# vol. 21 no. 4

### 1. On cordial labeling of hypertrees

Let $f:V\rightarrow\mathbb{Z}_k$ be a vertex labeling of a hypergraph $H=(V,E)$. This labeling induces an~edge labeling of $H$ defined by $f(e)=\sum_{v\in e}f(v)$, where the sum is taken modulo $k$. We say that $f$ is $k$-cordial if for all $a, b \in \mathbb{Z}_k$ the number of vertices with label $a$ differs by at most $1$ from the number of vertices with label $b$ and the analogous condition holds also for labels of edges. If $H$ admits a $k$-cordial labeling then $H$ is called $k$-cordial. The existence of $k$-cordial labelings has been investigated for graphs for decades. Hovey~(1991) conjectured that every tree $T$ is $k$-cordial for every $k\ge 2$. Cichacz, Görlich and Tuza~(2013) were first to investigate the analogous problem for hypertrees, that is, connected hypergraphs without cycles. The main results of their work are that every $k$-uniform hypertree is $k$-cordial for every $k\ge 2$ and that every hypertree with $n$ or $m$ odd is $2$-cordial. Moreover, they conjectured that in fact all hypertrees are $2$-cordial. In this article, we confirm the conjecture of Cichacz et al. and make a step further by proving that for $k\in\{2,3\}$ every hypertree is $k$-cordial.
Section: Graph Theory

### 2. Super edge-connectivity and matching preclusion of data center networks

Edge-connectivity is a classic measure for reliability of a network in the presence of edge failures. $k$-restricted edge-connectivity is one of the refined indicators for fault tolerance of large networks. Matching preclusion and conditional matching preclusion are two important measures for the robustness of networks in edge fault scenario. In this paper, we show that the DCell network $D_{k,n}$ is super-$\lambda$ for $k\geq2$ and $n\geq2$, super-$\lambda_2$ for $k\geq3$ and $n\geq2$, or $k=2$ and $n=2$, and super-$\lambda_3$ for $k\geq4$ and $n\geq3$. Moreover, as an application of $k$-restricted edge-connectivity, we study the matching preclusion number and conditional matching preclusion number, and characterize the corresponding optimal solutions of $D_{k,n}$. In particular, we have shown that $D_{1,n}$ is isomorphic to the $(n,k)$-star graph $S_{n+1,2}$ for $n\geq2$.
Section: Graph Theory

### 3. Constrained ear decompositions in graphs and digraphs

Ear decompositions of graphs are a standard concept related to several major problems in graph theory like the Traveling Salesman Problem. For example, the Hamiltonian Cycle Problem, which is notoriously N P-complete, is equivalent to deciding whether a given graph admits an ear decomposition in which all ears except one are trivial (i.e. of length 1). On the other hand, a famous result of Lovász states that deciding whether a graph admits an ear decomposition with all ears of odd length can be done in polynomial time. In this paper, we study the complexity of deciding whether a graph admits an ear decomposition with prescribed ear lengths. We prove that deciding whether a graph admits an ear decomposition with all ears of length at most is polynomial-time solvable for all fixed positive integer. On the other hand, deciding whether a graph admits an ear decomposition without ears of length in F is N P-complete for any finite set F of positive integers. We also prove that, for any k ≥ 2, deciding whether a graph admits an ear decomposition with all ears of length 0 mod k is N P-complete. We also consider the directed analogue to ear decomposition, which we call handle decomposition, and prove analogous results : deciding whether a digraph admits a handle decomposition with all handles of length at most is polynomial-time solvable for all positive integer ; deciding whether a digraph admits a handle decomposition without handles of length in F is N P-complete for any finite […]
Section: Graph Theory

### 4. A note on the convexity number for complementary prisms

In the geodetic convexity, a set of vertices $S$ of a graph $G$ is $\textit{convex}$ if all vertices belonging to any shortest path between two vertices of $S$ lie in $S$. The cardinality $con(G)$ of a maximum proper convex set $S$ of $G$ is the $\textit{convexity number}$ of $G$. The $\textit{complementary prism}$ $G\overline{G}$ of a graph $G$ arises from the disjoint union of the graph $G$ and $\overline{G}$ by adding the edges of a perfect matching between the corresponding vertices of $G$ and $\overline{G}$. In this work, we we prove that the decision problem related to the convexity number is NP-complete even restricted to complementary prisms, we determine $con(G\overline{G})$ when $G$ is disconnected or $G$ is a cograph, and we present a lower bound when $diam(G) \neq 3$.
Section: Graph Theory

