The shape of large Galton‐Watson trees with possibly infinite variance

Let T be a critical or subcritical Galton‐Watson family tree with possibly infinite variance. We are interested in the shape of T conditioned to have a large total number of vertices. For this purpose we study random trees whose conditional distribution given their size is the same as the respective conditional distribution of T. These random family trees have a simple probabilistic structure if decomposed along the lines of descent of a number of distinguished vertices chosen uniformly at random. The shape of the subtrees spanned by the selected vertices and the root depends essentially on the tail of the offspring distribution: While in the finite variance case the subtrees are asymptotically binary, other shapes do persist in the limit if the variance is infinite. In fact, we show that these subtrees are Galton‐Watson trees conditioned on their total number of leaves. The rescaled total size of the trees is shown to have a gamma limit law. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2004     

Extremal first passage times for trees

For random walks associated with trees with probability zero of staying at any vertex, we develop explicit graph theoretic formulas for the mean first passage times between states, we give lower and upper bounds for the entries of the mean first passage matrix E, and we characterize the cases of equality in these bounds. We also consider the variance of the first return time to a state and we find those trees which maximize the variance and those trees which minimize the variance. As may be expected, the trees which provide extremal behavior are given by paths and stars.     

A Note on “State Spaces of the Snake and Its Tour—Convergence of the Discrete Snake” by J.-F. Marckert and A. Mokkadem

In State spaces of the snake and its tour—Convergence of the discrete snake the authors showed a limit theorem for Galton–Watson trees with geometric offspring distribution. In this note it is shown that their result holds for all Galton–Watson trees with finite offspring variance.     

On the log-product of the subtree-sizes of random trees

We determine the asymptotic behavior of the expected value and the variance of the log-product of the subtree-sizes of trees T_n belonging to simply generated families of rooted trees. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 12, 197–212, 1998     

Analysis of three graph parameters for random trees

We consider three basic graph parameters, the node‐independence number, the path node‐covering number, and the size of the kernel, and study their distributional behavior for an important class of random tree models, namely the class of simply generated trees, which contains, e.g., binary trees, rooted labeled trees, and planted plane trees, as special instances. We can show for simply generated tree families that the mean and the variance of each of the three parameters under consideration behave for a randomly chosen tree of size n asymptotically ～μn and ～νn, where the constants μ and ν depend on the tree family and the parameter studied. Furthermore we show for all parameters, suitably normalized, convergence in distribution to a Gaussian distributed random variable. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2009     

On the complexity of searching game trees and other recursion trees

Game tree searching is one of the fundamental topics in artificial intelligence and decision analysis. The main results of this paper are: (1) A simple nondirectional algorithm for searching binary bi-valued game trees is presented and analysed. For a wide range of parameters s in Schrüfers s-tree model it has a smaller branching factor than directional search. (2) A cascade technique for game tree models with at least four different node values is presented. This technique yields algorithms with smaller branching factors than alpha-beta. (The amount of storage required by the algorithms in (1) and (2) is only linear in the depth of the searched trees.) (3) Recursion trees are defined as a natural generalisation of game trees. A combinatorial lower bound for the complexity of searching symmetric recursion trees is proved. (4) Those recursion trees are characterized which can be searched by pruning techniques.     

The Height of Increasing Trees

Increasing trees have been introduced by Bergeron, Flajolet, and Salvy [1]. This kind of notion covers several well-know classes of random trees like binary search trees, recursive trees, and plane oriented (or heap ordered) trees. We consider the height of increasing trees and prove for several classes of trees (including the above mentioned ones) that the height satisfies EH _n ~ γlogn (for some constant γ > 0) and Var H _n =  O(1) as n → ∞. The methods used are based on generating functions. This research was supported by the Austrian Science Foundation FWF, project S9604, that is part of the Austrian National Research Network "Analytic Combinatorics and Probabilistic Number Theory".     

The distribution of the size of the ancestor‐tree and of the induced spanning subtree for random trees

We consider two tree statistics that extend in a natural way the parameters depth of a node resp. distance between two nodes. The ancestor‐tree of p given nodes in a rooted tree T is the subtree of T, spanned by the root and these p nodes and generalizes the depth (ancestor‐tree of a single node), whereas the spanning subtree induced by p given nodes in a tree T generalizes the distance (induced spanning subtree of two nodes). We study the random variables size of the ancestor‐tree resp. spanning subtree size for two tree families, the simply generated trees and the recursive trees. We will assume here the random tree model and also that all () possibilities of selecting p nodes in a tree of size n are equally likely. For random simply generated trees we can then characterize for a fixed number p of chosen nodes the limiting distribution of both parameters as generalized Gamma distributions, where we prove the convergence of the moments too. For some specific simply generated tree families we can give exact formulæ for the first moments. In the instance of random recursive trees, we will show that the considered parameters are asymptotically normally distributed, where we can give also exact formulæ for the expectation and the variance. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2004     

A note on the stack size of regularly distributed binary trees

Assume that in one unit of time a node is stored in the stack or is removed from the top of the stack during postorder-traversing of a binary tree. If all binary trees are equally likely the average stack size aftert units of time and the variance is computed as a function of the proportion=t/n.Part of this paper was presented at the 6th Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming, ICALP' 79, July 1979.     

