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Structural Analysis of Complex Networks 2011
Structural Analysis of Complex Networks 2011
Editor
Structural Analysis
of Complex Networks
Editor
Ao. Prof. Dr. habil. Matthias Dehmer
Institute for Bioinformatics and Translational Research
The Health and Life Sciences University
UMIT-Private Universität für Gesundheitswissenschaften
Eduard Wallnöfer-Zentrum 1
A-6060 Hall in Tirol, Austria
and
Institute of Discrete Mathematics and Geometry
Vienna University of Technology
Wiedner Hauptstrasse 8-10
A-1040 Vienna, Austria
Mathematics Subject Classification: 05C05, 05C12, 05C75, 05C80, 05C85, 05D40, 68R10, 90B10,
92E10, 94C15
www.birkhauser-science.com
Preface
v
vi Preface
Further concepts used to explore networks structurally are provided by the next
chapters authored by Borowiecki, Goddard et al., and Ananchuen et al. In partic-
ular, these chapters present techniques of graph partitioning, distances in graphs,
and domination in graphs, respectively. The chapter written by Fujii also discusses
entropy measures, but for infinite directed graphs. However, these measures are ob-
tained by using operator theory and, hence, are differently defined than the ones
presented in the chapter by Emmert-Streib; those are derived based on Shannon’s
entropy and can be interpreted as the structural information content of a graph. Then,
the chapters authored by Matsumoto, Kovář, and Brešar et al. investigate multi-
faceted problems, like exploring infinite labeled graphs to study presentations of
symbolic dynamical systems, special graph decompositions, and the examination
of geodetic sets in graphs, which represents an important problem using metrical
properties of graphs. Ellis-Monaghan et al. provide two chapters in this volume on
graph polynomials: The first one emphasizes the Tutte polynomial and some closely
related graph polynomials. The second chapter by Ellis-Monaghan et al. sheds light
on interpretations of concrete polynomials and on interrelations between other graph
polynomials and the Tutte polynomial. The problem of reconstructing graphs by
examining specific properties of polynomials, here, the zeros of Krawtchouk poly-
nomials, is tackled in the next chapter by Stoll. Quantitative methods to calculate the
structural similarity or distance between two graphs have already been mentioned
in Emmert-Streib’s chapter. In particular, classical measures based on determining
isomorphic subgraphs have already been mentioned there. The chapter written by
Lauri treats the graph similarity problem in a similar manner, namely based on the
number of common vertex-deleted subgraphs, and examines aspects of the com-
putational complexity for calculating the mentioned graph similarity measure. The
idea of defining structural distances between graphs is tackled in the next chapter,
written by Benadé. More precisely, a chromatic metric is defined, and, remarkably,
by applying this metric, the maximum distance between any two graphs is at most
three.
The last six chapters of this volume use graph-theoretic techniques to solve
challenging problems in, e.g., applied mathematics, computer science, quantum
chemistry, electrical engineering, computational linguistics, structural biology and
RNA structure analysis, computational biology, and mathematical chemistry. The
chapter authored by Cioabă gives a broad overview on results for relating important
structural properties of a graph to its eigenvalues. Also, Cioabă surveys impor-
tant applications of graph spectra in subfields of the just-mentioned disciplines. To
demonstrate the great potential of novel graph classes within computational lin-
guistics, Mehler introduces a graph class consisting of hierarchical graphs called
Minimum Spanning Markovian Trees and shows its usefulness by outlining con-
crete applications within semiotic network analysis. The chapter contributed by
Scripps et al. starts by reviewing techniques to mine general complex networks,
but mainly focuses on link-based classification, which often appears as an impor-
tant problem in Web mining. The next two chapters, authored by Washietl et al. and
Mason et al., explore graph-based problems in structural and computational biology,
respectively. In particular, Washietl et al. investigate RNA structures represented by
Preface vii
graphs and review graph-theoretical methods for describing and comparing such
structures. A problem that is currently of considerable interest in biological network
analysis is addressed by Mason et al. and deals with surveying methods for pre-
dicting protein function based on complex interaction networks. An area in which
graph-theoretical models and techniques have been intensely applied so far is math-
ematical chemistry. The volume concludes by presenting a chapter about a graph
class that is meaningful in mathematical chemistry: Vukičević presents techniques
for determining the existence and enumeration of what are called perfect match-
ings that correspond to Kekulé structures, which are well known in mathematical
chemistry.
Many colleagues, whether consciously or unconsciously, provided input,
help, and support before and during the formation of this book. In particular,
I would like to thank Hamid Arabnia, Alireza Ashrafi, Alexandru T. Balaban,
Subhash Basak, Igor Bass, Agnieszka Bergel, David Bialy, Danail Bonchev, Ste-
fan Borgert, Mieczysław Borowiecki, Monique Borusiak, Ulrike Brandt, Mathieu
Dutour, Michael Drmota, Abdol-Hossein Esfahanian, Maria Fonoberova, Bernhard
Gittenberger, Arno Homburg, Jürgen Kilian, Elena Konstantinova, Reinhard Kutzel-
nigg, Dmitrii Lozovanu, Alexander Mehler, Tomás Madaras, Abbe Mowshowitz,
Marina Popovscaia, Fred Sobik, Stefan Shetschew, Doru Stefanescu, Thomas Stoll,
Kurt Varmuza, Ilona Wesarg, Bohdan Zelinka, Dongxiao Zhu, and all authors and
co-authors of this book. I apologize to any who inadvertently have not been named.
I am deeply grateful to Armin Graber from UMIT for his strong support and for
providing such a stimulating working atmosphere. Many thanks to Isabella Fritz,
Bernd Haas, Gerd Lorünser, Brigitte Senn-Kircher, and Klaus Weinberger for their
help and fruitful discussions. Moreover, I thank Frank Emmert-Streib for the ex-
tremely fruitful collaboration and many stimulating discussions we had over several
years. Frank also provided the figures used to design the front cover of this book.
In addition, I would like to thank editors Tom Grasso, Rebecca Biega, and Regina
Gorenshteyn from Birkhäuser Publishing (Boston), who have always been available
and helpful. Last but not least, I would like to thank my wife Jana and my family
— Marion Dehmer-Sehn and Werner Dehmer — for their unfailing support and
encouragement.
Finally, I hope that this book will help to extend the enthusiasm and joy that
I feel for this field to others, and that it will inspire people to apply graph the-
ory to different scientific areas for the solution of challenging and interdisciplinary
problems.
Preface .. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Contributors . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
2 Partitions of Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Mieczysław Borowiecki
3 Distance in Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Wayne Goddard and Ortrud R. Oellermann
4 Domination in Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Nawarat Ananchuen, Watcharaphong Ananchuen,
and Michael D. Plummer
ix
x Contents
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .483
Contributors
xi
xii Contributors
Frank Emmert-Streib
1.1 Introduction
Discrete objects representing graphs have been studied for a long time. Among the
first who studied graphs are Euler [56] and Cayley [30]. Interestingly, the origin of
the term graph dates back to König in the 1930s [81], less than 100 years ago. The
interest in graphs and their analysis is manifold. From a theoretical point of view
the categorization and the analysis of properties of graphs [20, 44, 54, 70] as well
as the development of graph algorithms [37, 57] are important problems that have
been studied extensively. From an applied point of view it has been realized that
graphs can represent physical [70], biological [51, 78, 101], or sociological objects
[68, 104], e.g., a crystal or protein structure or the acquaintance network among a
group of people. Recently, networks have been also employed in data analysis and
machine learning [3, 51, 99]. In the following we use the terms graph and network
interchangeably although they do not mean precisely the same thing. Usually,
F. Emmert-Streib ()
Computational Biology and Machine Learning, Center for Cancer Research
and Cell Biology, School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences,
Queen’s University Belfast, 97 Lisburn Road, Belfast BT9 7BL, UK
e-mail: [email protected]
a graph refers first of all to a mathematical object regardless of its realization in,
e.g., nature, whereas a network represents a “real-world” object rather than a pure
mathematical one. Because we want to focus on applied aspects of graphs most of
the time we prefer the expression network.
In this chapter we provide a brief introduction to complex networks and their
analysis. In Sect. 1.2 we review some important network classes. In Sect. 1.3 we
present some methods for the structural analysis of networks that help, e.g., to
characterize them as a whole or allow us to identify specific nodes in the network
with certain properties. In Sect. 1.3.5 we present important methods to analyze net-
works comparatively. This means that means these measures always compare two
graphs with each other and provide, hence, similarity or dissimilarity measures
for this comparison. Such methods are especially useful for data analysis or ma-
chine learning because they allow a combination with, e.g., clustering methods to
extract regularities from the obtained, e.g., similarity values for corpora of networks.
Section 1.3.6 presents a method for the identification of community or module struc-
ture of networks as important, e.g., for the analysis of communication networks.
In Sect. 1.4 we discuss information-theoretic measures and this chapter finishes in
Sect. 1.5 with a short summary and conclusions.
A simple network consists of regular connections among the nodes. One of the most
prominent examples therefore is the two-dimensional lattice as shown in Fig. 1.1.
Here each node is connected to its nearest neighbors. Despite its simplicity, such
networks have been used extensively, e.g., in physics to study phenomena like ferro-
magnetism with the Ising model [32]. Other examples of this class are linear chains
or nonrectangular lattices as used, e.g., in the context of protein structure prediction
to model protein folding [74].
Random networks have been extensively studied by Erdös and Rényi [54, 55].
A random graph with N nodes is obtained by connecting every pair of nodes with
1 A Brief Introduction to Complex Networks and Their Analysis 3
Fig. 1.1 Left: Regular two-dimensional lattice. Right: Linear, regular chain
N.N 1/
E.N / D p : (1.1)
2
because the maximal degree of node i is N 1, the probability that the vertex has
k links is p k .1 p/N 1k and there are Nk1 possibilities to choose k links from
N 1 nodes. In the limit N ! 1 (1.2) becomes
zk exp.z/
P .ki D k/ D : (1.3)
kŠ
Here z D p.N 1/ is the expected number of links for a node. This means that
the degree distribution of a node in a random network can be approximated by the
Poisson distribution for large N . For this reason random networks are also called
Poisson random networks [96].
Furthermore one can show that the degree distribution of a random network
(instead of just a node) also approximately follows a Poisson distribution
zr exp.z/
P .Xk D r/ D ; (1.4)
rŠ
meaning that there are Xk D r nodes in the network having degree k [2].
4 F. Emmert-Streib
2Ei
Ci D : (1.5)
ki .ki 1/
This corresponds to the probability that two nearest neighbors of i are connected
with each other. However, the probability in a random graph that two nodes are
connected with each other is Ci D p. This can be approximated by
z
Ci ; (1.6)
N
Small-world networks were introduced by Watts and Strogatz [115]. They can be
obtained via the following algorithm. First, arrange all nodes on a ring and connect
each node with its k=2 nearest neighbors. Second, start with an arbitrary node i and
rewire its connection to its nearest neighbor on, e.g., the left side with probability
prw to any other node j in the network. If node i and j are already connected reject
this selection and change nothing. Then choose the next node in the ring in a, e.g.,
clockwise direction and repeat this procedure. Third, after all next neighbor con-
nections have been checked repeat this procedure for the second and all higher next
neighbors successively. This algorithm guarantees that each connection occurring in
the network is chosen exactly once to test for a rewiring with probability prw . The
rewiring probability prw controls the disorder of the resulting topology. For prw D 0
the regular topology is conserved, whereas prw D 1:0 leads to a random network.
Intermediate values 0 < prw < 1 give a topological structure that is between regular
and random.
P .k/ k : (1.7)
1 A Brief Introduction to Complex Networks and Their Analysis 5
ki
pi D P ;
j kj
6: t Dt C1
7: Nt D Nt1 C 1
8: until Nt D N
Algorithm 1.1: Generation of a scale-free network (preferential attachment)
To explain this feature Barabasi and Albert introduced a model [4] now known as
the Barabasi–Albert (BA) or preferential attachment model [96] that results in so-
called scale-free networks which have a degree distribution following a power law
[4]. The major difference between the preferential attachment model and the other
algorithms described above to generate random or small-world networks is that the
preferential attachment model does not assume a fixed number of nodes N and
then start to rewire them with fixed probability with other nodes but N grows and
is connected with a certain probability (is not constant) to other nodes depending
on their degree. In Algorithm 1.1 we provide a principle algorithm to generate a
scale-free network.
1.2.7 Trees
Fig. 1.3 Rooted trees obtained from the tree on the right-hand side in Fig. 1.2. Left: Root node is
the third node from the top. Right: Root node is the leftmost node at the top
the tree would be unconnected, however, other than that it is arbitrary. This brings
us to the next subclass of trees, rooted binary trees.
A special case of a rooted tree is a rooted binary tree. A node in a binary tree
has at most two children. Figure 1.4 shows two examples of rooted binary trees,
frequently just called binary trees. In Fig. 1.4 one can see that a node has at most
two children (maximal degree of a node is three). Intermediate nodes can have only
one child. This holds also for the root nodes as the right figure shows. Finally, we
want to mention that a disjoint union of trees is called a forest.
The graph class of directed generalized trees was introduced in [39,90]. Generalized
trees are an important extension to trees maintaining their characteristic of having
a hierarchy but in addition allowing a richer connectivity among nodes. Before we
provide a formal definition we give a motivation for their introduction visualized by
Fig. 1.5. On the left side in Fig. 1.5, a (normal) tree is shown. The dotted horizontal
lines should remind the reader that a tree is a hierarchical graph and the dotted
lines explicitly represent the hierarchy levels. These lines are included for didactic
reasons only and are not actually part of the tree. On the right-hand side of Fig. 1.5
a generalized tree is shown obtained from the tree on the left side by including two
additional edges, labeled E2 and E3 . In general, edges that connect nodes on the
1 A Brief Introduction to Complex Networks and Their Analysis 7
E3
E2
same hierarchical level are of type E2 and edges that connect nodes on different
hierarchical levels that are farther apart than one level are of type E3 (formally
defined below). From this, we note that every generalized tree will result in a tree
after deleting all edges of type E2 and E3 from the generalized tree. Vice versa,
starting from a tree and including edges of type E2 and/or type E3 results in a
generalized tree. A formal definition is given as follows [50].
Definition 1 (Generalized Tree). A generalized tree GTi is defined by a vertex set
V , an edge set E, a level set L, and a multilevel function Li . The vertex and edge
set define the connectivity and the level set and the multilevel function induce a
hierarchy between the nodes of GTi . The index i 2 V indicates the root.
The multilevel function is defined as follows.
Definition 2 (Multilevel Function). The function Li W V n fi g ! L is called a
multilevel function.
The multilevel function Li assigns to all nodes except i an element l 2 L that
corresponds to the level it will be assigned. From these definitions it is immediately
clear that a generalized tree is similar to a graph but additionally equipped with a
level set L and a multilevel function Li introducing a node grouping corresponding
to the introduction of a hierarchy between nodes and sets thereof.
Definition 3 (Edge Types). A generalized tree GTi has three edge types:
Edges with jLi .m/ Li .n/j D 1 are called kernel edges (E1 ).
Edges with jLi .m/ Li .n/j D 0 are called cross edges (E2 ).
Edges with jLi .m/ Li .n/j > 1 are called up edges (E3 ).
We want to remark that for directed generalized trees edge type E3 will be split into
two edge types: one for up and another for down links. Using Definition 1 a tree is
characterized by jLi .m/ Li .n/j D 1 for all node pairs .m; n/.
From the given definitions and the visualization in Fig. 1.5 it is apparent that a
generalized tree is between a tree and a graph. It is hierarchical like a tree, but can
contain cycles like a graph which is not hierarchical.
8 F. Emmert-Streib
jık .v/j
P .k/ WD ; (1.8)
N
where jık .v/j denotes the number of vertices in the network G of degree k and
N denotes the size of G (number of nodes). Equation (1.8) is just the proportion
of vertices in G having degree k. The degree ki of node i is the number of links
connected with node i . From this, it follows that (1.8) also has the meaning that a
randomly chosen node in the network has, with probability P .k/, k links to other
nodes.