### 5. On almost hypohamiltonian graphs

A graph $G$ is almost hypohamiltonian (a.h.) if $G$ is non-hamiltonian, there exists a vertex $w$ in $G$ such that $G - w$ is non-hamiltonian, and $G - v$ is hamiltonian for every vertex $v \ne w$ in $G$. The second author asked in [J. Graph Theory 79 (2015) 63--81] for all orders for which a.h. graphs exist. Here we solve this problem. To this end, we present a specialised algorithm which generates complete sets of a.h. graphs for various orders. Furthermore, we show that the smallest cubic a.h. graphs have order 26. We provide a lower bound for the order of the smallest planar a.h. graph and improve the upper bound for the order of the smallest planar a.h. graph containing a cubic vertex. We also determine the smallest planar a.h. graphs of girth 5, both in the general and cubic case. Finally, we extend a result of Steffen on snarks and improve two bounds on longest paths and longest cycles in polyhedral graphs due to Jooyandeh, McKay, {\"O}sterg{\aa}rd, Pettersson, and the second author.
Section: Graph Theory

### 6. Fractional matching preclusion for generalized augmented cubes

The \emph{matching preclusion number} of a graph is the minimum number of edges whose deletion results in a graph that has neither perfect matchings nor almost perfect matchings. As a generalization, Liu and Liu recently introduced the concept of fractional matching preclusion number. The \emph{fractional matching preclusion number} of $G$ is the minimum number of edges whose deletion leaves the resulting graph without a fractional perfect matching. The \emph{fractional strong matching preclusion number} of $G$ is the minimum number of vertices and edges whose deletion leaves the resulting graph without a fractional perfect matching. In this paper, we obtain the fractional matching preclusion number and the fractional strong matching preclusion number for generalized augmented cubes. In addition, all the optimal fractional strong matching preclusion sets of these graphs are categorized.
Section: Distributed Computing and Networking

### 7. Monochromatic loose paths in multicolored $k$-uniform cliques

For integers $k\ge 2$ and $\ell\ge 0$, a $k$-uniform hypergraph is called a loose path of length $\ell$, and denoted by $P_\ell^{(k)}$, if it consists of $\ell$ edges $e_1,\dots,e_\ell$ such that $|e_i\cap e_j|=1$ if $|i-j|=1$ and $e_i\cap e_j=\emptyset$ if $|i-j|\ge2$. In other words, each pair of consecutive edges intersects on a single vertex, while all other pairs are disjoint. Let $R(P_\ell^{(k)};r)$ be the minimum integer $n$ such that every $r$-edge-coloring of the complete $k$-uniform hypergraph $K_n^{(k)}$ yields a monochromatic copy of $P_\ell^{(k)}$. In this paper we are mostly interested in constructive upper bounds on $R(P_\ell^{(k)};r)$, meaning that on the cost of possibly enlarging the order of the complete hypergraph, we would like to efficiently find a monochromatic copy of $P_\ell^{(k)}$ in every coloring. In particular, we show that there is a constant $c>0$ such that for all $k\ge 2$, $\ell\ge3$, $2\le r\le k-1$, and $n\ge k(\ell+1)r(1+\ln(r))$, there is an algorithm such that for every $r$-edge-coloring of the edges of $K_n^{(k)}$, it finds a monochromatic copy of $P_\ell^{(k)}$ in time at most $cn^k$. We also prove a non-constructive upper bound $R(P_\ell^{(k)};r)\le(k-1)\ell r$.
Section: Graph Theory

### 8. On the centroid of increasing trees

A centroid node in a tree is a node for which the sum of the distances to all other nodes attains its minimum, or equivalently a node with the property that none of its branches contains more than half of the other nodes. We generalise some known results regarding the behaviour of centroid nodes in random recursive trees (due to Moon) to the class of very simple increasing trees, which also includes the families of plane-oriented and $d$-ary increasing trees. In particular, we derive limits of distributions and moments for the depth and label of the centroid node nearest to the root, as well as for the size of the subtree rooted at this node.
Section: Combinatorics

### 9. $(2/2/3)$-SAT problem and its applications in dominating set problems

The satisfiability problem is known to be $\mathbf{NP}$-complete in general and for many restricted cases. One way to restrict instances of $k$-SAT is to limit the number of times a variable can be occurred. It was shown that for an instance of 4-SAT with the property that every variable appears in exactly 4 clauses (2 times negated and 2 times not negated), determining whether there is an assignment for variables such that every clause contains exactly two true variables and two false variables is $\mathbf{NP}$-complete. In this work, we show that deciding the satisfiability of 3-SAT with the property that every variable appears in exactly four clauses (two times negated and two times not negated), and each clause contains at least two distinct variables is $\mathbf{NP}$-complete. We call this problem $(2/2/3)$-SAT. For an $r$-regular graph $G = (V,E)$ with $r\geq 3$, it was asked in [Discrete Appl. Math., 160(15):2142--2146, 2012] to determine whether for a given independent set $T$ there is an independent dominating set $D$ that dominates $T$ such that $T \cap D =\varnothing$? As an application of $(2/2/3)$-SAT problem we show that for every $r\geq 3$, this problem is $\mathbf{NP}$-complete. Among other results, we study the relationship between 1-perfect codes and the incidence coloring of graphs and as another application of our complexity results, we prove that for a given cubic graph $G$ deciding whether $G$ is 4-incidence colorable is $\mathbf{NP}$-complete.
Section: Graph Theory

