Torsten Ueckerdt

Survey: Cycle bases in graphs characterization, algorithms, complexity, and applications

Cycles in graphs play an important role in many applications, e.g., analysis of electrical networks, analysis of chemical and biological pathways, periodic scheduling, and graph drawing. From a mathematical point of view, cycles in graphs have a rich structure. Cycle bases are a compact description of the set of all cycles of a graph. In this paper, we survey the state of knowledge on cycle bases and also derive some new results. We introduce different kinds of cycle bases, characterize them in terms of their cycle matrix, and prove structural results and a priori length bounds. We provide polynomial algorithms for the minimum cycle basis problem for some of the classes and prove APX-hardness for others. We also discuss three applications and show that they require different kinds of cycle bases.

Computing Cartograms with Optimal Complexity

In a rectilinear dual of a planar graph vertices are represented by simple rectilinear polygons, while edges are represented by side-contact between the corresponding polygons. A rectilinear dual is called a cartogram if the area of each region is equal to a pre-specified weight. The complexity of a cartogram is determined by the maximum number of corners (or sides) required for any polygon. In a series of papers the polygonal complexity of such representations for maximal planar graphs has been reduced from the initial 40 to 34, then to 12 and very recently to the currently best known 10. Here we describe a construction with 8-sided polygons, which is optimal in terms of polygonal complexity as 8-sided polygons are sometimes necessary. Specifically, we show how to compute the combinatorial structure and how to refine it into an area-universal rectangular layout in linear time. The exact cartogram can be computed from the area-universal layout with numerical iteration, or can be approximated with a hill-climbing heuristic. We also describe an alternative construction of cartograms for Hamiltonian maximal planar graphs, which allows us to directly compute the cartograms in linear time. Moreover, we prove that even for Hamiltonian graphs 8-sided rectilinear polygons are necessary, by constructing a non-trivial lower bound example. The complexity of the cartograms can be reduced to 6 if the Hamiltonian path has the extra property that it is one-legged, as in outer-planar graphs. Thus, we have optimal representations (in terms of both polygonal complexity and running time) for Hamiltonian maximal planar and maximal outer-planar graphs. Finally we address the problem of constructing small-complexity cartograms for 4-connected graphs (which are Hamiltonian). We first disprove a conjecture, posed by two set of authors, that any 4-connected maximal planar graph has a one-legged Hamiltonian cycle, thereby invalidating an attempt to achieve a polygonal complexity 6 in cartograms for this graph class. We also prove that it is NP-hard to decide whether a given 4-connected plane graph admits a cartogram with respect to a given weight function.

Computing cartograms with optimal complexity

In a rectilinear dual of a planar graph vertices are represented by simple rectilinear polygons, while edges are represented by side-contact between the corresponding polygons. A rectilinear dual is called a cartogram if the area of each region is equal to a pre-specified weight. The complexity of a cartogram is determined by the maximum number of corners (or sides) required for any polygon. In a series of papers the polygonal complexity of such representations for maximal planar graphs has been reduced from the initial 40 to 34, then to 12 and very recently to the currently best known 10. Here we describe a construction with 8-sided polygons, which is optimal in terms of polygonal complexity as 8-sided polygons are sometimes necessary. Specifically, we show how to compute the combinatorial structure and how to refine it into an area-universal rectangular layout in linear time. The exact cartogram can be computed from the area-universal layout with numerical iteration, or can be approximated with a hill-climbing heuristic. We also describe an alternative construction of cartograms for Hamiltonian maximal planar graphs, which allows us to directly compute the cartograms in linear time. Moreover, we prove that even for Hamiltonian graphs 8-sided rectilinear polygons are necessary, by constructing a non-trivial lower bound example. The complexity of the cartograms can be reduced to 6 if the Hamiltonian path has the extra property that it is one-legged, as in outer-planar graphs. Thus, we have optimal representations (in terms of both polygonal complexity and running time) for Hamiltonian maximal planar and maximal outer-planar graphs.