It was an interesting and important finding that many real world networks like
the World Wide Web (WWW), the Internet, social networks, citation networks, or
food webs [1, 16, 19, 22, 29, 42] are not Poisson distributed but follow a power law
The clustering coefficient Ci is a local measure defined for every node i . It is defined
as the fraction of connections (Ei ) between nearest neighbors of i among each other
divided by the maximum number of such connections
2Ei
Ci D : (1.10)
ki .ki 1/
The clustering coefficient can be interpreted as the probability that two nearest
neighbors of i are connected with each other.
and diameters of certain biological networks are rather small compared to the size
of a network [86, 88, 98]. Related to this is the so-called “small-world” property
[115] that has been observed in a number of network types, e.g., social, metabolic,
and protein interaction networks in molecular biology [86, 88, 98]. We give a brief
overview of path-based network measures [17, 21, 23, 67, 71, 107].
Distance Matrix
.d.vi ; vj //vi ;vj 2V . d.vi ; vj / denotes the shortest distance (path) between vi and vj
measured in the number of edges or nodes that are between start node vi and end
node vj .
1 X
dN .G/ WD N d.vi ; vj /: (1.11)
2 vi ¤vj 2V
j -Sphere
The set
Sj .vi ; G/ WD fv 2 V j d.vi ; v/ D j; j 1g; (1.12)
is called the j -sphere of vi regarding G. Starting from vi , the cardinality jSj .vi ; G/j
denotes the number of vertices that have a shortest distance equal to j .
and
r.G/ D min .v/; (1.15)
v2V
X kv
k D k.G/ WD ; (1.16)
N
v2V
1 X
k .G/ WD .kv k/2 ; (1.17)
N 1
v2V
and
1 X
k .G/ WD jkv kj: (1.18)
N
v2V
Equation (1.16) is the mean degree of the network, (1.17) is the variance of the
degree, and (1.18) is the mean of absolute distances between kv and k. Finally, the
edge density of G is defined as
E
ˇ.G/ WD N : (1.19)
2
Further network statistics and advanced aspects can be found in, e.g., [21, 67,
71, 107].
Point Centrality
Degree Centrality
CD .v/ D kv : (1.20)
For a directed network, the degree centrality can be analogously defined by using
the definition of in-degree and out-degree.
Betweenness Centrality
The centrality index betweenness is based on shortest paths found in the network
[5, 6, 18, 58, 66, 83, 88, 103, 104, 114] and is defined by
X vi vj .vk /
CB .vk / D : (1.21)
vi vj
vi ;vj 2V;vi ¤vj
Here vi vj denotes the number of shortest paths from vi to vj and vi vj .vk / the
number of shortest paths from vi to vj that include node vk . That means
vi vj .vk /
; (1.22)
vi vj
is the probability that node vk lies on a shortest path connecting vi with vj . Hence,
CB .vk / evaluates the appearance of node vk on all shortest paths in a network.
Closeness Centrality
The centrality index closeness tries to measure how close a node is to other nodes
in the network. This is done in terms of communication distance as measured by the
number of edges between two nodes if connected via the shortest path.
1
CC .vk / D PN : (1.23)
i D1 d.vk ; vi /
Here d.vk ; vi / is the number of edges on a shortest path between node vk and vi .
In the case where there are multiple shortest paths connecting vk with vi , d.vk ; vi /
is unchanged.
12 F. Emmert-Streib
Graph Centrality
To evaluate the centrality of whole networks instead of single nodes in the network
graph centrality measures have been suggested which form extensions to the three
measures discussed above [59]. The basic idea is to use these individual measures
to obtain an average characteristic for the whole network. It has been suggested to
calculate
PN
i D1 Cx .v /
m
Cx .vi /
Cx D max
: (1.24)
Cx
for the maximal value of Cx .vi / that can be found in the network and Cxmax for the
maximal value possible for a network with N nodes,
X
N
Cxmax D max Cx .vm / Cx .vi /: (1.26)
G2G.N /
i D1
Degree Centrality
Betweenness Centrality
Closeness Centrality
2N 3 X N
Cc D Cd .vm / Cd .vi /: (1.29)
N 3 4N 2 C 5N 2
i D1
In addition to the classical centrality measures described above there are many
extensions. Here we present some of these.
Eigenvector Centrality
1
Ce D x m D Ax m : (1.30)
m
Here m is the largest eigenvalue and x m the corresponding eigenvector solving the
equation
m x m D Ax m : (1.31)
the centrality family are point measures they cannot be used for such studies. For
this reason it has been suggested that an extension involving more than one node
be called joint betweenness (JB) [47]. JB is a natural extension of the betweenness
centrality evaluating the joint occurrence of two nodes on shortest communication
paths in the network. Formally, it is defined as
Here vi ;vj is the number of shortest paths connecting node vi with node vj and
vi ;vj .vm ; vn / is the number of shortest paths connecting vi with vj that contain the
nodes vm and vn . Similar to other measures of the centrality family, it is sometimes
more useful to use a different normalization. In fact, for the analysis conducted in
[47] the following modification has been used,
Classical graph similarity or distance methods deal with finding appropriate mea-
sures which are based on isomorphic and subgraph relations [75–77, 108, 109, 117].
A prominent example of such a measure is the Zelinka-distance [117], where this
graph distance is based on the principle that two graphs are more similar, the bigger
the common induced isomorphic subgraph is. First, Zelinka introduced this mea-
sure for unlabeled graphs with the same number of vertices. Later, Sobik [108, 109]
and Kaden [75–77] generalized this measure for arbitrary graphs allowing them
to have even different order. It is known that the subgraph isomorphism problem
is NP-complete [113]. This implies for large graphs that these methods can be
computationally demanding. A key result for exact graph matching was found by
Zelinka [117].
1 A Brief Introduction to Complex Networks and Their Analysis 15
SUBm .G/ is just the set of isomorphism classes in which the induced subgraphs of
G with order m lie. Then,
Q WD n SIM.G; G/;
dZ .G; G/ Q (1.36)
SIM.G; G/ Q 6D ;g;
Q WD maxfmjSUBm .G/ \ SUBm .G/ (1.37)
holds.
Sobik [108,109] and Kaden [75–77] generalized this theorem by considering labeled
graphs with a different number of vertices.
is a graph metric.
Another classical graph distance measure based on the maximum common sub-
graph of two graphs has been found by Bunke et al. [25, 26, 28].
Theorem 3. Let G and GQ be graphs and let GMCS be their maximum common sub-
graph. Then, the distance measure
Q WD 1 jV jMCS
dMCS .G; G/ ; (1.39)
max.jV j; jVQ j/
is a graph metric.
In contrast to graph similarity measures from the exact graph matching paradigm,
i.e., those based on isomorphic relations, a well-known class of graph similarity
measures from inexact graph matching is based on graph transformations. The main
idea behind this concept is not to match graphs exactly because one often wants to
16 F. Emmert-Streib
take structural errors of the underlying graphs into account. Therefore, this concept
is often referred to as error-tolerant graph matching [25, 26, 28, 91]. For example,
the so-called graph edit distance (GED) [24, 27, 28, 91] is a prominent example
of such a graph similarity measure. The definition of GED is based on weighted
transformation steps, e.g., deletions, substitutions, and insertions of vertices and
edges, and, hence, the distance of two graphs is defined as the minimum cost of
graph transformations that transform (map) one graph into another graph. The key
result of error-tolerant graph matching, originally stated by Bunke [24], can be ex-
pressed as follows.
Theorem 4. Let d.G; G/ Q be the costs for determining the optimal inexact match
between G and GQ where an optimal inexact match is a sequence of graph transfor-
mations that transforms a graph G to GQ by producing minimal edit costs. Then, it
Q is a graph metric.
holds that d.G; G/
Regarding the computational complexity of GED, we want to remark that for un-
labeled graphs there is no algorithm to compute GED efficiently [28, 91, 118]. For
uniquely labeled graphs, it has been proven [43] that the computational complexity
to compute GED is O.jV j2 /.
Machine learning techniques can be divided into two major categories: supervised
and unsupervised learning methods [38,72]. A newly developed supervised learning
method, based on support vector machines [38], to measure the structural similar-
ity of graphs is based on using so-called graph kernels [62, 73]. A graph kernel is
a function K W G G ! IR, for G 2 G, that maps the data implicitly into a
high-dimensional feature space. For example, some graph kernels are based on the
principle to determine the frequency of certain subgraph patterns of the given graph
set and then to apply a proper kernel function to the obtained subgraphs. Following
this principle Horváth et al. [73] proposed a graph kernel that is based on map-
ping graphs into cyclic graph patterns. Besides cycle-based graph kernels, so-called
random-walk-based kernels [62,80] are also often used to define graph kernels [36].
Another method to detect the structural similarity of graphs is based on dynamic
programming [7]. In the following we just give an outline of the main construction
1 A Brief Introduction to Complex Networks and Their Analysis 17
steps of this similarity measuring for directed generalized trees (the generalization
to networks can be found in [49]).
1. Transform the generalized trees in linear structures, called property strings
2. Derive similarity scores from the alignments of the property strings in order to
measure the structural similarity of generalized trees
This means that we transform a graph similarity problem into a string similarity
problem to develop an efficient graph similarity measure. More precisely, the main
idea of our similarity measure is based on the derivation of property strings for each
generalized tree and then to align the property strings by a dynamic programming
technique [7]. We call these strings property strings because their components rep-
resent structural properties of the generalized trees. From the resulting alignment we
obtain a value of the scoring function which is minimized during the alignment pro-
cess. The similarity of two generalized trees is then given as the cumulation of local
similarity functions which weight two alignment types: out-degree and in-degree
alignments on a generalized tree level. Let HO 1 and HO 2 be generalized trees. Then
the problem of determining the structural similarity between HO 1 and HO 2 is equiva-
lent to finding the optimal alignment of the property strings. The key result is given
in the following theorem by Dehmer [39].
Theorem 5. Let HO 1 ; HO 2 be generalized trees, 0 i ; WD max.h1 ; h2 /:
P
i fin .i /
d1 .HO 1 ; HO 2 / WD i D0
P ; (1.40)
i D0 i
P
fin .i /
d2 .HO 1 ; HO 2 / WD i D0
; (1.41)
C1
Q fin
i D0 .i /
d3 .HO l 1; HO 2 / WD ; (1.42)
d2 .HO 1 ; HO 2 /
Here di .HO 1 ; HO 2 / are different similarity measures that allow us to emphasize dif-
ferent structural aspects of the networks. We just note that this method can be
generalized to labeled generalized trees [39] and even networks [49].
Newman and Girvan [97] who introduced not only a measure (Q) to quantify
modules in a network but also suggested an algorithm to find them.
Let A be the adjacency matrix of network G and
(
1 if i is directly connected to j
Aij D (1.43)
0 otherwise:
We suppose that the set of vertices is partitioned in S communities and that vertex
i belongs to community ck if ı.ck ; i / D 1, with ı.i; j / being the Kronecker delta
which is one if i D j and zero otherwise. The degree of a node is given by
X
ki D Aij : (1.44)
j
Q evaluates the difference between the fraction of edges found within communities
minus the fraction of edges found by random connections (see also (1.49)). The
modularity (1.45) can be written in an alternative form by introducing
1 X
eij D Amn ı.cm ; i /ı.cn ; j / (1.46)
2E mn
1 X
ai D km ı.cm ; i /: (1.47)
2E m
Equation (1.46) corresponds to the fraction of edges that connect community i with
community j . For an undirected network G, eij D eji holds. Equation (1.47) is the
fraction of edges that is connected to nodes in community i . Utilizing (1.46) and
(1.47) and
X
ı.cm ; cn / D ı.cm ; i /ı.cn ; i /; (1.48)
i
gives
X
QD eii ai2 : (1.49)
i
P
Because ai D j eij (eii counts the connections within community i ) [97] we can
also write
X X
QD eii emi ein D Tr e jje2 jj: (1.50)
i imn
the network.
Because testing all partitions exhaustively is not possible we need to find the
communities via an optimization algorithm. It is clear that there are various ways
to define optimization algorithms for this task. In this chapter we present just one
simple algorithm suggested by Newman and Girvan [97] that can be applied even
for large networks consisting of tens of thousands of nodes. This algorithm performs
a greedy optimization at each step and is shown in Algorithm 1.2. Starting from
a configuration where each node forms a community the algorithm proceeds by
merging at each step two communities that result in the largest change of Q.
Because Q can also be negative this results not only in an increase of Qt C1 . The
optimal partition is now obtained by finding the maximum of all Qt . This also gives
the level at which the dendrogram should be cut. This cut will then give the optimal
partitions of the vertices of the network. The advantage of the algorithm is that it is
not necessary to calculate Qt C1 anew at each step. It is possible to calculate Q
instead by
Q D 2.emn am an /: (1.51)
ai0 D am C an : (1.53)
1: t D0
2: Start with M D N communities fc1 ; : : : ; cN g (each node is a community)
3: Calculate Q
4: Qt D Q
5: repeat
6: Calculate Q.ci ; cj / for all communities
7: Merge community cm with cn if Q.cm ; cn / D maxi;j fQ.ci ; cj /g
8: QtC1 D Qt C Q
9: t Dt C1
10: M DN t
11: until M D 1
12: Q D maxt Qt
Algorithm 1.2: Agglomerative clustering of communities [97]
20 F. Emmert-Streib
or
X
n
Im .G/ D Pi log.Pi /: (1.57)
i D1
Equation (1.56) represents the total information and (1.57) the mean information
content of G. From (1.56) and (1.57) we see that there are no free parameters be-
cause the quantities Pi are completely determined by the chosen partitioning [41].
This can be a problem if such an entropy measure should be used to analyze net-
works obtained, e.g., from an experiment for which expert knowledge is available
regarding possible outcomes. For this reason, Dehmer [40, 41] introduces a para-
metric entropy measure
!
X
N
f V .vi / f V .vi /
If V .G/ WD PN log PN ; (1.58)
i D1 j D1 f V .vj / j D1 f V .vj /
where
Here, jSj .vi ; G/j denotes the cardinality of a j -sphere (see Sect. 1.3.3) of vi
regarding an undirected and connected graph G. f V .vi / represents a so-called
information functional that is based on metrical graph properties (see [107] for
details). Equation (1.58) represents a family of parametric entropy measures. We
generalized the classical entropy measure [41], i.e., (1.56) and (1.57), because the
new measure allows us to weight structural characteristics of a graph by adapting
the free parameters ˛ and ck correspondingly. As a corollary we note that it is now
possible to analyze the spread of information within a network.
1.5 Conclusions
We finish this chapter by pointing out that there are many more approaches for the
analysis of complex networks. Depending on the point of view, especially in the
context of machine learning problems, only some methods give meaningful results
with respect to certain applications. For this reason it is of the utmost importance to
22 F. Emmert-Streib
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26 F. Emmert-Streib
Mieczysław Borowiecki
M. Borowiecki ()
Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science and Econometrics,
University of Zielona Góra, Podgórna 50, 65-246 Zielona Góra, Poland
e-mail: [email protected]
We present some of the basic definitions, notation, and terminology used in this
chapter. Other terminology will be introduced as it naturally occurs in the text and
those concepts not defined can be found in [4, 30, 59].
We consider finite undirected graphs without loops or multiple edges. The vertex
set and the edge set of graph G are denoted by V .G/ and E.G/, respectively, and I
is used to denote the class of these graphs.
Many difficult (NP-hard) optimization problems on graphs become tractable
when restricted to some classes of graphs, usually to hereditary classes. A large
part of these problems can be expressed in the vertex partitioning formalism, i.e.,
by partitioning of the vertices of a given graph into subsets V1 ; : : : ; Vk called colour
classes, satisfying certain constraints either internally or externally, or both inter-
nally and externally. These requirements may be conveniently captured by the sym-
metric k-by-k matrix M in which the diagonal entries mii D P i encode the internal
restrictions on the sets Vi and the off-diagonal entries mij D P ij .i ¤ j / encode the
restriction on the edges between Vi and Vj . Formally, it can be defined as follows.
Definition 2.1.1. Let M be a fixed symmetric k k matrix with entries mii D P i
and mij D P ij B for i ¤ j , where B is the class of all bipartite graphs.