### 10. Structure of conflict graphs in constraint alignment problems and algorithms

We consider the constrained graph alignment problem which has applications in biological network analysis. Given two input graphs $G_1=(V_1,E_1), G_2=(V_2,E_2)$, a pair of vertex mappings induces an {\it edge conservation} if the vertex pairs are adjacent in their respective graphs. %In general terms The goal is to provide a one-to-one mapping between the vertices of the input graphs in order to maximize edge conservation. However the allowed mappings are restricted since each vertex from $V_1$ (resp. $V_2$) is allowed to be mapped to at most $m_1$ (resp. $m_2$) specified vertices in $V_2$ (resp. $V_1$). Most of results in this paper deal with the case $m_2=1$ which attracted most attention in the related literature. We formulate the problem as a maximum independent set problem in a related {\em conflict graph} and investigate structural properties of this graph in terms of forbidden subgraphs. We are interested, in particular, in excluding certain wheals, fans, cliques or claws (all terms are defined in the paper), which corresponds in excluding certain cycles, paths, cliques or independent sets in the neighborhood of each vertex. Then, we investigate algorithmic consequences of some of these properties, which illustrates the potential of this approach and raises new horizons for further works. In particular this approach allows us to reinterpret a known polynomial case in terms of conflict graph and to improve known approximation and fixed-parameter tractability results […]
Section: Discrete Algorithms

### 11. Extremal properties of flood-filling games

The problem of determining the number of "flooding operations" required to make a given coloured graph monochromatic in the one-player combinatorial game Flood-It has been studied extensively from an algorithmic point of view, but basic questions about the maximum number of moves that might be required in the worst case remain unanswered. We begin a systematic investigation of such questions, with the goal of determining, for a given graph, the maximum number of moves that may be required, taken over all possible colourings. We give several upper and lower bounds on this quantity for arbitrary graphs and show that all of the bounds are tight for trees; we also investigate how much the upper bounds can be improved if we restrict our attention to graphs with higher edge-density.
Section: Graph Theory

### 12. New results on classical and quantum counter automata

We show that one-way quantum one-counter automaton with zero-error is more powerful than its probabilistic counterpart on promise problems. Then, we obtain a similar separation result between Las Vegas one-way probabilistic one-counter automaton and one-way deterministic one-counter automaton. We also obtain new results on classical counter automata regarding language recognition. It was conjectured that one-way probabilistic one blind-counter automata cannot recognize Kleene closure of equality language [A. Yakaryilmaz: Superiority of one-way and realtime quantum machines. RAIRO - Theor. Inf. and Applic. 46(4): 615-641 (2012)]. We show that this conjecture is false, and also show several separation results for blind/non-blind counter automata.
Section: Automata, Logic and Semantics

### 13. On the inducibility of small trees

The quantity that captures the asymptotic value of the maximum number of appearances of a given topological tree (a rooted tree with no vertices of outdegree $1$) $S$ with $k$ leaves in an arbitrary tree with sufficiently large number of leaves is called the inducibility of $S$. Its precise value is known only for some specific families of trees, most of them exhibiting a symmetrical configuration. In an attempt to answer a recent question posed by Czabarka, Székely, and the second author of this article, we provide bounds for the inducibility $J(A_5)$ of the $5$-leaf binary tree $A_5$ whose branches are a single leaf and the complete binary tree of height $2$. It was indicated before that $J(A_5)$ appears to be `close' to $1/4$. We can make this precise by showing that $0.24707\ldots \leq J(A_5) \leq 0.24745\ldots$. Furthermore, we also consider the problem of determining the inducibility of the tree $Q_4$, which is the only tree among $4$-leaf topological trees for which the inducibility is unknown.
Section: Combinatorics

### 14. Embeddings of 3-connected 3-regular planar graphs on surfaces of non-negative Euler characteristic

Whitney's theorem states that every 3-connected planar graph is uniquely embeddable on the sphere. On the other hand, it has many inequivalent embeddings on another surface. We shall characterize structures of a $3$-connected $3$-regular planar graph $G$ embedded on the projective-plane, the torus and the Klein bottle, and give a one-to-one correspondence between inequivalent embeddings of $G$ on each surface and some subgraphs of the dual of $G$ embedded on the sphere. These results enable us to give explicit bounds for the number of inequivalent embeddings of $G$ on each surface, and propose effective algorithms for enumerating and counting these embeddings.
Section: Graph Theory