Planar Graphs as VPG-Graphs

A graph is Bk-VPG when it has an intersection representation by paths in a rectangular grid with at most k bends (turns). It is known that all planar graphs are B3-VPG and this was conjectured to be tight. We disprove this conjecture by showing that all planar graphs are B2-VPG. We also show that the 4-connected planar graphs constitute a subclass of the intersection graphs of Z-shapes (i.e., a special case of B2-VPG). Additionally, we demonstrate that a B2-VPG representation of a planar graph can be constructed in O(n) time. We further show that the triangle-free planar graphs are contact graphs of: L-shapes, Γ-shapes, vertical segments, and horizontal segments (i.e., a special case of contact B1-VPG). From this proof we obtain a new proof that bipartite planar graphs are a subclass of 2-DIR. Submitted: December 2012 Reviewed: March 2013 Revised: April 2013 Accepted: May 2013 Final: July 2013 Published: July 2013 Article type: Regular paper Communicated by: W. Didimo and M. Patrignani An extended abstract of this paper was presented at the 20th International Symposium on Graph Drawing, in Redmond, USA, in September 2012 [7]. The research of the first author was supported by NSERC and partially by GraDR EUROGIGA project No. GIG/11/E023. The research of the second author was supported by GraDR EUROGIGA project No. GIG/11/E023. E-mail addresses: chaplick@kam.mff.cuni.cz (Steven Chaplick) torsten.ueckerdt@kit.edu (Torsten Ueckerdt) 476 Chaplick and Ueckerdt Planar Graphs as VPG-Graphs

Coloring hypergraphs induced by dynamic point sets and bottomless rectangles

We consider a coloring problem on dynamic, one-dimensional point sets: points appearing and disappearing on a line at given times. We wish to color them with k colors so that at any time, any sequence of p(k) consecutive points, for some function p, contains at least one point of each color. We prove that no such function p(k) exists in general. However, in the restricted case in which points appear gradually, but never disappear, we give a coloring algorithm guaranteeing the property at any time with p(k)=3k−2. This can be interpreted as coloring point sets in ℝ2 with k colors such that any bottomless rectangle containing at least 3k−2 points contains at least one point of each color. Here a bottomless rectangle is an axis-aligned rectangle whose bottom edge is below the lowest point of the set. For this problem, we also prove a lower bound p(k)>ck, where c>1.67. Hence, for every k there exists a point set, every k-coloring of which is such that there exists a bottomless rectangle containing ck points and missing at least one of the k colors. Chen et al. (2009) proved that no such function p(k) exists in the case of general axis-aligned rectangles. Our result also complements recent results from Keszegh and Palvolgyi on cover-decomposability of octants (2011, 2012).

MAKING TRIANGLES COLORFUL

We prove that for any point set P in the plane, a triangle T, and a positive integer k, there exists a coloring of P with k colors such that any homothetic copy of T containing at least ck^8 points of P, for some constant c, contains at least one of each color. This is the first polynomial bound for range spaces induced by homothetic polygons. The only previously known bound for this problem applies to the more general case of octants in R^3, but is doubly exponential.

Equilateral L-Contact Graphs

We consider L-graphs, that is contact graphs of axis-aligned L-shapes in the plane, all with the same rotation. We provide several characterizations of L-graphs, drawing connections to Schnyder realizers and canonical orders of maximally planar graphs. We show that every contact system of L’s can always be converted to an equivalent one with equilateral L’s. This can be used to show a stronger version of a result of Thomassen, namely, that every planar graph can be represented as a contact system of square-based cuboids.

On the bend-number of planar and outerplanar graphs

The bend-numberb(G) of a graph G is the minimum k such that G may be represented as the edge intersection graph of a set of grid paths with at most k bends. We confirm a conjecture of Biedl and Stern showing that the maximum bend-number of outerplanar graphs is 2. Moreover we improve the formerly known lower and upper bound for the maximum bend-number of planar graphs from 2 and 5 to 3 and 4, respectively.

How to eat 4/9 of a pizza

Two players want to eat a sliced pizza by alternately picking its pieces. The pieces may be of various sizes. After the first piece is eaten every subsequently picked piece must be adjacent to some previously eaten. We provide a strategy for the starting player to eat 49 of the total size of the pizza. This is best possible and settles a conjecture of Peter Winkler.

Making octants colorful and related covering decomposition problems

We give new positive results on the long-standing open problem of geometric covering decomposition for homothetic polygons. In particular, we prove that for any positive integer k, every finite set of points in R3 can be colored with k colors so that every translate of the negative octant containing at least k6 points contains at least one of each color. The best previously known bound was doubly exponential in k. This yields, among other corollaries, the first polynomial bound for the decomposability of multiple coverings by homothetic triangles. We also investigate related decomposition problems involving intervals appearing on a line. We prove that no algorithm can dynamically maintain a decomposition of a multiple covering by intervals under insertion of new intervals, even in a semi-online model, in which some coloring decisions can be delayed. This implies that a wide range of sweeping plane algorithms cannot guarantee any bound even for special cases of the octant problem.