An M -colouring (partition) of a graph G is a partition of vertices of G into k
subsets V1 ; : : : ; Vk corresponding to the rows (and columns) of the matrix M such
that the subgraph of G induced by Vi has the property P i for i D 1; : : : ; k. Vertices
of the set Vi are said to be i -coloured. For every two distinct colours i and j , the
subgraph induced by all the edges linking an i -coloured vertex and a j -coloured
vertex has the property P ij , 1 i; j k.
Notice that properties P ij always form some classes of bipartite graphs. A graph
G is bipartite if it admits a vertex partition V .G/ D V1 [ V2 such that every edge
of G joins two different Vi ’s.
Graph-theoretical concepts which are modeled by M -partitions fall naturally into
three types:
(T1) mii D P i ; mij D P ij D B .i ¤ j /; i; j D 1; : : : ; kI i.e., no restrictions
between colour classes.
(T2) mii D I; mij D P ij B .i ¤ j /; i; j D 1; : : : ; kI i.e., no internal
restrictions.
(T3) mii D P i ; mij D P ij B .i ¤ j /; i; j D 1; : : : ; k.
O D fG 2 I W E.G/ D ;g;
Ok D fG 2 I W .G/ kg;
Sk D fG 2 I W the maximum degree .G/ kg;
Ok D fG 2 I W each component of G has order at most k C 1g;
Dk D fG 2 I W G is k-degenerate;
i.e., the minimum degree ı.H / k for each H Gg;
Tk D fG 2 I W G contains no subgraph homeomorphic to KkC2 or
Kb kC3 c;d kC3 e g;
2 2
Ik D fG 2 I W G does not contain KkC2 g:
Observe that:
2.1.3 Reducibility
To more precisely analyse different partitions and compare them, we need some new
notation.
A property R D P 1 ı P 2 ı ı P k is defined as the set of all graphs having
a .P 1 ; P 2 ; : : : ; P k /-partition. If P 1 D D P k D P, then we write P 1 ı
ı Pk D Pk.
It is easy to see that P1 ı ı Pk is (induced) hereditary and additive whenever
P 1 ; P 2 ; : : : ; P k are (induced) hereditary and additive, respectively.
An (induced) hereditary property R is said to be reducible if there exist two
(induced) hereditary properties P1 and P2 such that R D P1 ı P2 and irreducible,
otherwise.
Definition 2.1.4. (Mihók and Toft, see [39]) For a given irreducible property P 2 L,
a reducible property R 2 L is called a minimal reducible bound for P if P R and
for each reducible property R0 R; P 6 R0 .
We consider reducibility and minimal reducible bounds only in the lattice La . The
family of all minimal reducible bounds for P in this lattice is denoted by B.P/.
From the previously mentioned results for outerplanar and planar graphs we can
write:
1. T 2 O ıD 1 ,
2. T 2 LF 2 ,
3. Four Colour Theorem implies: T 3 .O 2 \ T 3 /2 ,
4. [55]: T 3 O ıD 21 was improved by Thomassen [56]: T 3 D 1 ı.D2 \ T 3 /,
5. [36, 51]: T 3 LF 3 .
In [15] a subclass of planar graphs (slightly wider than the class of outerplanar
graphs) called 1-nonouterplanar was considered. For this class of graphs, in contrast
with the class of outerplanar graphs (see Theorem 2.1.5), there is an infinite number
of minimal reducible bounds.
Let us define a few properties:
UCi D fG 2 I W each component of G contains at most one cycle of length i and
no cycle of any other lengthg,
UCik D fG 2 UCi W if G contains a cycle (of length i), then the minimum degree
in G of the vertices of this cycle is at most k C 2g. S
rk D fG 2 I W each component of G belongs to UC3k [ i kC2 UC2i C1 g:
For convenience, let r1 D UC3 .
For a plane graph G let Int(G) denote the set of vertices not belonging to the
external face. If G is a connected planar graph, we define int(G) to be the minimum
value of jInt(G)j over all plane embeddings of G.
If G is a planar graph with r components H1 ; : : : ; Hr then we define
The minimal reducible bound for the class of triangle free graphs is trivial and it
follows from the theorem given by Nešetřil and Rődl.
Theorem 2.1.9 ([50]). Let F .P/ be a finite set of 2-connected graphs. Then for
every graph G of property P there is a graph H of property P such that for any
partition .V1 ; V2 / of V .H / there is an i; i D 1 or i D 2, for which the subgraph
H ŒVi contains G.
Corollary 2.1.10 ([48]). Let F .P/ be a finite set of 2-connected graphs. Then the
property P has exactly one minimal reducible bound. O ıP.
Corollary 2.1.10 implies that the class I k of KkC2 -free graphs has only one
trivial minimal reducible bound O ıI k .
For the class of graphs with a bounded order of components and the class of
k-degenerate graphs we have the following sets of minimal reducible bounds.
34 M. Borowiecki
Partitions and minimal reducible bounds for minor hereditary properties were
considered in [19].
We begin with complexity of partition problems for the class of planar graphs.
Theorem 2.1.15. The following partition problems for graphs (in general) are NP-
complete:
2.2 k-Clustering
3 5
1 6
2 4
Fig. 2.1 A strongly chordal graph with a strong ordering (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). The vertex 1 is simple:
N Œ1 D f1; 2; 3g N Œ2 D f1; 2; 3; 4g N Œ3 D f1; 2; 3; 4; 5g
w1
u1 u2
w3 w2
u3
SC HCHC C:
Proof. By Theorem 2.2.5 we have cl2 .G/ .G/: We prove that for G 2 HCHC,
cl2 .G/ .G/:
Let G 2 HCHC and fQ1 ; : : : ; Ql g be 2-clusters of G with l D cl2 .G/. By
heredity, Qi 2 HCHC and diam .Qi / 2 for i D 1; : : : ; l: Now, it is enough to
prove that each Qi has a universal vertex. Consider two cases.
Case 1. Qi does not contain the Sun Sr , r 4, i D 1; : : : ; l:
Hence each cluster Qi is strongly chordal and Qi has a universal vertex xi , i D
1; : : : ; l. Thus the set fx1 ; : : : ; xl g is dominating in G; i.e., .G/ l D cl2 .G/:
Case 2. For some i , 1 i l, Qi contains a Sun Sr , r 4.
Let us denote Qi and Sr briefly by Q and S , respectively, and let V .S / D
fu1 ; : : : ; ur ; w1 ; : : : ; wr g with GŒfu1 ; : : : ; ur g D Kr . Consider three vertices in
W with consecutive labels: wt ; wt C1 ; wt C2 . It is easy to see that dS .wt ; wt C2 / D 3
2 Partitions of Graphs 39
Claim 1. H 2 HCHC.
Proof. It is easy to see that H is chordal. Now it is enough to prove that H does
not contain the Sun S3 as an induced subgraph. On the contrary, suppose that
S3 H . It implies that w1 ; w2 ; w3 and u1 ; u2 ; u3 of S3 correspond to some vertices,
say e1 ; e2 ; e3 and v1 ; v2 ; v3 , respectively, in H . By the above and the construction
of H it follows that the graph G contains a triangle induced by the set fv1 ; v2 ; v3 g,
a contradiction. t
u
Claim 2. G has a vertex cover of cardinality d if and only if H has a dominating set
of cardinality d .
40 M. Borowiecki
Chordal
Balanced
HCHC NP-c
? BC
P SC
Interval
Open Problem 2.2.15. Problem DOMINATING SET remains open for the
class BC.
The next two results yield conditions on vertex degrees of bipartite graphs suffi-
cient to guarantee NP-completeness of matching cutsets.
Below are presented a few graph classes for which the MATCHING CUTSET
problem is polynomial. The line graph of G, denoted by L.G/, is the graph the
vertex set of which is the edge set of G and two vertices of L.G/ are adjacent if and
only if, as edges in G, they are adjacent. A graph H is called a line graph if there is
a graph G such that H is isomorphic to L.G/.
42 M. Borowiecki
Theorem 2.3.4 ([49]). Let G D .V; E/ be a line graph. Then we can determine in
O.jEj/ time whether G has a matching cutset.
Theorem 2.3.5 ([49]). Let G D .V; E/ be a graph without induced cycles of length
4. Then we can determine in O.jV j3 jEj/ time whether G has a matching cutset.
Theorem 2.3.6 ([16]). Let G be a graph with diam.G/ D 2. Then the MATCHING
CUTSET problem for G can be solved in polynomial time.
Acyclic colourings have been studied extensively over the past 30 years. Several
authors have been able to determine a .P/ for some classes P of graphs such as
graphs of maximum degree 3, considered by Grűnbaum in [37] and of maximum
degree 4, studied by Burstein in [24]. The acyclic chromatic number of planar graphs
was determined by Borodin in 1979; see [8] for details. Planar graphs with “large”
girth, outerplanar, and 1-planar graphs were also considered; see, for instance,
[9, 10].
In 2004 Skulrattanakulchai [54] proved that there is a linear time algorithm that
acyclically colours any graph of maximum degree 3 in four colours.
Theorem 2.4.2 ([34]). For any graph G of maximum degree 5, a .G/ 9 and
there exists a linear time algorithm to acyclically colour G in at most nine colours.
Authors suspect that the upper bound of nine colours in the case .G/ D 5 is
not tight.
The well-known theorem of Brooks [22] relates the chromatic number of a graph to
its maximum degree.
.G/ .G/ C 1
with equality if and only if either .G/ D 2 and G is an odd cycle or .G/ ¤ 2
and G is a complete graph.
There are many generalisations of the Brooks theorem. These theorems are called
Brooks-type results. For the acyclic chromatic number finding a sharp upper bound
as a function of maximum degree seems to be an extremely hard problem.
. 1/
a .G/ :
2
Open Problem 2.4.8. Find a sharp upper bound for a .G/ as a function of .G/:
Studies have begun in [7] of acyclic colourings of graphs with respect to hereditary
properties of graphs. Namely, they have considered outerplanar, planar graphs, and
graphs with bounded degree; see [6, 7]. They call such acyclic colouring improper.
Formally, an improper acyclic colouring of graphs is an M -partition with
mii D P i and mij D D1 for i ¤ j , 1 i; j k. We denote it briefly by
..P 1 ; : : : ; P k /; D1 /.
The class of graphs having ..P 1 ; : : : ; P k /; D1 /-partition is denoted by
P1 ˇ ˇ Pk.
44 M. Borowiecki
Corollary 2.4.11.
F T Forb.S3 ; P62 /;
PT Forb.S3 ; F6 /:
Because of the above corollary, the next theorem gives two acyclic reducible
bounds for outerplanar graphs which are better than those in Theorem 2.4.9.
Theorem 2.4.12.
T 2 O ˇ FT ;
T 2 O ˇ PT :
Open Problem 2.4.13. Find at least one minimal acyclic reducible bound for the
class of outerplanar graphs.
Theorem 2.4.14 ([7]).
S 3 S 1 ˇ S 1 ˇ S 1:
Conjecture 2.4.15 ([7]).
S 3 S 2 ˇ S 2:
Theorem 2.4.16 ([14]).
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Chapter 3
Distance in Graphs
Abstract The distance between two vertices is the basis of the definition of several
graph parameters including diameter, radius, average distance and metric dimen-
sion. These invariants are examined, especially how they relate to one another and
to other graph invariants and their behaviour in certain graph classes. We also dis-
cuss characterizations of graph classes described in terms of distance or shortest
paths. Finally, generalizations are considered.
The distance between two vertices in a graph is a simple but surprisingly useful
notion. It has led to the definition of several graph parameters such as the diameter,
the radius, the average distance and the metric dimension. In this chapter we exam-
ine these invariants; how they relate to one another and other graph invariants and
their behaviour in certain graph classes. We also discuss characterizations of graph
classes that have properties that are described in terms of distance or shortest paths.
We later consider generalizations of shortest paths connecting pairs of vertices to
shortest trees, called Steiner trees, that connect three or more vertices.
W. Goddard ()
School of Computing and Department of Mathematical Sciences,
Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-1906, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
A path in a graph is a sequence of distinct vertices, such that adjacent vertices in the
sequence are adjacent in the graph. For an unweighted graph, the length of a path is
the number of edges on the path. For an (edge) weighted graph, the length of a path
is the sum of the weights of the edges on the path. We assume that all weights are
nonnegative and that all graphs are connected. We start with undirected graphs.
The distance between two vertices u and v, denoted d.u; v/, is the length of a
shortest u v path, also called a u v geodesic. The distance function is a metric
on the vertex set of a (weighted) graph G. In particular, it satisfies the triangle
inequality:
d.a; b/ d.a; c/ C d.c; b/
for all vertices a; b; c of G. This follows from the fact that, if you want to get from
a to b, then one possibility is to go via vertex c.
Two of the most commonly observed parameters of a graph are its radius and di-
ameter. The diameter of a connected graph G, denoted diam.G/, is the maximum
distance between two vertices. The eccentricity of a vertex is the maximum distance
from it to any other vertex. The radius, denoted rad.G/, is the minimum eccentricity
among all vertices of G. Of course the diameter is the maximum eccentricity among
all vertices.
For a (weighted) undirected graph G:
The upper bound follows from the triangle inequality, where c is a vertex of mini-
mum eccentricity.
The radius and diameter are easily computed for simple graphs.
Note that cycles and complete graphs are vertex-transitive, so the radius and di-
ameter are automatically the same (every vertex has the same eccentricity).
The centre C.G/ is the subgraph induced by the set of vertices of minimum
eccentricity. Graphs G where rad.G/ D diam.G/ are called self-centred.
3 Distance in Graphs 51
Fact 2 For trees T , the diameter equals either 2 rad.T / or 2 rad.T / 1. In the first
case the center is a single vertex, and in the second the centre is a pair of adjacent
vertices.
Fact 3 The centre of a graph forms a connected subgraph, and is contained inside
a block of the graph.
In general, there are no structural restrictions on the centre of a graph. Indeed,
Hedetniemi (see [9]) showed that every graph is the centre of some graph.
1. diam.G/ n .G/ C 1.
2. [71] rad.G/ .n .G//=2 C 1.
3. If ı.G/ n=2, then diam.G/ 2.
with n vertices and m edges; this is denoted as PK n;m . This graph was introduced
by Harary [38]. An example is given in Fig. 3.2.
It is not hard to show that if a graph G has large diameter, then its complement
GN has small diameter:
N 2.
Fact 4 1. If diam.G/ > 3, then diam.G/
N
2. If diam.G/ D 3, then diam.G/ 3.
Removing an edge can never decrease the radius or the diameter of a graph. Indeed,
removing a bridge disconnects the graph. So we consider cyclic edges.
Fact 5 If e is a cyclic edge of graph G, then rad.G/ rad.G e/ 2 rad.G/ and
diam.G/ diam.G e/ 2 diam.G/.
Both upper bounds are attainable. Removing a cyclic edge can easily double the
diameter; for example, it does so in the odd cycles. Plesnı́k [61] showed that if every
3 Distance in Graphs 53
edge’s removal doubles the diameter, then the graph is a Moore graph, i.e., a graph
of diameter d and girth 2d C 1 for some d 1. For example, Moore graphs include
the complete graphs, the odd cycles, the Petersen graph and the Hoffman–Singleton
graph (see [7]). Removing a cyclic edge can also double the radius. Such a graph can
be constructed by taking two equal-sized cycles, and sticking them together along
one edge e.
There is a natural spanning tree with the same radius as the original graph, some-
times called a breadth-first search tree. This tree has diameter at most double its
radius, and hence at most double the original radius. Buckley and Lewinter [8]
determined which graphs have a diameter-preserving spanning tree.
Removing a vertex can both increase and decrease these parameters. Removing a
cut-vertex from a disconnected graph results in a disconnected graph, so we do not
consider such vertices.
A walk is a sequence of not necessarily distinct vertices such that each vertex in the
sequence except the first one is adjacent to the previous one. Suppose the vertices
of a graph G are labeled v1 ; : : : ; vn . Then the adjacency matrix A of G is defined
as the n n matrix whose .i; j /-th entry is 1 if there is an edge joining vertices vi
and vj , and 0 otherwise. The Laplacian matrix is defined as A D where D is the
54 W. Goddard and O.R. Oellermann
diagonal matrix whose .i; i /-entry is the degree of the vertex vi . The eigenvalues of
A are referred to as the eigenvalues of G, and the eigenvalues of L as the Laplacian
eigenvalues of G. The following fact is well-known:
Fact 7 The .i; j /-th entry of the power Ak gives the number of walks of length k
from vi to vj .