### 15. Generalized Petersen graphs and Kronecker covers

The family of generalized Petersen graphs $G(n,k)$, introduced by Coxeter et al. [4] and named by Mark Watkins (1969), is a family of cubic graphs formed by connecting the vertices of a regular polygon to the corresponding vertices of a star polygon. The Kronecker cover $KC(G)$ of a simple undirected graph $G$ is a a special type of bipartite covering graph of $G$, isomorphic to the direct (tensor) product of $G$ and $K_2$. We characterize all the members of generalized Petersen graphs that are Kronecker covers, and describe the structure of their respective quotients. We observe that some of such quotients are again generalized Petersen graphs, and describe all such pairs.The results of this paper have been presented at EUROCOMB 2019 and an extended abstract has been published elsewhere.
Section: Graph Theory

### 16. Proofs of Conjectures about Pattern-Avoiding Linear Extensions

After fixing a canonical ordering (or labeling) of the elements of a finite poset, one can associate each linear extension of the poset with a permutation. Some recent papers consider specific families of posets and ask how many linear extensions give rise to permutations that avoid certain patterns. We build off of two of these papers. We first consider pattern avoidance in $k$-ary heaps, where we obtain a general result that proves a conjecture of Levin, Pudwell, Riehl, and Sandberg in a special case. We then prove some conjectures that Anderson, Egge, Riehl, Ryan, Steinke, and Vaughan made about pattern-avoiding linear extensions of rectangular posets.
Section: Combinatorics

### 17. An improved algorithm for the vertex cover $P_3$ problem on graphs of bounded treewidth

Given a graph $G=(V,E)$ and a positive integer $t\geq2$, the task in the vertex cover $P_t$ ($VCP_t$) problem is to find a minimum subset of vertices $F\subseteq V$ such that every path of order $t$ in $G$ contains at least one vertex from $F$. The $VCP_t$ problem is NP-complete for any integer $t\geq2$ and has many applications in real world. Recently, the authors presented a dynamic programming algorithm running in time $4^p\cdot n^{O(1)}$ for the $VCP_3$ problem on $n$-vertex graphs with treewidth $p$. In this paper, we propose an improvement of it and improved the time-complexity to $3^p\cdot n^{O(1)}$. The connected vertex cover $P_3$ ($CVCP_3$) problem is the connected variation of the $VCP_3$ problem where $G[F]$ is required to be connected. Using the Cut\&Count technique, we give a randomized algorithm with runtime $4^p\cdot n^{O(1)}$ for the $CVCP_3$ problem on $n$-vertex graphs with treewidth $p$.
Section: Discrete Algorithms

### 18. Power domination in maximal planar graphs

Power domination in graphs emerged from the problem of monitoring an electrical system by placing as few measurement devices in the system as possible. It corresponds to a variant of domination that includes the possibility of propagation. For measurement devices placed on a set S of vertices of a graph G, the set of monitored vertices is initially the set S together with all its neighbors. Then iteratively, whenever some monitored vertex v has a single neighbor u not yet monitored, u gets monitored. A set S is said to be a power dominating set of the graph G if all vertices of G eventually are monitored. The power domination number of a graph is the minimum size of a power dominating set. In this paper, we prove that any maximal planar graph of order n ≥ 6 admits a power dominating set of size at most (n−2)/4 .
Section: Graph Theory

### 19. Symmetry Properties of Nested Canalyzing Functions

Many researchers have studied symmetry properties of various Boolean functions. A class of Boolean functions, called nested canalyzing functions (NCFs), has been used to model certain biological phenomena. We identify some interesting relationships between NCFs, symmetric Boolean functions and a generalization of symmetric Boolean functions, which we call $r$-symmetric functions (where $r$ is the symmetry level). Using a normalized representation for NCFs, we develop a characterization of when two variables of an NCF are symmetric. Using this characterization, we show that the symmetry level of an NCF $f$ can be easily computed given a standard representation of $f$. We also present an algorithm for testing whether a given $r$-symmetric function is an NCF. Further, we show that for any NCF $f$ with $n$ variables, the notion of strong asymmetry considered in the literature is equivalent to the property that $f$ is $n$-symmetric. We use this result to derive a closed form expression for the number of $n$-variable Boolean functions that are NCFs and strongly asymmetric. We also identify all the Boolean functions that are NCFs and symmetric.
Section: Discrete Algorithms