we can given an algorithm for giving a good upper bound on it, at least with high probability. This leads to an upper bound for λ₁ − R_k which is proportional to (λ₂/λ₁)^2k, which holds with a prescribed probability (the prescribed probability being an arbitrary δ > 0, with the upper bound depending on δ).     

A Helly theorem for geodesic convexity in strongly dismantlable graphs

A (finite or infinite) graph G is strongly dismantlable if its vertices can be linearly ordered x₀,…, x so that, for each ordinal β < , there exists a strictly increasing finite sequence (i_j)_{0 j n} of ordinals such that i₀ = β, i_n = and x_ij+1 is adjacent with x_ij and with all neighbors of x_ij in the subgraph ofG induced by {x_y: β γ }. We show that the Helly number for the geodesic convexity of such a graph equals its clique number. This generalizes a result of Bandelt and Mulder (1990) for dismantlable graphs. We also get an analogous equality dealing with infinite families of convex sets.     

An extended result of Kleitman and Saks concerning binary trees

In a recent paper, D.J. Kleitman and M.E. Saks gave a proof of Huang's conjecture on alphabetic binary trees.

Given a set E = {e_i}, I = 0, 1, 2, …, m and assigned positive weights to its elements and supposing the elements are indexed such that w(e₀) ≤ w(e₁) ≤ … ≤w (e_m), where w(e_i) is the weight of e_i, we call the following sequence E^* a ‘saw-tooth’ sequence

E^*=(e₀,e_m,e₁,…,e_j,e_m−j,…).

Huang's conjecture is: E^* is the most expensive sequence for alphabetic binary trees. This paper shows that this property is true for the L-restricted alphabetic binary trees, where L is the maximum length of the leaves and log₂(m + 1) ≤L≤m.     

Loopless generation of up–down permutations

An up–down permutation P=(p₁,p₂,…,p_n) is a permutation of the integers 1 to n which satisfies constraints specified by a sequence C=(c₁,c₂,…,c_n−1) of U's and D's of length n−1. If c_i is U then p_i<p_i+1 otherwise p_i−1>p_i. A loopless algorithm is developed for generating all the up–down permutations satisfying any sequence C. Ranking and unranking algorithms are discussed.     

On a problem concerning ordered colourings

Let G be a connected graph with v(G) 2 vertices and independence number (G). G is critical if for any edge e of G:

1. (i) (G − e) > (G), if e is not a cut edge of G, and

2. (ii) v(G_i) − (G_i) < v(G) − (G), I = 1, 2, if e is a cut edge and G₁, G₂ are the two components of G − e.

Recently, Katchalski et al. (1995) conjectured that: if G is a connected critical graph, then with equality possible if and only if G is a tree. In this paper we establish this conjecture.     

Elasticity of factorizations in integral domains

For an atomic integral domain R, define(R)=sup{mn|x₁x_m=y₁y_n, each x_i,y_jεR is irreducible}. We investigate (R), with emphasis for Krull domains R. When R is a Krull domain, we determine lower and upper bounds for (R); in particular,(R)≤max{|Cl(R)| 2, 1}. Moreover, we show that for any real numbers r≥1 or R=∞, there is a Dedekind domain R with torsion class group such that (R)=r.     

Efficient robust estimation of parameter in the random censorship model

For an open set Θ of ^k, let \s{P_θ: θ Θ\s} be a parametric family of probabilities modeling the distribution of i.i.d. random variables X₁,…, X_n. Suppose X_i's are subject to right censoring and one is only able to observe the pairs (min(X_i, Y_i), [X_i Y_i]), i = 1,…, n, where [A] denotes the indicator function of the event A, Y₁,…, Y_n are independent of X₁,…, X_n and i.i.d. with unknown distribution Q₀. This paper investigates estimation of the value θ that gives a fitted member of the parametric family when the distributions of X₁ and Y₁ are subject to contamination. The constructed estimators are adaptive under the semi-parametric model and robust against small contaminations: they achieve a lower bound for the local asymptotic minimax risk over Hellinger neighborhoods, in the Hájel—Le Cam sense. The work relies on Beran (1981). The construction employs some results on product-limit estimators.