On generalized independent subsets of trees

A natural generalization of the widely discussed independent (or “internally stable”) subsets of graphs is to consider subsets of vertices where no two elements have distance less or equal to a fixed number k (“k-independent subsets”). In this paper we give asymptotic results on the average number of ?-independent subsets for trees of size n, where the trees are taken from a so-called simply generated family. This covers a lot of interesting examples like binary trees, general planted plane trees, and others.     

Level of nodes in increasing trees revisited

Simply generated families of trees are described by the equation T(z) = ϕ(T(z)) for their generating function. If a tree has n nodes, we say that it is increasing if each node has a label ∈ { 1,…,n}, no label occurs twice, and whenever we proceed from the root to a leaf, the labels are increasing. This leads to the concept of simple families of increasing trees. Three such families are especially important: recursive trees, heap ordered trees, and binary increasing trees. They belong to the subclass of very simple families of increasing trees, which can be characterized in 3 different ways. This paper contains results about these families as well as about polynomial families (the function ϕ(u) is just a polynomial). The random variable of interest is the level of the node (labelled) j, in random trees of size n ≥ j. For very simple families, this is independent of n, and the limiting distribution is Gaussian. For polynomial families, we can prove this as well for j,n → ∞ such that n − j is fixed. Additional results are also given. These results follow from the study of certain trivariate generating functions and Hwang's quasi power theorem. They unify and extend earlier results by Devroye, Mahmoud, and others. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2007     

Limit laws for the Randić index of random binary tree models

We investigate the Randić index of random binary trees under two standard probability models: the one induced by random permutations and the Catalan (uniform). In both cases the mean and variance are computed by recurrence methods and shown to be asymptotically linear in the size of the tree. The recursive nature of binary search trees lends itself in a natural way to application of the contraction method, by which a limit distribution (for a suitably normalized version of the index) is shown to be Gaussian. The Randić index (suitably normalized) is also shown to be normally distributed in binary Catalan trees, but the methodology we use for this derivation is singularity analysis of formal generating functions.     

Properties of Subtree-Prune-and-Regraft Operations on Totally-Ordered Phylogenetic Trees

We study some properties of subtree-prune-and-regraft (SPR) operations on leaflabelled rooted binary trees in which internal vertices are totally ordered. Since biological events occur with certain time ordering, sometimes such totally-ordered trees must be used to avoid possible contradictions in representing evolutionary histories of biological sequences. Compared to the case of plain leaf-labelled rooted binary trees where internal vertices are only partially ordered, SPR operations on totally-ordered trees are more constrained and therefore more difficult to study. In this paper, we investigate the unit-neighbourhood U(T), defined as the set of totally-ordered trees one SPR operation away from a given totally-ordered tree T. We construct a recursion relation for | U(T) | and thereby arrive at an efficient method of determining | U(T) |. In contrast to the case of plain rooted trees, where the unit-neighbourhood size grows quadratically with respect to the number n of leaves, for totally-ordered trees | U(T) | grows like O(n³). For some special topology types, we are able to obtain simple closed-form formulae for | U(T) |. Using these results, we find a sharp upper bound on | U(T) | and conjecture a formula for a sharp lower bound. Lastly, we study the diameter of the space of totally-ordered trees measured using the induced SPR-metric. Received May 18, 2004     

Metric trees of generalized roundness one

Every finite metric tree has generalized roundness strictly greater than one. On the other hand, some countable metric trees have generalized roundness precisely one. The purpose of this paper is to identify several large classes of countable metric trees that have generalized roundness precisely one. At the outset we consider spherically symmetric trees endowed with the usual path metric (SSTs). Using a simple geometric argument we show how to determine reasonable upper bounds on the generalized roundness of finite SSTs that depend only on the downward degree sequence of the tree in question. By considering limits, it follows that if the downward degree sequence (d ₀, d ₁, d ₂, . . .) of an SST (T, ρ) satisfies ${|\{j \, | \, d_{j} > 1 \}| = \aleph_{0}}${|\{j \, | \, d_{j} > 1 \}| = \aleph_{0}} , then (T, ρ) has generalized roundness one. In particular, all complete n-ary trees of depth ∞ (n ≥ 2), all k-regular trees (k ≥ 3) and all inductive limits of Cantor trees are seen to have generalized roundness one. The remainder of the paper deals with two classes of countable metric trees of generalized roundness one whose members are not, in general, spherically symmetric. The first such class of trees are merely required to spread out at a sufficient rate (with a restriction on the number of leaves) and the second such class of trees resemble infinite combs. It remains an intriguing problem to completely classify countable metric trees of generalized roundness one.     