Apart from the centre of a graph, there are several other centrality measures. These
have many applications. The centre is for emergency facility location: the response
time must be minimized in the worst case. For biological graphs, the centre vertices
might be the most important (see, for example, [42]).
Another measure of centrality is the “median” of a graph. The status .v/ of a
vertex v is the sum of the distances from v to all other vertices. The vertices having
minimum status .v/ form the median of the graph, which is denoted by M.G/.
For example, the median might be a good place to locate a mall: the average driving
distance is minimized.
There is no intrinsic connection between the centre and the median. Indeed, they
can be arbitrarily far apart. Slater [67] considered whether there are other measures
of centrality that “connect” the centre and the median of a graph. He defined for a
graph G, integer k 2 and vertex u of G,
nX o
rk .u/ D max d.u; s/ j S V .G/; jS j D k :
s2S
Thus, rk .u/ is the sum of the k largest vertex distances to u. In particular, r1 .u/ is
its eccentricity, and rn1 .u/ is its status.
The k-centrum, C.GI k/, of G is the subgraph induced by those vertices u for
which rk .u/ is a minimum. Thus, C.GI 2/ D C.G/ and C.GI n 1/ D M.G/. It is
shown in [67] that the k-centrum of every tree consists of a single vertex or a pair
of adjacent vertices. Further, every vertex on the shortest path from the centre to the
median of a tree belongs to the k-centrum for some k between 1 and n.
In the case of trees, another centrality measure is well known. Suppose T is a tree
and v a vertex of T . Then a branch at v is a maximal subtree containing v as a leaf.
3 Distance in Graphs 55
A chordal graph is one where every cycle of length greater than 3 has a chord. For
example, trees and maximal outerplanar graphs are chordal. A simplicial vertex is
one whose neighbourhood is complete. It was first shown by Dirac [21] and later
by Lekkerkerker and Boland [49] that every chordal graph has a simplicial vertex
(indeed at least two such vertices). Since induced subgraphs of chordal graphs are
still chordal, chordal graphs have a simplicial elimination ordering; that is, an or-
dering v1 ; v2 ; : : : ; vn of the vertices such that the neighbourhood of vi is complete
in the induced graph hfvi ; vi C1 ; : : : ; vn gi. Using induction one can show that every
graph that has a simplicial elimination ordering is chordal.
The centre of chordal graphs was investigated by Laskar and Shier [48]. For
example, they showed that the centre of a chordal graph is connected, and provided
the following generalization of Fact 2.
20
10
31
10
00 30
Distance hereditary graphs form a subclass of the perfect graphs (graphs where
every induced subgraph has equal clique and chromatic numbers), and several
NP-hard problems have efficient solutions for distance hereditary graphs. One such
problem is discussed in Sect. 3.10. Another characterization of distance hereditary
graphs that lends itself well to algorithmic applications was given independently
by Bandelt and Mulder [2] and Hammer and Maffray [37]. A graph H is said to
be obtained from a graph G by (1) adding a leaf v to some vertex v0 of G, if v is
added to G and joined to v0 by an edge; and (2) by adding a twin v to some vertex
v0 of G, if v is added to G and if v is joined to the vertices in the open or closed
neighbourhood of v0 in G, i.e., v is joined to the vertices in NG .v0 / or NG .v0 / [ fv0 g,
respectively.
described in [20]. Bandelt and Mulder [2] gave a characterization of these graphs in
terms of forbidden subgraphs.
The random graph Gpn is obtained by starting with n vertices, and then for every
pair of distinct vertices, making them adjacent with probability p (each decision
independent).
Fact 8 For any fixed p, Gpn has diameter 2 with high probability (meaning the limit
as n ! 1 is 1).
1 X
.G/ D n d.u; v/:
2 u;vV
The study of the average distance began with the chemist Wiener [72], who noticed
that the melting point of certain hydrocarbons is proportional to the sum of all dis-
tances between unordered pairs of vertices of the corresponding graph. This sum is
now called the Wiener number
or Wiener index of the graph and is denoted by .G/.
(Note that .G/ D n2 .G/.) The average distance of a graph has been used for
comparing the compactness of architectural plans [52]. Doyle and Graver [22] were
the first to define .G/ as a graph parameter.
Here are the values for some simple graphs.
The result on the path is a discrete version of the fact that a pair of randomly
chosen points on a line of length 1 have expected distance 1=3.
3 Distance in Graphs 59
One might expect some relationship between the radius or diameter of the graph
and its average distance. However, Plesnı́k [62] showed that, apart from the trivial
inequality .G/ diam.G/, no such relationship exists.
The following upper bound was established independently in [22, 24, 51].
nC1
1 .G/ :
3
Equality holds if and only if G is a complete graph or a path.
2m
.G/ 2 :
n.n 1/
Finding the upper bound for .G/ in terms of n and m is much more difficult.
S̆oltés [69] found a sharp upper bound:
There are a few other graphs achieving the maximum average distance; the ex-
tremal graphs were characterized in [35].
Plesnı́k [62] found a sharp lower bound for the average distance of a graph in
terms of the order and diameter. However, the problem of finding the exact max-
imum average distance among all graphs of a given order and diameter remains
unsolved.
In Sect. 3.2.2 a bound on the diameter in terms of the distinct eigenvalues of
the adjacency matrix and of the Laplacian was given. Rodriguez and Yebra [64]
obtained a similar result for the average distance of G.
60 W. Goddard and O.R. Oellermann
Theorem 10. Let G be a connected graph of n vertices and m edges, and let b be
the number of distinct eigenvalues of G. Then
2.b 1/m
.G/ b :
n.n 1/
The spectrum (set of eigenvalues) does not necessarily determine a graph, not
even if the graph is a tree. McKay (see [54]) and Merris [53] showed, however, that
the average distance of a tree is determined by its spectrum.
Mohar [54] determined both upper and lower bounds on the average distance of
a graph in terms of some of its Laplacian eigenvalues.
Theorem 13. Let G be a connected graph of order n and minimum degree ı. Then
n
.G/ C 2:
ıC1
While this result is stronger than the GRAFFITI conjecture when n is much larger
than ı, it does not imply it. The conjecture was finally proven by Beezer, Riegsecker
and Smith [3].
3 Distance in Graphs 61
In this section we look at the effect of edge removal on the average distance of a
graph. Since the removal of a bridge disconnects the graph, we consider only cyclic
edges e. We can measure the effect of e’s removal from G by considering either the
difference .G e/ .G/ or the ratio .G e/=.G/. In both cases the best
edge is one whose removal minimizes the quantity in question, and the worst edge
is one that maximizes the quantity. These questions are of importance in network
design: how badly would an edge failure affect the network, or how much would the
network suffer if we omitted a particular link to save costs.
If an edge e D ab is removed, the distance between a and b increases and no
decrease. Thus, the difference .G e/ .G/ for the best edge is
other distances
at least 1= n2 . Finding attainable upper bounds is more difficult. Favaron et al. [30]
found the maximum value for the difference.
1 p
.G e/ .G/ 2 1 n C O.1/:
3
We now consider the ratio .G e/=.G/. If G is a cycle, then the removal
of an edge increases the average distance by a factor of about 4=3. Winkler [73,
74] conjectured that for two-edge-connected graphs this is the maximum possible
ratio for the best edge. This became known as the “four-thirds conjecture”, and was
eventually proven by Bienstock and Györi [5]. Soon thereafter, Györi [36] extended
it and proved:
Theorem 15. The four-thirds conjecture holds for all connected graphs that are
not trees.
The ratio .G e/=.G/ can be arbitrarily large if a worst edge e is re-
moved (see [17]). To see this, consider the graph G obtained from a cycle Cr W
v0 v1 v2 : : : vr1 v0 , where r 6 is a fixed integer, by replacing vertices v0 and v3 by
complete graphs of order b.nr/=2c and d.nr/=2e whose vertices are adjacent to
vr1 ; v1 and v2 ; v4 , respectively. If n is large, then two randomly chosen vertices are
almost certainly in the union of the two complete graphs and the probability that they
are in the same (different) complete graph(s) and thus have distance 1 (3) tends to
1 1 1
2 . Hence .G/ D 2 3 C 2 1 C o.1/. By a similar argument p .G e/ D .r 3/=2 C
o.1/,
p where e is the edge v v
1 2 . Choosing r D b2 nc gives .G e/=.G/ D
O. n/. Favaron et al. [30] showed that this achieves the order of magnitude of the
maximum possible value.
Theorem 16. Let G be a connected graph of order n and e a cyclic edge of G. Then
p
.G e/ n
p C O.1/:
.G/ 2 3
62 W. Goddard and O.R. Oellermann
The minimum average distance spanning tree (or MAD tree) of a connected
graph is a spanning tree having minimum average distance. Such a tree is also
referred to as a minimum routing cost tree. It is surprising that the removal of a
single best edge can increase the average distance by a factor of 4=3, but the removal
of m n C 1 best edges (where m is the number of edges in the graph) increases
the average distance by a factor less than 2. This fact was established by Entringer
et al. in [25] (and a related result is discussed in [76]).
Theorem 17. Let G be a connected graph of order n. Then there exists a vertex v
and spanning tree Tv that is distance preserving from v, such that
n1
.Tv / 2 .G/:
n
Johnson et al. [43] showed that the problem of finding a MAD tree in a graph is
NP-hard.
We now turn our attention to the effect of vertex removal on the average distance.
Unlike edge removal, vertex removal can both decrease or increase the average dis-
tance. For convenience, we express our results in terms of the Wiener index of the
graph. Swart [70] showed that the maximum possible decrease occurs when an end-
vertex is removed from a path.
Theorem 18. Let G be a graph of order n 2 and let v be a non-cut vertex of G.
Then
n.n 1/
.G/ .G v/ ;
2
with equality if and only if G is a path and v is an end-vertex of G.
S̆oltés [69] showed that the path-complete graphs are extremal for the ratio:
Theorem 19. Let G be a graph of order n and m n 1 edges, and let v be a
non-cut-vertex of G. Then
.G v/ .PKn1;m1 /
:
.G/ .PKn;m /
S̆oltés [69] also gave sharp upper bounds for .G v/ .G/ in terms of the
order and number of edges of G.
In some instances the removal of any vertex increases the average distance. For
example, the cycle Cn leaves Pn1 after the removal of any vertex. Thus the average
distance increases by a factor of nearly 4=3. Winkler [73, 74] conjectured that this
is the worst increase. This vertex version of the “four-thirds conjecture” was proven
asymptotically by Bienstock and Györi [5].
3 Distance in Graphs 63
Theorem 20. Every connected graph has a vertex whose removal increases the av-
erage distance by a factor of at most 43 C O.n5 /.
Althöfer [1] proved the four-thirds conjecture for four-connected graphs, and
improved on it for graphs of higher connectivity.
Chvátal and Thomassen [15] studied the problem of taking an undirected graph
and finding an orientation of minimum diameter. Earlier, Robbins [63] had shown
that an undirected graph has a strong orientation if and only if it is bridgeless.
Chvátal and Thomassen showed that a bridgeless graph of diameter d has an orien-
tation of diameter at most 2d 2 C d . They also showed that determining whether a
graph has an orientation of diameter 2 is NP-complete.
The average distance of digraphs has not received as much attention as the average
distance of graphs. Ng and Teh [57] gave a lower bound for the average distance
of a strong digraph D in terms of its order n and number of arcs m similar to the
one given for undirected graphs; they showed that .D/ 2 m=.n.n 1//
with equality if and only if diam.D/ D 2. For n 3 this bound is sharp if m
2n 2, the smallest number of arcs for which there exists a digraph of order n and
diameter 2.
Plesnı́k [62] proved the following upper bound on the average distance of a strong
digraph.
Theorem 22. Let D be a strong digraph of order n. Then .D/ n=2. Equality
holds if and only if D is a directed cycle.
64 W. Goddard and O.R. Oellermann
It is natural to ask whether there are upper bounds on the average distance of a
digraph in terms of the order and minimum degree that are analogous to the ones
for graphs, but it turns out that in general these bounds do not carry over for general
digraphs.
In [19] the problem of finding an orientation of a two-edge-connected graph that
minimizes the average distance is studied.
3.6.2 Tournaments
A tournament is an oriented complete graph. Landau [47] showed that every tour-
nament has radius at most 2. It is easy to construct a tournament on n vertices with
diameter n 1. For n ¤ 4, it is also easy to construct a tournament with diameter 2.
Plesnı́k [62] gave bounds for average distance in strongly connected tournaments.
3 nC4
.Tn / :
2 6
3.7 Convexity
Interval notions in graphs have led to the study of abstract convexity in graphs and
structural characterizations of several interesting graph classes.
Suppose V is a collection of points and M a collection of subsets of V . Then M
is a convexity if it contains both ; and V and it is closed under intersections. The
elements of M are called convex sets. If T 2 M, then a point v of T is an extreme
point of T if T n fvg 2 M. If S V , then the smallest convex set containing S
is called the convex hull of S . A convex geometry is a convexity with the additional
property that every convex set is the convex hull of its extreme points.
The most well-known graph convexity is defined in terms of geodesic intervals,
which were introduced in Sect. 3.4.2. Suppose G D .V; E/ is a connected graph.
Then a set S V is g-convex if Ig Œu; v S for all pairs u; v 2 S . Let Mg .G/ be
the collection of all g-convex sets of G. Then Mg .G/ is a convexity.
It is not difficult to see that a vertex v of a g-convex set S is an extreme vertex
of S if and only if v is simplicial in hS i, i.e., the neighbourhood of v in S induces a
complete graph. Farber and Jamison [29] characterized the class of graph for which
the g-convex sets form a convex geometry.
3 Distance in Graphs 65
u v w x
...
Every shortest path is necessarily induced, but not conversely. This leads to an-
other type of graph interval. The monophonic interval between a pair u; v of vertices
in a graph G, denoted by Im Œu; v, is the collection of all vertices that lie on an in-
duced u v path in G. A set S of vertices in a graph is m-convex if Im Œu; v S for
all pairs u; v 2 S . It is not difficult to see that the collection Mm .G/ of all m-convex
sets is a convexity, and that the extreme points of an m-convex set S are precisely
the simplicial vertices of hS i. Farber and Jamison [29] characterized those graphs
for which the m-convex sets form a convex geometry.
Dragan et al. [23] defined another type of graph interval. If u; v is a pair of vertices
in a connected graph G, then the m3 -interval, denoted by Im3 Œu; v, between u and
v is the collection of all vertices that lie on some induced u v path of length at
least 3. A set S of vertices in G is m3 -convex if Im3 Œu; v S for all pairs u; v of
vertices in S . For a graph G, let Mm3 .G/ be the collection of all m3 -convex sets.
This collection of sets is certainly a convexity. Further, it can be shown that a vertex
v is an extreme point of an m3 -convex set S if and only if v is semisimplicial, i.e.,
not the centre of an induced P4 . The class of graphs for which the m3 -convex sets
form a convex geometry was characterized in [23].
Theorem 26. Let G be a connected graph. Then Mm3 .G/ is a convex geometry if
and only if G is (house, hole, domino, A)-free (see Fig. 3.7).
66 W. Goddard and O.R. Oellermann
Apart from trees, very few exact results for the metric dimension of graphs are
known unless the graphs are highly structured (usually vertex transitive). It was
claimed in [45] that the metric dimension of the Cartesian product of k paths is k;
but indeed it was only verified that k is an upper bound in this case. In [65] a connec-
tion between the metric dimension of the n-cube and the solution to a coin weighing
problem was noted. This observation and results by Lindström [50] and Erdös and
Rényi [26] show that limn!1 dim.Qn / log n=n D 2, thereby disproving the claim
about n-cubes made in [45].
Motivated by the connection between coin weighing problems/strategies for
the Mastermind game and resolving sets in Cartesian products of certain classes
of graphs, the metric dimension of Cartesian products of graphs was investigated
in [10]. This paper introduces “doubly resolving sets” as a useful tool for obtaining
upper bounds on the metric dimension of graphs, particularly in Cartesian products
of graphs.
