Featured Researches

Discrete Mathematics

A Tipping Point for the Planarity of Small and Medium Sized Graphs

This paper presents an empirical study of the relationship between the density of small-medium sized random graphs and their planarity. It is well known that, when the number of vertices tends to infinite, there is a sharp transition between planarity and non-planarity for edge density d=0.5. However, this asymptotic property does not clarify what happens for graphs of reduced size. We show that an unexpectedly sharp transition is also exhibited by small and medium sized graphs. Also, we show that the same "tipping point" behavior can be observed for some restrictions or relaxations of planarity (we considered outerplanarity and near-planarity, respectively).

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Discrete Mathematics

A characterization of maximal 2-dimensional subgraphs of transitive graphs

A transitive graph is 2-dimensional if it can be represented as the intersection of two linear orders. Such representations make answering of reachability queries trivial, and allow many problems that are NP-hard on arbitrary graphs to be solved in polynomial time. One may therefore be interested in finding 2-dimensional graphs that closely approximate a given graph of arbitrary order dimension. In this paper we show that the maximal 2-dimensional subgraphs of a transitive graph G are induced by the optimal near-transitive orientations of the complement of G. The same characterization holds for the maximal permutation subgraphs of a transitively orientable graph. We provide an algorithm that enables this problem reduction in near-linear time, and an approach for enlarging non-maximal 2-dimensional subgraphs, such as trees.

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Discrete Mathematics

A class of graphs with large rankwidth

We describe several graphs of arbitrarily large rankwidth (or equivalently of arbitrarily large cliquewidth). Korpelainen, Lozin, and Mayhill [Split permutation graphs, {\em Graphs and Combinatorics}, 30(3):633--646, 2014] proved that there exist split graphs with Dilworth number~2 of arbitrarily large rankwidth, but without explicitly constructing them. Our construction provides an explicit construction. Maffray, Penev, and Vušković [Coloring rings, arXiv:1907.11905, 2019] proved that graphs that they call rings on n sets can be colored in polynomial time. Our construction shows that for some fixed integer n≥3 , there exist rings on n sets of arbitrarily large rankwidth. When n≥5 and n is odd, this provides a new construction of even-hole-free graphs of arbitrarily large rankwidth.

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Discrete Mathematics

A concise guide to existing and emerging vehicle routing problem variants

Vehicle routing problems have been the focus of extensive research over the past sixty years, driven by their economic importance and their theoretical interest. The diversity of applications has motivated the study of a myriad of problem variants with different attributes. In this article, we provide a concise overview of existing and emerging problem variants. Models are typically refined along three lines: considering more relevant objectives and performance metrics, integrating vehicle routing evaluations with other tactical decisions, and capturing fine-grained yet essential aspects of modern supply chains. We organize the main problem attributes within this structured framework. We discuss recent research directions and pinpoint current shortcomings, recent successes, and emerging challenges.

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Discrete Mathematics

A general architecture of oritatami systems for simulating arbitrary finite automata

In this paper, we propose an architecture of oritatami systems with which one can simulate an arbitrary nondeterministic finite automaton (NFA) in a unified manner. The oritatami system is known to be Turing-universal but the simulation available so far requires 542 bead types and O( t 4 log 2 t) steps in order to simulate t steps of a Turing machine. The architecture we propose employs only 329 bead types and requires just O(t|Q | 4 |Σ | 2 ) steps to simulate an NFA over an input alphabet Σ with a state set Q working on a word of length t .

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Discrete Mathematics

A linear bound on the k-rendezvous time for primitive sets of NZ matrices

A set of nonnegative matrices is called primitive if there exists a product of these matrices that is entrywise positive. Motivated by recent results relating synchronizing automata and primitive sets, we study the length of the shortest product of a primitive set having a column or a row with k positive entries, called its k-rendezvous time (k-RT}), in the case of sets of matrices having no zero rows and no zero columns. We prove that the k-RT is at most linear w.r.t. the matrix size n for small k, while the problem is still open for synchronizing automata. We provide two upper bounds on the k-RT: the second is an improvement of the first one, although the latter can be written in closed form. We then report numerical results comparing our upper bounds on the k-RT with heuristic approximation methods.

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Discrete Mathematics

A local characterization for perfect plane near-triangulations

We derive a local criterion for a plane near-triangulated graph to be perfect. It is shown that a plane near-triangulated graph is perfect if and only if it does not contain either a vertex, an edge or a triangle, the neighbourhood of which has an odd hole as its boundary. The characterization leads to an O( n 2 ) algorithm for checking perfectness of plane near-triangulations.

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Discrete Mathematics

A method for eternally dominating strong grids

In the eternal domination game, an attacker attacks a vertex at each turn and a team of guards must move a guard to the attacked vertex to defend it. The guards may only move to adjacent vertices and no more than one guard may occupy a vertex. The goal is to determine the eternal domination number of a graph which is the minimum number of guards required to defend the graph against an infinite sequence of attacks. In this paper, we continue the study of the eternal domination game on strong grids. Cartesian grids have been vastly studied with tight bounds for small grids such as 2×n , 3×n , 4×n , and 5×n grids, and recently it was proven in [Lamprou et al., CIAC 2017, 393-404] that the eternal domination number of these grids in general is within O(m+n) of their domination number which lower bounds the eternal domination number. Recently, Finbow et al. proved that the eternal domination number of strong grids is upper bounded by mn 6 +O(m+n) . We adapt the techniques of [Lamprou et al., CIAC 2017, 393-404] to prove that the eternal domination number of strong grids is upper bounded by mn 7 +O(m+n) . While this does not improve upon a recently announced bound of ⌈ m 3 ⌉⌈ n 3 ⌉+O(m n − − √ ) [Mc Inerney, Nisse, Pérennes, CIAC 2019] in the general case, we show that our bound is an improvement in the case where the smaller of the two dimensions is at most 6179 .

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Discrete Mathematics

A mixed-integer linear programming approach for soft graph clustering

This paper proposes a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming approach for the Soft Graph Clustering Problem. This is the first method that simultaneously allocates membership proportion for vertices that lie in multiple clusters, and that enforces an equal balance of the cluster memberships. Compared to ([Palla et al., 2005], [Derenyi et al., 2005], [Adamcsek et al., 2006]), the clusters found in our method are not limited to k-clique neighbourhoods. Compared to ([Hope and Keller, 2013]), our method can produce non-trivial clusters even for a connected unweighted graph.

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Discrete Mathematics

A more accurate view of the Flat Wall Theorem

We introduce a supporting combinatorial framework for the Flat Wall Theorem. In particular, we suggest two variants of the theorem and we introduce a new, more versatile, concept of wall homogeneity as well as the notion of regularity in flat walls. All proposed concepts and results aim at facilitating the use of the irrelevant vertex technique in future algorithmic applications.

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