An Even Faster and More Unifying Algorithm for Comparing Trees via Unbalanced Bipartite Matchings

A widely used method for determining the similarity of two labeled trees is to compute a maximum agreement subtree of the two trees. Previous work on this similarity measure has only been concerned with the comparison of labeled trees of two special kinds, namely, uniformly labeled trees (i.e., trees with all their nodes labeled with the same symbol) and evolutionary trees (i.e., leaf-labeled trees with distinct symbols for distinct leaves). This paper presents an algorithm for comparing trees that are labeled in an arbitrary manner. In addition to this generality, this algorithm is faster than the previous algorithms.Another contribution of this paper is on maximum weight bipartite matchings. We show how to speed up the best known matching algorithms when the input graphs are node-unbalanced or weight-unbalanced. Based on these enhancements, we obtain an efficient algorithm for a new matching problem called the hierarchical bipartite matching problem, which is at the core of our maximum agreement subtree algorithm.     

The rotation graph of binary trees is Hamiltonian

In this paper we study the rotation transformation on binary trees and consider the properties of binary trees under this operation. The rotation is the universal primitive used to rebalance dynamic binary search trees. New binary search tree algorithms have recently been introduced by Sleator and Tarjan. It has been conjectured that these algorithms are as efficient as any algorithm that dynamically restructures the tree using rotations. We hope that by studying rotations in binary trees we shall gain a better understanding of the nature of binary search trees, which in turn will lead to a proof of this “dynamic optimality conjecture”. We define a graph, RG(n), whose vertex set consists of all binary trees containing n nodes, and which has an edge between two trees if they differ by only one rotation. We shall introduce a new characterization of the structure of RG(n) and use it to demonstrate the existence of a Hamiltonian cycle in the graph. The proof is constructive and can be used to enumerate all binary trees with n nodes in constant time per tree.     

The distribution of nodes of given degree in random trees

Let 𝒯_n denote the set of unrooted unlabeled trees of size n and let k ≥ 1 be given. By assuming that every tree of 𝒯_n is equally likely, it is shown that the limiting distribution of the number of nodes of degree k is normal with mean value ∼ μ_kn and variance ∼ σn with positive constants μ_k and σ_k. Besides, the asymptotic behavior of μ_k and σ_k for k → ∞ as well as the corresponding multivariate distributions are derived. Furthermore, similar results can be proved for plane trees, for labeled trees, and for forests. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Graph Theory 31: 227–253, 1999     

Twist–Rotation Transformations of Binary Trees and Arithmetic Expressions

The paper studies the computational complexity and efficient algorithms for the twist–rotation transformations of binary trees, which is equivalent to the transformation of arithmetic expressions over an associative and commutative binary operation. The main results are (1) a full binary tree with n labeled leaves can be transformed into any other in at most 3n log n + 2n twist and rotation operations, (2) deciding the twist–rotation distance between two binary trees is NP-complete, and (3) the twist–rotation transformation can be approximated with ratio 6 log n + 4 in polynomial time for full binary trees with n uniquely labeled leaves.     

The Mean and Variance of the Numbers of r-Pronged Nodes and r-Caterpillars in Yule-Generated Genealogical Trees

The Yule model is a frequently-used evolutionary model that can be utilized to generate random genealogical trees. Under this model, using a backwards counting method differing from the approach previously employed by Heard (Evolution 46: 1818–1826), for a genealogical tree of n lineages, the mean number of nodes with exactly r descendants is computed (2 ≤ r ≤ n − 1). The variance of the number of r-pronged nodes is also obtained, as are the mean and variance of the number of r-caterpillars. These results generalize computations of McKenzie and Steel for the case of r = 2 (Math. Biosci. 164: 81–92, 2000). For a given n, the two means are largest at r = 2, equaling 2n/3 for n ≥ 5. However, for n ≥ 9, the variances are largest at r = 3, equaling 23n/420 for n ≥ 7. As n→∞, the fraction of internal nodes that are r-caterpillars for some r approaches (e² − 5)/4≈ 0.59726. Received August 23, 2004     

An analytic approach for the analysis of rotations in fringe-balanced binary search trees

This paper presents an analytic approach to the construction cost of fringe-balanced binary search trees. In [7], Mahmoud used a bottom-up approach and an urn model of Pólya. The present method is top-down and uses differential equations and Hwang's quasi-power theorem to derive the asymptotic normality of the number of rotations needed to construct such afringe balanced search tree. We also obtain the exact expectation and variance with this method. Although Pólya's urn model is no longer needed, we also present an elegant analysis of it based on an operator calculus as in [4].This research was supported by the Austrian Research Society (FWF) under the project number P12599-MAT.