3 Distance in Graphs 67
To compute the distance between two vertices in an unweighted graph, one can use
a breadth-first search. To compute the distance between two vertices in a weighted
graph, one can use Dijkstra’s algorithm (which is in some sense a generalization of
breadth-first search). Note that the algorithm actually finds the distance from a given
start vertex to all other vertices.
ShortestPath (G:graph, a:vertex)
for all vertices v do currDis(v) WD infinity
currDis(a) WD 0
remainder WD [all vertices]
while remainder nonempty do f
let w be vertex in remainder with minimum value of currDis
remainder –D [w]
for all vertices v in remainder do
currDis (v) WD min (currDis(v), currDis(w)+length(w,v))
g
The running time of the above implementation of Dijkstra’s algorithm is O.n2 /.
By using suitable data structures this can be brought down for sparse graphs to
O.m C n log n/, where m is the number of edges.
Suppose we wanted instead to calculate the shortest path between every pair of
vertices, for example, in order to compute the average distance. One idea would be to
run Dijkstra with every vertex as a start vertex. This takes O.n3 / time. There are two
dynamic programming algorithms with similar running times. One is due to Bellman
and Ford and the other to Floyd and Warshall. A variant of the former is used in
routing protocols in networks. We describe here the Floyd–Warshall algorithm [31].
Up to this point we have considered distance invariants that hinge on shortest paths
between pairs of vertices. In this section we give a brief overview of related invari-
ants that arise by considering the “cheapest” subgraph that connects a given set of
vertices.
Suppose G is a (weighted) graph and S a set of vertices in G. Then the Steiner dis-
tance for S , denoted by dG .S /, is the smallest weight of a connected subgraph of G
containing S . Such a subgraph is necessarily a tree, called a Steiner tree for S . The
problem of finding a Steiner tree for a given set S of vertices is called the Steiner
problem. In its two extremes, namely if jS j D 2 or jS j D n, the Steiner problem is
solved efficiently by well-known algorithms, for example, Dijkstra’s algorithm and
Kruskal’s minimum spanning tree algorithm, respectively. In general, however, this
problem is NP-hard (see [34]), even for unweighted bipartite graphs. Winter’s sur-
vey [75] provides a good overview of different heuristics that have been developed
for the problem as well as exact solutions for various graph classes.
The radius, diameter and average distance have a natural extension. For a given
vertex v in a connected (weighted) graph G and integer k (2 k n), the
k-eccentricity of v, denoted by ek .v/, is the maximum Steiner distance among all
k-sets of vertices in G that contain v. The k-radius, radk .G/, of G is the mini-
mum k-eccentricity of the vertices of G, and the k-diameter, diamk .G/, of G is
the maximum k-eccentricity. The average Steiner k-distance, k .G/ of G, is the
average Steiner distance among all k-sets of vertices of G. The k-distance of a
vertex v, denoted by ek .v/, is the sum of the Steiner distances of k-sets of vertices
containing v. The subgraph induced by vertices of minimum k-eccentricity is called
the k-centre of G and is denoted by Ck .G/; the subgraph induced by the vertices
of minimum k-distance is called the k-median and is denoted by Mk .G/.
The k-diameter is clearly an upper bound for the k-radius. No upper bound for
the k-diameter as a function of k and the k-radius of an (unweighted) graph is
known. For trees, the following generalization of Fact 2 was established in [13].
n
Theorem 28. For a tree T of order n and integer k n, diamk .T / n1 rad k .T /.
It was shown in [60], that the k-centre of a tree T can be found by successively
pruning leaves. If T has at most k 1 leaves, then T is its own k-centre. If T has
at least k leaves, then the k-centre is the i th derivative of T where i is the smallest
integer such that T .i / has at most k 1 leaves. This also shows that the k-centre of
a tree is contained in the .k C 1/-centre of a tree. (This containment does not hold
in general graphs). Moreover, it follows that k-centres of trees are connected.
The k-median of trees was shown in [4] to be connected. In the same paper it
was shown that a tree H of order p is the k-median of a tree if and only if p D 1; 2
3 Distance in Graphs 69
k1
k 1 k .G/ .n C 1/;
kC1
An efficient procedure that finds the average Steiner k-distance of a tree is de-
scribed in [18]. This algorithm counts the number of k-sets such that a given edge
belongs to a Steiner tree for the k-set. Moreover, it is shown that for a tree T ,
k .T / kl .T /= l for 2 l k 1 with equality if and only if T is a star,
and the lower bound given in Theorem 29 is improved to k.1 1=n/ for trees.
Claw Paw P4
convexities form convex geometries are characterized in the same paper. We state
here a characterization of those graphs for which the g3 -convex sets form a convex
geometry. A replicated-twin C4 is any one of the four graphs shown in Fig. 3.9 where
any subset of the dotted edges belongs to the graph. The collection of replicated-twin
C4 ’s is denoted by RC4 .
Theorem 30. Let G be a connected graph and Mg3 .G/ the collection of all
g3 -convex sets of G. Then Mg3 .G/ is a convex geometry if and only if d i am.G/
2 and if G is (house, hole, 3-fan, RC4 )-free.
Acknowledgments We would like to thank Peter Dankelmann for sharing his thoughts on average
distance with us.
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Chapter 4
Domination in Graphs
N. Ananchuen ()
Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, Silpakorn University,
Nakorn Pathom 73000, Thailand
e-mail: [email protected]
4.1 Introduction
The study of domination and related topics is one of the fast-developing areas in
graph theory. To date, at least 2000 published research papers on domination have
appeared in various journals. Excellent comprehensive collections of results to-
gether with open problems in this area were published in 1998 in two books [71,72].
The aim of this chapter is to provide a fundamental understanding of three types
of domination and to present some recent results, most of which concern graphs
edge- (or vertex-) critical with respect to each. We cannot, however, include all
such results due to space limitations, but instead provide a guide to the relevant
references.
For the most part, our terminology follows that of Bondy and Murty [22]. Thus
G is a graph with the vertex set V .G/, edge set E.G/; .G/ vertices, ".G/ edges,
(vertex) connectivity .G/, and independence number ˛.G/. We denote the comple-
ment of a graph G by G. A graph G is said to be even (odd) if .G/ is even (odd).
For S V .G/; GŒS denotes the subgraph induced by S . For v 2 V .G/; NG .v/
denotes the set of all vertices adjacent to vertex v and is called the neighborhood
of v. The closed neighborhood of S v; NG Œv is defined by NG Œv D NG S.v/ [ fvg. If
S V .G/, then NG .S / denotes x2S NG .x/ and NG ŒS denotes x2S NG Œx.
The degree of v 2 V .G/ denoted by dG .v/ is defined to be jNG .v/j. Let ı.G/
and .G/ denote the minimum degree and maximum degree of G, respectively. As
usual, Kn ; Cn , and Pn denote a complete graph, a cycle, and a path of order n, re-
spectively, and Km;n denotes a complete bipartite graph with bipartite sets of size
m and n. We denote the number of components (odd components) of a graph G by
!.G/ (!o .G/).
A vertex v 2 V .G/ is called an endvertex (or leaf or pendant vertex) if dG .v/ D 1.
If fug D NG .v/, then u is a support vertex of v and the edge uv is called a pen-
dant edge. For vertices u and v of G; d.u; v/ denotes the distance from u to v.
The eccentricity of a vertex v denoted by e.v/ is maxfd.u; v/ju 2 V .G/g. The
radius of G denoted by rad.G/ and the diameter of G denoted by diam.G/ are
minfe.v/jv 2 V .G/g and maxfe.v/jv 2 V .G/g, respectively.
If S and T are subsets of V .G/, we say that S dominates T if T NG ŒS . In
particular, if S dominates V .G/ then S is said to be a dominating set for G; that is,
S V .G/ is a dominating set for G if every vertex of G not in S is adjacent to
one in S . The cardinality of any smallest dominating set in G is denoted by .G/.
We call a dominating set with cardinality .G/, a .G/-set. It is easy to see that for
n 1; .Kn / D .K1;n/˙D1 and if m; n 2, then .Km;n / D 2. Further, for
n 3; .Pn / D .Cn / D n3 .
The concept of domination, in both the theoretical and applied sense, has received
the attention of many researchers. It has been used to study the optimal location
of facilities such as radar stations (see [17]), hardware or software resources (see
[61, 62]), and communication networks (see [97]). Typical problems are concerned
with the minimum cardinality of a subset of a set of facilities, such as radar sta-
tions and communication centers, which collectively monitor all the facilities or
perhaps can transmit messages to every facility in the network. In graph-theoretic
4 Domination in Graphs 75
terms, the minimum cardinality of such a set of monitoring facilities is called the
domination number. In the real world, it might be additionally required that such
a set of monitors be able to communicate among themselves in case of a security
breach or perhaps each of these monitors must be reached by at least one other mon-
itor. In these two special cases, the minimum cardinality of a monitor set is called
the connected domination number and the total domination number, respectively.
This chapter is divided into six sections. Section 4.2 contains some fundamental
results concerning upper bounds for the classical domination number. Two of the
more intensely studied variants of classical domination – connected domination and
total domination – are the focus of Sect. 4.3.
The concept of criticality has proved very useful in the past when applied to such
important graph parameters as connectivity, chromatic number, and independence
number. Only very recently has this idea been applied to domination. For the first
time, a number of results concerning criticality of various types of domination are
assembled in Sects. 4.4 and 4.5. Finally, we conclude the chapter with Sect. 4.6 in
which we suggest some directions for future study.
Clearly, V .G/ is a dominating set for G. Thus .G/ .G/. It is easy to see that
.G/ D .G/ if G is complete. If the graph under consideration has no isolated ver-
tices, then a bound on its domination number can be improved considerably. Many
researchers have been concerned with establishing upper bounds on the domination
number since determining the domination number of a graph is an NP-complete
problem (see [31, 65] or [71], page 34). Various bounds on the domination number
are given in terms of other graph parameters, for example, in terms of order and min-
imum degree (see [16, 29, 30, 40, 78, 104, 111, 117]), diameter (see [48, 67, 71, 103]),
size and the minimum degree (see [79, 119]), and others (see [90, 102, 116]). The
reader is directed to [42, 44, 71, 77, 96] for more on these bounds.
We now state some fundamental results on bounding the domination number.
The first result was given by Ore in 1962.
Theorem 1 ([111]). Let G be a graph with ı.G/ 1. Then .G/ 12 .G/.
Payan and Xuong [114] characterized the graphs that achieve the bound in The-
orem 1, as we show in Theorem 2. Before stating this theorem we need a new
definition. The corona of a graph H denoted by H ı K1 is the graph obtained from
H by adding a pendant edge to each vertex of H .
Theorem 2 ([114]). Let G be a graph with ı.G/ 1. Then .G/ D 12 .G/ if and
only if each component of G is isomorphic to C4 or to H ı K1 for some connected
graph H .
The bound in Theorem 1 may be improved if the minimum degree of a graph is
increased as shown in the following theorems.
76 N. Ananchuen et al.
In 1998, Clark et al. [40] established an upper bound on the domination number
based on the degree sequence of a graph. Their result stated in Theorem 9 has proved
to be a useful tool in establishing Theorem 10 by Hellwig and Volkmann [78].
Theorem 9 ([40]). Suppose G is a graph with ı.G/ 1. Then
Qı.G/C1
.G/ 1 kD1 kC k 1 .G/.
ı.G/
Total domination was first studied by Cockayne et al. [43] in 1980. Since then this
topic has received much attention. An excellent survey of this topic may be found in
the two books by Haynes et al. [71,72]. A more recent survey is due to Henning [82].
As is the case with domination number, determining the total domination number
of a graph is also NP-complete (see [82]), so bounds on total domination number
have been a natural subject for investigation. We begin with a property of minimum
dominating sets in graphs established by Bollobás and Cockayne [20] which leads
to a relationship between domination and total domination numbers in a graph with
no isolated vertex.
Theorem 16 ([20] or see [82]). Every graph G with no isolated vertex has a mini-
mum dominating set D in which each vertex v 2 D has the property that there exists
a vertex v0 2 V .G/ D that is adjacent to v, but to no other vertex of D.
Theorem 17 ([82]). For every graph G with no isolated vertex, .G/ t .G/
2.G/.
The next result concerns an upper bound on the total domination number in terms
of the order of the graph.
When the minimum degree is increased, the bound on the total domination num-
ber in Theorems 18 and 20 can be improved.
The bound in Theorem 21 was improved by Lam and Wei [94] by imposing an
extra condition on the graph.
Recently, Henning and Yeo [87] improved the bound in Theorem 21 for a con-
nected graph G with ı.G/ 2 and .G/ 3 to 12 ..G/ C p/ where p is defined
in terms of the sum of the number of paths having certain specified properties. For
more details, the reader is directed to [87]. The next two results give upper bounds
on the total domination number when the minimum degree is at least 3 or 4, respec-
tively. Note that Theorem 23 can also be regarded as a corollary of Theorem 22.
Theorem 23 ([15, 94, 127]). If G is a graph with ı.G/ 3, then t .G/ 12 .G/.
If the graph under consideration is planar, the next result is an immediate conse-
quence of Theorem 14(i).
Upper bounds on the total domination number have also been established in terms
of the size of the graph ([81,121]), the girth ([47,74,86]), and the size of a maximum
matching ([83, 85]). Bounds in the presence of forbidden subgraphs such as K1;3
([53–55, 85]) have been studied as well.
We now turn our attention to connected domination. A dominating set S for G
is a connected dominating set if GŒS is connected. The minimum cardinality of a
connected dominating set is called the connected domination number of G and is
denoted by c .G/. We call a connected dominating set with cardinality c .G/, a
c .G/-set. Note that since a graph must be connected to have a connected dominat-
ing set, henceforth when referring to connected domination, we assume all graphs
under consideration are connected. It follows directly from the definitions that for a
connected graph G; .G/ c .G/ and if .G/ D 1, then c .G/ D .G/. Further,
a connected dominating set of size at least 2 is a total dominating set for G. Hence,
.G/ t .G/ c .G/ for a connected graph G with .G/ < .G/ 1. It then
follows that for a connected graph G and for k 2 f2; 3g; t .G/ D k if and only if
c .G/ D k.
Connected domination seems to have been studied first by Sampathkumar and
Walikar [118] who attribute the terminology to Hedetniemi (see [71, 72, 77]). The
4 Domination in Graphs 81
Bounds on the connected domination number have been obtained by Duchet and
Meyneil [49] (in terms of the domination number) and by Favaron and Kratsch [56]
(in terms of the total domination number).
Before closing this section, we must mention the famous conjecture on domina-
tion due to Vizing [135] which remains unsettled.
The best bound known in this sense is due to Clark and Suen [41].
Vizing’s conjecture may also be made for total and for connected domination. For
total domination, Ho [88] has established the same bound as that of Clark and Suen.
As far as the authors know, no analogous bound has been established for the con-
nected domination version of Vizing’s conjecture.
k--edge-critical graphs were first studied by Sumner and Blitch [126] in 1983.
Most of their results were concerned with the cases 2 k 3. They gave a char-
acterization of 2- -edge-critical graphs and 3- -edge-critical disconnected graphs
as we show in Theorem 36. Since then the concept of connected k- -edge-critical
graphs for k 3 has received considerable attention. Most of the known results
are confined to the case k D 3. These graphs have been studied with respect to
graph parameters such as toughness and matching, [2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 36] Hamiltonic-
ity [32, 34, 37, 38, 51, 58, 107, 109, 128, 139, 141–143], and more [35, 57, 59, 73, 89,
112, 113, 122, 125, 132, 143]. We do not intend to list all of these results, but give
a brief survey on connected 3- -edge-critical graphs. For k 4, connected k- -
edge-critical graphs are far from completely understood. In fact, even for k D 3, no
characterization of such graphs is known.
The following lemma follows immediately from the definition of k- -edge-
criticality.
Before stating the next result, we need some new notation. If u; v, and w are
vertices of G and fu; vg dominates G w, then we write Œu; v ! w. This so-called
arrow notation made its first appearance in [126]. Note that if G is 3- -edge-critical
and u and v are nonadjacent vertices of G, then .G C uv/ D 2 and so there is a
vertex z 2 V .G/ fu; vg such that Œu; z ! v or Œv; z ! u.
