A note on balance vertices in trees

The notion of balanced bipartitions of the vertices in a tree T was introduced and studied by Reid (Networks 34 (1999) 264). Reid proved that the set of balance vertices of a tree T consists of a single vertex or two adjacent vertices. In this note, we give a simple proof of that result.     

A study of 3-arc graphs

An arc of a graph is an oriented edge and a 3-arc is a 4-tuple (v,u,x,y) of vertices such that both (v,u,x) and (u,x,y) are paths of length two. The 3-arc graph of a graph G is defined to have the arcs of G as vertices such that two arcs uv,xy are adjacent if and only if (v,u,x,y) is a 3-arc of G. In this paper, we study the independence, domination and chromatic numbers of 3-arc graphs and obtain sharp lower and upper bounds for them. We introduce a new notion of arc-coloring of a graph in studying vertex-colorings of 3-arc graphs.     

An upper bound for the restrained domination number of a graph with minimum degree at least two in terms of order and minimum degree

Let G=(V,E) be a graph. A set S⊆V is a restrained dominating set if every vertex in V−S is adjacent to a vertex in S and to a vertex in V−S. The restrained domination number of G, denoted γ_r(G), is the smallest cardinality of a restrained dominating set of G. We will show that if G is a connected graph of order n and minimum degree δ and not isomorphic to one of nine exceptional graphs, then .     

On the Characterization of Maximal Planar Graphs with a Given Signed Cycle Domination Number

Let G =(V, E) be a simple graph. A function f : E → {+1,-1} is called a signed cycle domination function(SCDF) of G if ∑_(e∈E(C))f(e) ≥ 1 for every induced cycle C of G. The signed cycle domination number of G is defined as γ'_(sc)(G) = min{∑_(e∈E)f(e)| f is an SCDF of G}. This paper will characterize all maximal planar graphs G with order n ≥ 6 and γ'_(sc)(G) = n.     

Optimal broadcast domination in polynomial time

Broadcast domination was introduced by Erwin in 2002, and it is a variant of the standard dominating set problem, such that different vertices can be assigned different domination powers. Broadcast domination assigns an integer power f(v)?0 to each vertex v of a given graph, such that every vertex of the graph is within distance f(v) from some vertex v having f(v)?1. The optimal broadcast domination problem seeks to minimize the sum of the powers assigned to the vertices of the graph. Since the presentation of this problem its computational complexity has been open, and the general belief has been that it might be NP-hard. In this paper, we show that optimal broadcast domination is actually in P, and we give a polynomial time algorithm for solving the problem on arbitrary graphs, using a non-standard approach.     

Some results related to the toughness of 3-domination critical graphs

A graph G is said to be k-γ-critical if the size of any minimum dominating set of vertices is k, but if any edge is added to G the resulting graph can be dominated with k−1 vertices. The structure of k-γ-critical graphs remains far from completely understood, even in the special case when the domination number γ=3. In a 1983 paper, Sumner and Blitch proved a theorem which may regarded as a result related to the toughness of 3-γ-critical graphs which says that if S is any vertex cutset of such a graph, then G−S has at most |S|+1 components. In the present paper, we improve and extend this result considerably.     

On the ratios between packing and domination parameters of a graph

The relationship ρ_L(G)≤ρ(G)≤γ(G) between the lower packing number ρ_L(G), the packing number ρ(G) and the domination number γ(G) of a graph G is well known. In this paper we establish best possible bounds on the ratios of the packing numbers of any (connected) graph to its six domination-related parameters (the lower and upper irredundance numbers ir and IR, the lower and upper independence numbers i and β, and the lower and upper domination numbers γ and Γ). In particular, best possible constants a_θ, b_θ, c_θ and d_θ are found for which the inequalities and hold for any connected graph G and all θ∈{ir,γ,i,β,Γ,IR}. From our work it follows, for example, that and for any connected graph G, and that these inequalities are best possible.     

Domination dot-critical graphs with no critical vertices

A graph G is dot-critical if contracting any edge decreases the domination number. It is totally dot-critical if identifying any two vertices decreases the domination number. Burton and Sumner [Discrete Math. 306 (2006) 11-18] posed the problem: Is it true that for k?4, there exists a totally k-dot-critical graph with no critical vertices? In this paper, we show that this problem has a positive answer.     

Extremal perfect graphs for a bound on the domination number

We examine classes of extremal graphs for the inequality γ(G)?|V|-max{d(v)+β_v(G)}, where γ(G) is the domination number of graph G, d(v) is the degree of vertex v, and β_v(G) is the size of a largest matching in the subgraph of G induced by the non-neighbours of v. This inequality improves on the classical upper bound |V|-maxd(v) due to Claude Berge. We give a characterization of the bipartite graphs and of the chordal graphs that achieve equality in the inequality. The characterization implies that the extremal bipartite graphs can be recognized in polynomial time, while the corresponding problem remains NP-complete for the extremal chordal graphs.