Sumner and Blitch [126] proved the next theorem for the case n 4. The cases
n D 2 and 3 were added by Flandrin et al. [59]. This result is the most useful tool
in studying 3--edge-critical graphs yet available.
Theorem 37 ([59, 126]). Let G be a connected 3- -edge-critical graph and let S
be an independent set of n 2 vertices in V .G/:
(i) Then the vertices of S can be ordered as a1 ; a2 ; : : : ; an in such a way that there
exists a sequence of distinct vertices x1 ; x2 ; : : : ; xn1 so that Œai ; xi ! ai C1
for i D 1; 2; : : : ; n 1.
(ii) If, in addition, n 4, then the xi ’s can be chosen so that x1 ; x2 ; : : : ; xn1 span
a path and S \ fx1 ; x2 ; : : : ; xn1 g D ;.
The next result concerns the diameter and number of components of 3- -edge-
critical graphs.
Theorem 39 ([2, 6, 8]). Let G be a connected 3- -edge-critical graph and let S be
a vertex cutset in G. Then
(i) If jS j 6; !.G S / jS j 2.
(ii) If jS j 4; !.G S / jS j 1.
(iii) If 4 jS j 5 and each component of G S has at least three vertices, then
!.G S / jS j 2.
(iv) If jS j D 3, then !.G S / 3 and if G S has exactly three components,
then each component is complete and at least one of them is a singleton.
(v) If jS j D 2, then !.G S / 3 and if G S has exactly three components,
then G must be the graph shown in Fig. 4.3 with n 2.
(vi) If jS j D 1, then !.G S / D 2 and exactly one of the components of G S
is a singleton. Furthermore, G has at most three cutvertices. If it has two, then
G is a graph of the type shown in Fig. 4.3 with n 2, and if it has three, it is
the graph shown in Fig. 4.3 with n D 1.
4 Domination in Graphs 85
n≥1
We now turn our attention to Hamiltonicity. In 1990, Wojcicka [139] proved that
every connected 3- -edge-critical graph of order at least 7 has a Hamiltonian path.
(A shorter proof was given in 2002 by Zhang and Tian [143].) Wojcicka then posed
the following conjecture.
Part (i) of the above theorem was proved by Favaron et al. [58] and Tian
et al. [128] established part (ii).
The next corollary is a consequence of Wojcicka’s theorem and Remark 2,
together with the observation that if a graph G is Hamiltonian, then .G/ 1.
Recently, Chen and Tian [34] obtained an even simpler proof of Wojcicka’s
theorem by using Hanson’s [68] and Bondy–Chvátal’s [21] closure operations.
A result closely related to Wojcicka’s theorem was proved by Xue and
Chen [141]. They established that if G is a connected 3--edge-critical with
ı.G/ D 1, then G A is Hamiltonian where A D fv 2 V .G/jdG .v/ D 1g.
A graph G is Hamiltonian-connected if every two distinct vertices are joined by
a Hamiltonian path. Chen et al. [37] posed a conjecture similar to that of Wojcicka.
Conjecture 3. A connected 3- -edge-critical graph is Hamiltonian-connected if
and only if .G/ > 1.
This conjecture was proved in a series of four papers [32, 37, 38, 51] by Chen,
Cheng, Ng, Tian, Wei, and Zhang.
The concept of a k-t -edge-critical graph was first introduced by van der Merwe
et al. [130] in 1998. Since t .G/ 2 for any graph G with no isolates, the first
nontrivial case for k-t -edge-critical graphs is k D 2. But it is easy to show that
the only 2-t -edge-critical graphs are the complete graphs Kn with n 2. Most
of the nontrivial results on k-t -edge-critical graphs are concerned with the case
k D 3 and were established by van der Merwe et al. [130, 131, 133, 134], Hanson
and Wang [69], and more recently by Simmons [123].
In [130] van der Merwe et al. showed that the addition of an edge to a graph may
decrease the total domination number of the resulting graph by at most two.
Theorem 42 ([130]). For any edge e 2 E.G/, t .G/ 2 t .G C e/ t .G/.
It then follows that if G is a k-t -edge-critical graph, then for an edge e 2
E.G/; t .G C e/ D k 1 or k 2.
Observe that if G is k-t -edge-critical, then for any pair of nonadjacent vertices
u and v of G, at least one of u and v must be in a minimum total dominating set
for G C uv. Further, if t .G C uv/ D k 2, then u and v share a minimum total
dominating set for G C uv.
A k-t -edge-critical graph G with t .G Ce/ D k 2 for every edge e 2 E.G/ is
called supercritical (cf. [130]). These graphs were characterized by van der Merwe
et al. [131].
Theorem 43 ([131]). A graph G is supercritical if and only if G is the union of
two or more nontrivial complete graphs.
We now turn our attention to 3-t -edge-critical graphs.
Theorem 44 ([130]). Suppose G is a 3-t -edge-critical graph. Then
(i) 2 diam.G/ 3.
(ii) Every vertex of G is adjacent to at most one endvertex.
(iii) G has at most one cutvertex.
4 Domination in Graphs 87
Note that Theorem 44(ii) also holds for k-t -edge-critical graphs for k 3. Further,
it follows by Theorem 44(iii) that no tree is 3-t -edge-critical.
The next two results provide information on 3-t -edge-critical graphs containing
a cutvertex.
Theorem 45 ([130]). Suppose G is a 3-t -edge-critical containing x as a cutver-
tex. Then
(i) x 2 t .G/-set for every t .G/-set of G.
(ii) diam.G/ D 3.
(iii) G x has exactly two components.
(iv) x is adjacent to an endvertex.
Theorem 46 ([130]). Let G be a graph with a pendent edge uv (where v is a cutver-
tex and u an endvertex) and let A D N.v/ fug and B D V .G/ N Œv: Then G is
3-t -edge-critical if and only if:
(i) GŒA is complete and jAj 2.
(ii) GŒB is complete and jBj 2.
(iii) Every vertex in A is adjacent to jBj 1 vertices in B and every vertex in B is
adjacent to at least one vertex in A.
The next corollary follows immediately.
Corollary 4 ([130]). If G is a 3-t -edge-critical with an endvertex u, then
(i) .G/ D 2.
(ii) G u is Hamiltonian.
van der Merwe et al. [130] proved that for any graph G, there is a 3-t -edge-
critical graph H such that G is an induced subgraph of H . Consequently, it is not
possible to characterize 3-t -edge-critical graphs in terms of forbidden subgraphs.
Simmons [123] defined the closure of a 3-t -edge-critical graph G, denoted by
D t .G/, to be the graph obtained from G by adding the edge uv to G for each pair
of nonadjacent vertices u and v if fu; vg dominates G. It was then shown that:
Theorem 47 ([123]). For any 2-connected 3-t -edge-critical graph G; G is
Hamiltonian if and only if D t .G/ is Hamiltonian.
Simmons [123] also established several results for D t .G/ and showed that these
results also hold for G when G is 3-t -edge-critical.
Theorem 48 ([123]). Let G be a 3-t -edge-critical graph and I an independent
set in G with jI j D m 3. Then the vertices in I can be ordered as a1 ; a2 ; : : : ; am
in such a way that there exists a path x1 ; x2 ; : : : ; xm1 in G I where fxi ; ai g is a
minimum total dominating set for G ai C1 for i D 1; 2; : : : ; m 1:
Theorem 49 ([123]). Let G be a 2-connected 3-t -edge-critical graph. If the inde-
pendence number ˛.G/ 3, then ˛.G/ ı.G/C2: Moreover, if ˛.G/ D ı.G/C2,
then every maximum independent set contains all the vertices of degree ı.G/.
88 N. Ananchuen et al.
k-c -edge-critical graphs were first introduced by Chen et al. [33] in 2004. They
gave a characterization of 2-c -edge-critical graphs and provided conditions for
some particular classes of graphs to be critical. They also established some results
concerning the case k D 3, most of which have previous analogues for ordinary
domination critical graphs. Ananchuen [1] studied k-c -edge-critical graphs with
cutvertices and gave a characterization for such graphs when k D 3. Ananchuen
et al. [11] studied matching properties in 3-c -edge-critical graphs as we show in
Sect. 4.5.
The first result in this section shows that the addition of an edge to a graph may
decrease the connected domination number of the resulting graph by at most two.
Thus this result is analogous to Theorem 42 for total domination number.
Theorem 51 ([33]). Let G be a connected graph. For any edge e 2 E.G/; c .G/
2 c .G C e/ c .G/:
It then follows that if G is k-c -edge-critical, then for each e 2 E.G/; c .G C e/ D
k 1 or k 2.
The next result provides a characterization of 2-c -edge-critical graphs.
Theorem
Sn 52 ([33]). A connected graph G is 2-c -edge-critical if and only if G D
i D1 K1;ri for ri 1 and n 2.
By Theorem 36(i), it is easy to see that G is a connected 2- -edge-critical graph
if and only if G is a 2-c -edge-critical graph.
Chen et al. [33] proved that for an integer n 3, no path or tree of order n is
c -edge-critical. Further, neither K1;k , for a positive integer k 2, nor Kr;s , for
maxfr; sg 3, where r and s are positive integers, is c -edge-critical. However,
Cn , a cycle of order n, is c -edge-critical for every integer n 4.
For k D 3, Chen et al. [33] established a bound on the diameter and the number
of components of k-c -edge-critical graphs analogous to Theorem 38. (Just replace
with c .)
Ananchuen [1] studied k-c -edge-critical graphs with cutvertices and established
the following.
Theorem 53 ([1]). For k 3, let G be a k-c -edge-critical graph with a cutver-
tex x. Then
(i) x 2 S for every c .G/-set S of G.
(ii) G x contains exactly two components.
4 Domination in Graphs 89
For 3-c -edge-critical graphs, Ananchuen [1] improved the result of Chen
et al. [33] on a number of components.
One might expect a result analogous to Theorem 39 for 3-c -edge-critical graphs.
But this is not the case. In [1] it was shown that the bound in Theorem 55 is best
possible.
Recall that a graph G is k- -vertex-critical if .G/ D k and .G v/ < k for
each vertex v 2 V .G/. It is not difficult to see, for example, that C3kC1 is .k C 1/-
-vertex-critical. Clearly, a disconnected graph G is -vertex-critical if and only if
each component of G is -vertex-critical. So in the rest of this section, we concern
ourselves with connected graphs only.
The concept of k- -vertex-criticality was first introduced by Brigham et al.
[24,25]. Clearly, the only 1- -vertex-critical graph is K1 . Brigham et al. [25] pointed
out that the 2--vertex-critical graphs are precisely those obtained from the com-
plete graphs K2n by deleting a perfect matching. For k > 2, an understanding of the
structure of k--vertex-critical graphs is far from complete. However, some struc-
tural properties have been established in terms of an upper bound on the order
[24, 25] and the diameter [63, 64].
In what follows, Dv denotes any minimum dominating set for G v. The first
result provides basic properties that have proved very useful in studying k--vertex-
critical graphs.
The next result establishes an upper bound on the order of a k- -vertex-critical
graph.
Fulman et al. [64] showed that the bound in Theorem 57 is best possible. They
also characterized 3- -vertex-critical graphs with diameter 4 and 4- -vertex-critical
graphs with diameter 6 described in Theorem 58. Recall that a block of a graph is a
maximal connected subgraph of G with no cutvertices of itself. An end block of G
is a block containing exactly one cutvertex of G.
Theorem 58 ([64]).
(i) A graph G with diameter 4 is 3- -vertex-critical if and only if G has two blocks,
each of which is 2- -vertex-critical.
(ii) A graph G with diameter 6 is 4- -vertex-critical if and only if it has three
blocks, two of which are end blocks and all of which are 2- -vertex-critical.
They then used the above result and induction to establish the following.
Brigham et al. [24, 25] also used the idea of coalescence to show that any graph
G with .G/ D k 3 can be embedded in a k- -vertex-critical graph. They first
showed that for a given graph G with .G/ 3, there exists a 3--vertex-critical
graph H containing G as an induced subgraph. The graph H can be constructed
as follows. Let V .G/ D fv1 ; v2 ; : : : ; vp g. Note that p 3 since .G/ 3. Now
let V .H / D fv1 ; v2 ; : : : ; vp ; w1 ; w2 ; : : : ; wp ; x1 ; x2 ; : : : ; xp g and E.H / D E.G/ [
fwi xj ; wi vj ; xi vj j1 i; j p and j ¤ i g. It is not difficult to show that H
is 3--vertex-critical. Clearly, if .G/ D k D 3, then H is the required graph in
which G can be embedded. If .G/ D k 3, then they showed that H C3.k3/C1
is the desired graph in which G can be embedded. Note that .H C3.k3/C1 / D
.H / C .C3.k3/C1 / 1 D 3 C .k 2/ 1 D k.
Hence we have the following theorem.
Note that for any graph G, .G [ 2K1 / 3, thus Theorem 61(i) also holds for any
graph G with .G/ < 3.
It follows immediately by Theorem 61 that it is not possible to characterize k- -
vertex-critical graphs in terms of forbidden subgraphs.
A graph is claw-free if it does not contain the graph K1;3 as an induced subgraph.
Ananchuen and Plummer [7] studied the connectivity of claw-free 3--vertex-
critical graphs in terms of minimum degree. They showed that:
We conclude this section by reminding the reader that the concept of vertex
criticality may also be applied to other variations of domination such as distance
domination (see [72] Chap. 12, and [84, 129]), as well as independent domination
[14]. (See also [26–28, 39, 75, 115].)
Observe that a graph containing an isolated vertex cannot be totally dominated with
any vertex set. Similarly, a disconnected graph cannot be dominated by any con-
nected dominating set. Hence, it makes sense to add an extra assumption for a vertex
to be deleted when we want to study vertex deletion with respect to total domination
and connected domination.
92 N. Ananchuen et al.
Goddard et al. [66] also gave an upper bound for the diameter of k-t -vertex-
critical graphs which is sharp for small k.
Finally, they posed several open problems, for example, the characterization of a
k-t -vertex-critical graph G of order .G/.k 1/ C 1 and k C .G/, respectively.
These two problems were addressed by Mojdeh and Rad [105, 106] and more
recently by Wang et al. [136].
We now turn our attention to k-c -vertex-critical graphs. It is easy to see that the
only 1-c -vertex-critical graph is K1 and the 2-c -vertex-critical graphs are obtained
from the even complete graphs K2n , with n 2, by deleting a perfect matching.
For k 3, the structure of k-c -vertex-critical graphs is much more complicated.
k-c -vertex-critical graphs were studied in [12, 13], where most of the results are
concerned with 3-c -vertex-critical graphs. Some basic properties of 3-c -vertex-
critical graphs especially with respect to connectivity are established which were
used to study matching properties in 3-c -vertex-critical graphs as we show in the
next section. The following result is analogous to Lemma 3(i, ii, iv).
In the case when G is exactly 3-connected, we can say more about its structure.
Go G⬘o
Kn Kn Kn Kn
(Kn + Kn) - perfect matching (Kn + Kn)-perfect matching
G1 G2
Recall that a perfect matching in a graph G is a matching that covers all of the
vertices of G while a near-perfect matching is a matching that covers all but one of
the vertices of G.
A graph G is k-factor-critical if and only if for every set S V .G/ with jS j D k,
the graph G S contains a perfect matching. Note that if G is k-factor-critical then
.G/ k.mod 2/. k-factor-critical graphs are called factor-critical if k D 1 and
bicritical if k D 2. Factor critical and bicritical graphs play an important role in a
canonical decomposition theory for arbitrary graphs in term of their matchings. The
interested reader is referred to [101] for much more on this subject.
In this section, we are concerned with the existence of a perfect matching, a near-
perfect matching, and being k-factor-critical for the classes of 3-P -edge-critical
graphs and 3-P -vertex-critical graphs where P 2 f; c g.
Theorem 69 (Tutte’s theorem (see [22] page 76)). A graph G has a perfect
matching if and only if !o .G S / jS j, for all S V .G/.
By combining Theorem 38(ii) and Tutte’s theorem, the first part of Theorem 70
below follows immediately for P D . This was established by Sumner and
Blitch [126]. For P D c ; Chen et al. [33] also established a result similar to
Theorem 38(ii). So the first part of Theorem 70 also holds for P D c ; (see [33]).
The second part of Theorem 70 was established in [3] for P D and in [11] for
P D c :
Theorem 70 ([3, 11, 33, 126]). For P 2 f; c g, let G be a connected 3-P -edge-
critical graph. Then
(i) If .G/ is even, G contains a perfect matching.
(ii) If .G/ is odd, G contains a near-perfect matching.
Sufficient conditions for 3- -edge-critical graphs to be k-factor-critical for
k D 1; 2; 3 are presented next.
Theorem 71 ([3, 10]). Suppose G is a 3- -edge-critical graph.
(i) If G is 2-connected of odd order, then G is factor-critical.
(ii) Suppose further that G is 3-connected of even order and if G is either planar
or having minimum degree at least 4, then G is bicritical.
(iii) If G is 4-connected of odd order and ı.G/ 5, then G is 3-factor-critical.
The next theorem shows that the hypotheses on both the connectivity and min-
imum degree in Theorem 71 can be relaxed if the graph under consideration is
claw-free.
Theorem 72 ([3,10]). Suppose G is a 3- -edge-critical claw-free graph. Then, for
k 2 f2; 3g, if G is k-connected with ı.G/ k C 1 and .G/ k.mod2/, then G is
k-factor-critical.
In [10] it was conjectured that Theorem 72 holds for k 2. The following
conjecture was also posed.
Conjecture 4. Suppose G is a graph with k 2 and suppose k 1 and .G/ have
the same parity. Then if G is k-connected and 3- -edge-critical with ı.G/ k C 1,
G is .k 1/-factor-critical.
Now we turn our attention to sufficient conditions for 3-c -edge-critical graphs
to be k-factor-critical graphs for k D 1; 2; 3.
Theorem 73 ([11]). Suppose G is a 3-c -edge-critical graph.
(i) If .G/ D 2n C 1 5 and ı.G/ 2, then G is factor-critical.
(ii) If G is 3-connected with .G/ D 2n 8 and ı.G/ n1, then G is bicritical.
(iii) If G is 4-connected of odd order and K1;4 -free, then G is 3-factor-critical.
Note that the above minimum degree requirement of 3-c -edge-critical graphs to
be bicritical is much stronger than that for 3- -edge-critical graphs. However, this
bound is sharp and it cannot be lowered even if the connectivity is increased.
96 N. Ananchuen et al.
From the point of view of matchings, the properties of 3-P -vertex-critical graphs,
for P 2 f; c g, differ quite dramatically from those of the 3-P -edge-critical graphs.
For example, by Theorem 70, every connected even 3-P -edge-critical graph must
have a perfect matching and every connected odd 3-P -edge-critical graph must have
a near-perfect matching. These conclusions do not hold for general 3-P -vertex-
critical graphs as shown below.
We first present an infinite family Hk;.k/k of 3--vertex-critical graphs (see [4])
2
and an infinite family Jk of 3-c -vertex-critical graphs (see [12]).
Let k be any positive integer with k 5. We proceed to construct the graph
which we call Hk;.k/k . The vertex set consists of two disjoint subsets of vertices
2
called central and peripheral, respectively. Let fv1 ; v2 ; : : : ; vk g denote the set of
central vertices. The subgraph induced by these central vertices will be the complete
graph Kk with the Hamiltonian cycle v1 v2 vk v1 deleted. The peripheral vertices
will be k2 k in number and will be denoted by the symbol fi; j g where the
(unordered) pair fi; j g (i ¤ j ) ranges over all the k2 k subsets of size 2 of the
set 1; : : : ; k, except those having j D i C 2 where i C 2 is read modulo k. The
neighbor set of peripheral vertex fi; j g will be precisely the set of all central
vertices, except i and j . There are no edges joining pairs of peripheral vertices.
Let k 6 be a positive integer. We construct the graph Jk as follows. Let the
integers 1; 2; : : : ; k span a complete k-graph with the Hamiltonian cycle 12 k1
removed. These k vertices are called central vertices. Consider a second set of k.k
3/=2 k peripheral vertices labeled with unordered pairs of distinct integers
fi; j g, 1 i < j k, except for exactly those pairs of the form fi; i C 1g and
fi; i C 2g modulo k. Now join the pair labeled fi; j g to all central vertices except
i and j . Figure 4.6 shows graphs H6;9 and J6 , respectively.
It is not difficult to see that the graphs Hk;.k/k for k 6 and Jk for k 8 do
2
not contain a perfect (or near-perfect) matching. Hence, 3-P -vertex-critical graphs,
for P 2 f; c g, need not have a perfect (or near-perfect) matching. So what might
be some reasonable conditions one might place on a 3-P -vertex-critical graph suf-
ficient to guarantee the existence of a perfect (or near-perfect) matching? One of
the classical theorems about matching is the following, due independently to Sum-
ner [124] and Las Vergnas [95].
Theorem 74 ([95, 124]). Every connected claw-free graph of even order has a
perfect matching.
~{1, 4}
~{3, 4} ~{4, 5}
1 ~{1, 4}
6 2
1
~{2, 3} ~{5, 6}
6 2
5 3
4 5 3
~{2, 5} ~{3, 6}
4
~{1, 2} ~{1, 6} ~{2, 5} ~{3, 6}
H6, 9 J6
Fig. 4.6 The 3--vertex-critical graph H6;9 and the 3-c -vertex-critical graph J6
Wang and Yu [137] showed that Conjecture 5(ii) is true with two small excep-
tions.
If a 3- -vertex critical graph is also claw-free, more can be said. The following
theorem due independently to Favaron et al. [52] and to Liu and Yu [99] is use-
ful here.
We now turn our attention to 3-c -vertex-critical graphs. We saw above that 3-c -
vertex-critical graphs need not contain a perfect (or near-perfect) matching. Suffi-
cient conditions for 3-c -vertex-critical graphs to contain a perfect (or near-perfect)
98 N. Ananchuen et al.
matching are given in the following theorem. This theorem can be considered as
another variation of Theorem 74.
So what are the possible future directions in the study of domination? Domination
and its many variations form a vast subject. Already two entire books have been
written on the subject [71,72]. And since their publication in 1998, nearly 1000 new
research papers on domination have appeared in scientific journals worldwide! It is
therefore beyond the scope of this chapter to speculate individually on the future
of all these variants. Certainly, with much of the world preoccupied with security
issues these days, domination in all its forms will attract ever more attention.
It seems clear that on the applied side, researchers will continue to classify
domination problems confined to special classes of graphs as to whether they are
polynomially solvable or NP-complete. In Chap. 8 of [72], chapter author Kratsch
provides a nice table of algorithmic complexity results for five of the more widely
studied variants of domination as applied to 15 different special classes of graphs.
His table will no doubt continue to be enlarged.
On the theoretical side, many unsolved problems will no doubt continue to oc-
cupy the efforts of researchers. In closing, we mention just two of our favorites. The
first is the study of well-dominated graphs; i.e., those graphs in which every minimal
dominating set is minimum. Graphs in this class have a trivially polynomial proce-
dure to determine their domination number, namely the greedy algorithm. Clearly,
one can decide in polynomial time if a graph is not well-dominated; just exhibit
4 Domination in Graphs 99
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Chapter 5
Spectrum and Entropy for Infinite
Directed Graphs
Abstract From the viewpoint of operator theory, we discuss spectral properties for
infinite directed graphs that have bounded valences. Graphs may have selfloops, but
they are assumed not to have multiedges. Note that we use the transpose adjacency
operator throughout this chapter by reason of this viewpoint. As a subsidiary effect,
one may read this as a visual introduction to operator theory.
In this chapter, we observe spectral properties for infinite directed graphs and dis-
cuss entropies for them from the viewpoint of operator theory. First we give an
exact definition of the adjacency operator for an infinite directed graph and then
its representation by the Shatten operator also called dyad. In Sect. 5.2, we give in-
variants for graphs related to their spectra, e.g., the spectral radii, numerical ones,
and norms. These are monotone increasing quantities as graphs are growing. Also,
coloring problems for directed graphs are closely related to locations for spectra
in the complex plane. In Sect. 5.3, we introduce various products for two graphs
and discuss these spectral invariants. In Sect. 5.4, we consider (infinite) directed
trees, which are often generated by (finite) graphs. Infinite (generating) directed
trees are interesting objects related to other mathematical ones, e.g., Fibonacci se-
quences, self-similar fractals or entropies. Based on this consideration, we introduce
two types of entropies for graphs. In infinite graphs, the topological entropy differs
from the spectral entropy although these coincide for finite graphs. In an extreme
case, the former is twice as large as the latter. As an application for graphs in the
last section, we use Ziv’s entropy and show a source coding theorem which is a
generalization of Ziv’s one.
For a directed graph G with the vertices V .G/ of G, an arrow (or arc) from u to v
is denoted by .u; v/ or u ! v and the set of all arrows by E D E.G/. We exclude
multigraphs here and V .G/ is countable. The set of vertices V D V .G/ corresponds
to an orthonormal basis fev g of a (complex) Hilbert space
( ˇ )
X ˇ X
ˇ
H D `2 .V .G// D `2 .G/ D x D xv ev ˇ jxv j2 < 1
ˇ
v2V v2V
sX
P
with the inner product hx; yi D v2V xv yv and the norm kxk D jxv j2 .
v2V
Following Mohar’s adjacency operator for undirected graphs in [20], Fujii et al. [12]
defined the adjacency operator A D A.G/ for a directed graph G as the closed
operator with the domain
8 ˇ ˇ ˇ 9
< X ˇ X ˇ X ˇ2 =
ˇ ˇ ˇ
Dom A D xD xv ev 2 H ˇ ˇ xv ˇ < 1
: ˇ ˇ v!u ˇ ;
v2V u2V
Here we remark that this definition is not a usual adjacency operator but its trans-
pose. If A.G/ is selfadjoint (or transpose invariant), then G is considered as an
undirected graph. Define the outdegree d C .v/ (resp. indegree d .v/) for a vertex v
as the cardinal number of the arrows from (resp. to) v. It is easy to see that
X X
d C .v/ D kAev k D 1 and d .v/ D kA ev k D 1:
u v u!v
1 1 1 2
For example, is the adjacency operator for the graph ı ı and
0 0
shows
X X X X
kA.G/xk2 D j xv j2 5 d .u/ jxv j2
u2V v!u u2V v!u
XX X
2
5k jxv j D k d .v/jxv j2
C
so that kA.G/k 5 k. Conversely suppose G does not have any finite valency. We
may assume that for any N there exists evN with d C .evN / > N . Then
Throughout this chapter, we assume G has a bounded valency; that is, A.G/ is a
bounded operator. So we define the norm of the graph G by kGk D kA.G/k. Since
A.G/ D tA.G/ is the adjacency operator for the converse directed graph for G,
the graph G denotes it.
Finally in this section, we give a representation of A.G/. Each arrow .u; v/ is
expressed as a dyad ev ˝ eu for u; v 2 V .G/, where .ev ˝ eu /x D hx; eu iev for
x 2 H. Then the adjacency operator A.G/ of G has a dyadic representation
!
XX X
A.G/ eu ˝ ev D eu ˝ ev in short ;
u2V v!u v!u
The spectrum is a nonempty closed set and included by W .G/, the closure of W .G/,
which is convex (the Toeplitz–Hausdorff theorem). If the closed convex hull of .A/
coincides with W .A/, then A is called convexoid. Recall G is normally symmetric
if G satisfies
˚ ˇ ˚ ˇ
u 2 V .G/ ˇ v ! u; w ! u 2 E.G/ D u 2 V .G/ ˇ v u; w u 2 E.G/ :
Then we can show as in [12] that G is normally symmetric if and only if A.G/
is normal; i.e., A.G/ A.G/ D A.G/A.G/ . Thus normally symmetric (and hence
undirected) graphs are convexoid. An example for convexoid graphs which is not
normally symmetric is the backward shift U , which is discussed in the preced-
ing paragraph of Theorem 3. Moreover, the following relations are well known in
operator theory:
holds for all operators, the numerical radius determines an equivalent norm to the
usual one.
5 Spectrum and Entropy for Infinite Directed Graphs 109
v w
Example 1. Take a nilpotent graph N2 W ı ! ı with the adjacency matrix
A.N2 / D ew ˝ ev . The term “nilpotent” is derived from the property
A.N /2 D O (We discuss a general case later around Theorem 9). Then
1
r.N2 / D 0; w.N2 / D and kN2 k D kev kkew k D 1:
2
Another typical example that shows the difference between finite and infi-
nite graphs is given by Mohar and Woess [21]: A graph G is called k-regular
if d ˙ .v/ D k for all v 2 V .G/. If G is finite, then r.G/ D k [3]. But it
does not hold for the following tree, which motivated us to study entropies for
graphs.
First we observe properties for the spectrum and the numerical range in the com-
plex plane [13, 14].
Theorem 1. The spectrum .G/ and the numerical range W .G/ of a graph G are
symmetric with respect to the real axis.
P
Proof. For a unit vector x, we put its conjugate x D v xv ev . Then, for D
hA.G/x; xi 2 W .G/, via dyadic representation, we have
X X XX
D xv xw heu ; ew i D xv xu ;
v;w2V v!u v2V v!u
and hence
XX
D xv xu D hA.G/x; xi 2 W .G/:
v2V u v
Similarly we can show .G/ is symmetric. Since .G/ D .G/ [ .G /, we have
.G/ is also symmetric. t
u
Recall that G is called a bipartite graph if V .G/ can be divided into two disjoint
sets V0 and V1 such that there is no arrow between two vertices in the same set.
More generally, if V .G/ can be divided into m disjoint sets Vk .k D 0; : : : ; m 1/
such that all the arrows from Vk strike in V.kC1/ mod m , then G is called cyclically
m-partite.
Example 3. The following graph is cyclically 3-partite:
8
ˆ
~ }!~ } ! ~ <} 2 V0
ˆ
# % # - # % # - # ~ 2 V1
ˆ
~! ~ ! :̂ 2 V
2
Theorem 2. The spectrum .G/ and the numerical range W .G/ of a cyclically
m-partite graph G are invariant under the 2
m
-rotation in the complex plane.
H `2 .V / D `2 .V0 / ˚ ˚ `2 .Vm1 /;
we may assume that the adjacency operator is of the form for adjacency suboperators
Aj on `2 .Vj /:
0 1
O Am1
BA0 O O C
B C
A.G/ D B : : :: C :
@ :: :: : A
O Am2 O
Then, for a unit vector x D .xk / 2 `2 .V0 / ˚ ˚ `2 .Vm1 /, we have
Corollary 1. The spectrum and the numerical range of a bipartite graph are
symmetric at the origin.
Next we see the radii of graphs. It is known that the spectrum is closed but the
numerical range is not: For example, let U be the backward shift graph
ı ı ı ı :
Then W .U / is open unit disc [18, Sol. 168(2)] and .U / is the closed one [18,
Sol. 67], and therefore w.U / D 1 … W .U /. In this case, r.U / D 1 2 .U /,
which implies .U / 6 W .U / and .A/ W .A/ holds for all operators A. In
general, the statements r.A/ 2 .A/ and w.A/ 2 W .A/ are false. But r.G/ 2 .G/
and w.G/ 2 W .G/ hold for any graphs G as we later. We show in [14] the former,
which is a natural infinite
P version of the Perron–Frobenius
P theorem. To see the latter,
for a unit vector x D v xv ev , define jxj D v jxv jev . Then
jhA.G/x; xij 5 hA.G/jxj; jxji and jxj D 1:
where kxk C kyk = kŒx; yk = maxfkxk; kykg hold. For A 2 B.H/, define AQ on
Q y D ŒAx; Ay. Then the map A 7! AQ is an isometrical isomorphism and
B by AŒx;
Q Then we have
hence r.A/ D r.A/.
Lemma 1. For a complex number with jj > r.G/ for some graph G,
Proof of Theorem 3. We have only to show the results on the spectral radius. Sup-
pose r D r.G/ … .G/. Put A D A.G/. For re i t 2 .A/ D .A/, Q take positive
numbers frn g # r and a vector z 2 B with
Q 1 zk D 1
lim k.rn e i t A/
n!1
via the uniform boundedness theorem. Here we can take positive vectors v; w; x; y
with z D Œv w; x y. In fact, take positive vectors xk and yk with
we also have
lim k.tn A/1 yk D 1:
n!1
5 Spectrum and Entropy for Infinite Directed Graphs 113
Take unit vectors xn D .tn A/1 y=k.tn A/1 yk. It follows that
Proof. For nonnegative unit vector x, we have 0 5 hA.G 0 /x; xi 5 hA.G/x; xi and
Thus the numerical radius and the norm are monotone increasing. So is the spectral
radius by
Although one might conjecture that r.G/ (or else) is approximated by finite span-
ning subgraphs Gn , it is false: Consider the unilateral shift graph:
U W ı ! ı ! ı ! :
Then all the finite subgraphs of U are nilpotent, and r.U / D 1. But Y. Seo gave the
following interesting example in [15] which has the approximating finite subgraphs
slightly related to Chebyshev polynomials Tn with Tn .cos x/ D cos nx. (We give
another proof here based on Seo’s idea.)
Example 4. Let an infinite graph G be
1 3 5 2n 1
ı ı ı ı
GW l l l l
ı!ı! ı ! ı !
2 4 6 2n :
114 J.I. Fujii
Then we have
0 1 0 1
01 10 1 000
B1 0 000 C B0 220 C
B C B C
B0 0 011 C B0 220 0 C
B C B C
B C B 0C
A.G/ D B0 1 100 C and A.G/ A.G/ D B0 002 2 C;
B C B C
B0 0 000 C B0 002 2 0C
B :: C B :: C
@0 0 011 :A @0 000 0 :A
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::
: : : 00 : : : : 0 0 :
p
which shows r.G/ 5 kGk D kA.G/ A.G/k D 2. Take corresponding finite
graphs for each natural numbers n:
1 3 5 2n 1
ı ı ı ı
Gn W l l l l
ı! ı!ı! ı
2 4 6 2n :
we can expand Sn :
Sn .x/ D x 2 Sn1 .x/ Rn .x/:
It follows that
and consequently
Sn .x/ x 2 Sn1 .x/ C x 2 Sn2 D 0:
Putting
p
x 2 C i 4x 2 x 4
D ;
2
which is a solution of t 2 x 2 t C x 2 D 0, we have
n n .n n /.x 2 1/
Sn .x/ D S1 .x/ D p :
i 4x 2 x 4
4 cos2 n 1
Sn 2 cos D 2nC1 cosn .sin / D 0:
n n 2i sin 2
n
2 cos 5 r.Gn / 5 r.GnC1 / 5 5 r.G/ 5 2 D lim 2 cos ;
n n!1 n
If V .G/ D V .G 0 /, then the product A.G/A.G 0 / (in particular, A.G/n ) makes sense,
but it does not always represent the adjacency operator of some graph in discourse.
This usual product is discussed in the next section. Here we investigate some “prod-
ucts” for graphs.
First we introduce the tensor product for graphs [10]. The tensor product `2 .V / ˝
` .W / for Hilbert spaces `2 .V / and `2 .W / can be defined as `2 .V W / where
2
.A ˝ B/.x ˝ y/ D Ax ˝ By;
which is an extension of the Kronecker product for matrices. It follows from the
definition
.A ˝ B/.C ˝ D/ D AB ˝ CD:
It is known that
Note that W .A ˝ B/ W .A/W .B/ and the equality does not always hold. In
fact, let
0 1 0 0
AD ; B D tA D :
0 0 1 0
˚ ˇ
Then W .A/ D W .B/ D W .A ˝ B/ D ˇjj 5 1=2 . In particular,
1 1
w.A/w.B/ D < D w.A ˝ B/;
4 2
and r.A ˝ B/ D r.A/r.B/. Indeed,
1 2 3
U W ı ! ı ! ı ! r.U / D 1
Since
A.S C.2// D ev ˝ ev C ev ˝ ew C ew ˝ ev C ew ˝ ew ;
we have
1
X
A.S C.2/˝U / D ev.kC1/ ˝ evk Cev.kC1/ ˝ ewk Cew.kC1/ ˝ evk Cew.kC1/ ˝ ewk
kD1
where the new vertices vk are determined by evk D ev ˝ ek . Thus the tensor product
S C.2/ ˝ U is
v1 v2 v3 v4
ı ! ı ! ı ! ı
S C.2/ ˝ U W %
& % & % & r S C.2/ ˝ U D 2 :
ı ! ı ! ı ! ı
w1 w2 w3 w4
In general, we have r S C.n/ ˝ U D n.
Next we mention the Hadamard (Schur) product for graphs. Let G and H be
infinite directed graphs with V .G/ D V .H /. Then the Hadamard product G
H is
defined by A.G/
A.H /;
hA.G/
A.H /ev ; ew i D hA.G/ev ; ew ihA.H /ev ; ew i:
A.G/
A.H / D U .A.G/ ˝ A.H //U;
kG
H k 5 kGk; kH k; r.G
H / 5 r.G/; r.H / and w.G
H / 5 w.G/; w.H /:
for all bounded operators. But, even for graphs G and H , the operator A.G/ ˝ I C
I ˝ A.H / is not always the adjacency one of some graph. Here we adopt Mohar’s
term [21]: A graph G is called simple if there is no selfloop.
Then, for simple graphs G and H , the graph G ˚ H defined by
is called the Cartesian product. Although the Cartesian product can be defined for
all simple graphs, we also define it for graphs if (5.3) determines some graph. In the
case of Example 5, we have:
Example 6. Although the shift U in Example 5 is simple, a supercomplete graph
S C.n/ is not. But the Cartesian product S C.2/ ˚ U can be defined as
ı ! ı ! ı ! ı
S C.2/ ˚ U W l l l l r S C.2/ ˚ U D 3
ı ! ı ! ı ! ı
The definition (5.3) implies r S C.n/ ˚ U D n C 1 in general.
In general, spectral relations for the Cartesian products for simple graphs are:
Theorem 6. For simple graphs G and H , the following hold:
and
and the reversed inequality is the triangle one, so that we have the equality. Other
relations are clear. t
u
For simple undirected graphs, Mohar and Woess [21] introduced the NEPS (i.e.,
the noncomplete extended p-sum) which is a general concept including tensor and
Cartesian products. We extend it to the directed case in [10]: Let C be a nonempty
subset of the two-dimensional binary space f0; 1g2 . For simple graphs G and H , the
NEPS G H is defined as the graph with vertices V D V .G/ V .H / satisfying
C
X
A.G H / D A.G/c1 ˝ A.H /c2 (5.4)
C
.c1 ;c2 /2C
and X
r.G H / D r.G/c1 r.H /c2 :
C
.c1 ;c2 /2C
where e is newly added as the empty word. The empty word means ev D ve D e for
all vertices v and the original roots ek are identified with e. Define the edge by
˚
E D fvu; v0 ug j fv; v0 g 2 [j E.Gj /; u; vu; v0 u 2 V :
120 J.I. Fujii
If the length ` of each word in E is restricted to ` 5 m for some m, then the free
product is called an m-free one. (for details, see [1]).
All these notions can be extended to the directed case; for example, the above E
is redefined by
˚
E D fvu; v0 ug j v ! v0 2 [j E.Gj /; u; vu; v0 u 2 V ;
so that we have the definition of the free product for directed rooted graphs. Here
we give each example for directed graphs. Let
ı v2
%
H W ı and G W ı ! ı
w eH eG v1 &
ı v3 ;
then we have
and
v2 w ı ı ! wv2
- %
2-free product ı ı ! ı ! wv1
v1 w
. &
ı ı ! wv3 :
v3 w
To see the spectral structure of graphs, we consider directed trees and paths. Here
a k-path from v to w in G means a set of connected k arrows from v to w in
G whose existence corresponds to the .v; w/-element of A.G/k . If A.G/k deter-
mines some graph, then G is called k-powerable (for k D 2, squarable). If A.G/ is
k-idempotent (i.e., A.G/k D A.G/) or k-nilpotent (i.e., A.G/k D O), then G is
k-powerable. The permutation graphs and shift ones are k-powerable for all k 2 R.
Algebraic operators, such as idempotent and nilpotents, have a specific spectral
property: Equation p.A/ D O implies p./ D 0 for 2 .A/ by the spectral
mapping theorem. Thus, for k-idempotent (resp. nilpotent) A, we have
5 Spectrum and Entropy for Infinite Directed Graphs 121
n ˇ o
2 ij ˇ
.A/ e k1 ˇ j D 1; : : : ; k 1 [ f0g .resp. .A/ D f0g/ ;
and hence r.A/ D 1 (resp. 0). Moreover it has a standard block matrix form
I T O T
AD resp. ;
O O O O
so that we have
˚ ˇ ˚ ˇ
W .A/ D 1 C hT y; xi ˇ kxk2 C kyk2 D 1 resp. hT y; xi ˇ kxk2 C kyk2 D 1
p
kT k kT k
w.A/ D 1 C resp. and kAk D 1 C kT k2 .resp. kT k/ :
2 2
where Rk1 is the k 1-dimensional cyclic permutation and 1k1 (resp. 0k1 )
is the k 1-dimensional column (resp. row) vector with entries 1 (resp. 0). Then
p
1C k1
p
r.Ik / D 1, w.Ik / D 2
and kIk k D k. These graphs are:
a a a
j I3 a I4 I5 @I
I2 a
6 ]
J @ a 6
S
a J
6 a
/
- wa
S
HH J ? @
a a
j a
- a -Ra
@
2 4 6
satisfies Uf2k g Uf2 k g D diag.0; 2 ; 2 ; 2 ; : : :/ and thereby
n.n1/
1 n
kUf2 k g k D 2 and k.Uf2 k g / k D 2
2 :
It follows that
n1
n 1=n
r.Uf2 k g / D lim k.Uf2k g / k D lim 2 2 D 0:
n!1 n!1
Thus the quasinilpotent operator is not always nilpotent. Nevertheless all quasi-
nilpotent graphs are nilpotent and r.G/ … .0; 1/ for all graphs G.
Theorem 9. The following statements are equivalent: (i) G is nilpotent, (ii) G is
quasinilpotent, and (iii) r.G/ < 1.
Proof. It suffices to show (iii) implies (i). In fact, suppose that r.G/ < 1. Then there
exists n with kA.G/n k < 1. Since all the entries of A.G/n are nonnegative integers,
its norm is not less than 1 unless it is a zero operator. Thus A.G/n must be zero; that
is, G is nilpotent. t
u
Next we consider trees generated by a graph. Here a .mono/ rooted tree means
a nontrivial directed tree graph G with a unique origin; that is, a graph G with the
valency k has no selfloops and there is a vertex v0 called the origin such that
Thus, the minimum graph in the rooted trees is ı ! ı. Note also that a rooted tree
T is not normally symmetric but k-powerable for all k. Note that we can take T 0
naturally with A.T 0 / D A.T /2 and V .T 0 / D V .T /, which is denoted by T 2 . Then
we have that T 2 is a rooted tree again and so is T n for each n.
5 Spectrum and Entropy for Infinite Directed Graphs 123
For a rooted tree T , let T ŒnI v be the number of n-paths starting from the vertex v.
C C
In particular, T Œn denotes T ŒnI v0 . Thus, T ŒnI v D d.n/ .v/ where d.n/ is the degree
n
function in T . So we can obtain the norm, the spectral radius, and afterwards the
(prototype of) entropy of a rooted tree.
Proof. Since d .v/ 1 except v0 , then A.T / A.T / is the diagonal matrix
diag.d C.v1 /; d C .v2 /; /, so that we obtain the formula for norm kT k. Thereby
p n1
1 1
r.T / D lim kT n k n D lim max T ŒnI v D lim max T ŒnI v 2n : u
t
n!1 n!1 v2V n!1 v2V
Example 8. Let Tk be the (rooted) k-regular .directed/ tree, that is, a rooted tree
with d C .v/ k. The 1-regular treep
T1 is also called the unilateral shift and denoted
also by U . Then we have r.Tk / D k.
In this tree Fc , d C .v/ D k except the vertices that are the terminals of paths from
the origin whose lengths are c.n/ 1. For j with 0 < j 5 c.n/ c.n 1/, we have
log Fc Œc.n/ j .c.n/ c.n 1/ j / log k c.n 1/
D D 1 log k
c.n/ j c.n/ j c.n/ j
c.n 1/ log Fc Œc.n/ 1
5 1 log k D :
c.n/ 1 c.n/ 1
It follows that
log Fc Œn log Fc Œc.n/ 1 c.n 1/
lim sup D lim sup D 1 lim sup log k:
n!1 n n!1 c.n/ 1 n!1 c.n/ 1
1
H0 .T / D lim sup log T Œn;
n!1 n
For a rooted tree T with the valency k, it holds for any n that T Œn 5 Tk Œn D k n .
So we have an upper bound of H0 .T / by Example 9 and a lower bound.
For a nontrivial directed graph G with the valency k and a fixed vertex w in G,
define the free-generating tree T .GI w/ as the rooted tree satisfying (T0 )–(T2 ).
(T0 ) There is a surjection ˚ from V .T .GI w// onto V .G/,
(T1 ) d C .v/ D d C .˚.v// for all v 2 V .T .GI w//,
(T2 ) ˚.v0 / D w for the origin v0 of T .GI w/.
For the sake of convenience, we identify v0 with w. All the directed paths in
T .GI w/ correspond one-to-one to those in G via ˚. Thus, the number of the
n-paths from w in G is exactly T .GI w/Œn. For example:
Example 10. For all the following graphs Gk , the free-generating rooted tree
T .Gk I v/ for any vertex v is a unilateral shift U :
G1 W ı G2 W ı ı G3 W ı !ı G4 W ı ! ı
ı
G5 W . - G6 W ı ! ı ! ı G7 D U W ı ! ı ! ı ! :
ı ! ı
Example 11. For the homogeneous k-regular undirected tree Uk (i.e., d ˙ .v/ k),
the free-generating tree T .Uk I v/ is the k-regular tree Tk for all v.
Example 12. Consider a rooted tree G D T2;4 defined as the star product graph for
ı ! T2 and ı ! T4 attaching to the root to each tree T2 and T4 :
e1 e2
v0
T2;4 W ı
. &
T2 T4
we have
anC1 D an C an1 :
126 J.I. Fujii
Then, the initial vector t.a0 ; a1 / D t.1; 1/ yields the above sequences (5.5).
Moreover, by the Jordan decomposition, we have
0 p n 1
1 5 p
1 2p 2p @ 2 0 1 C 5 2
n
A D p p n A p
4 5 1 5 1C 5 0 1C 5
2
51 2
which shows
0p !nC1 p !nC1 1
1 @ 1C 5 1 5 A:
an D p
5 2 2
But it is not easy to see that the above graph G gives (5.5). So we consider the free-
generating tree of T D T .GI v0 /. (To make it easy, we label and color vertices.)
GW ı ! :
v0 v1
Then (5.5) appears as each number an of the nth node vertices in T and the relation
between G and the Fibonacci sequence is visually clear.
v0 d 1
?
t 1
v1
t 9 d? 2
t
) d? ?
t 3
t ?
d ?
t
t ?
d 5
t ?
d t? t ?
d t ?
d t? 8
t ?
d ?
t t ?
d t ?
d ?
t t ?
d ?
t t ?
d 13
Thereby, we have
1
H0 .T .GI v0 // D lim sup log an
n!1 n
0 p !nC1 p !nC1 11=n
1=n
1
D lim sup log p @ 1C 5
1 5 A
n!1 5 2 2
p !.nC1/=n p
1C 5 1C 5
D lim log D log :
n!1 2 2
5 Spectrum and Entropy for Infinite Directed Graphs 127
Thus we have the logarithm of the golden ratio. This gives us much information to
consider entropies for infinite directed graphs.
Based on the preceding section, we define two entropies of graphs. First, according
to the case of finite graphs, we defined an entropy h.G/ for a graph G.
This entropy for finite graphs was observed again as the complexity in the sense
of Kolmogorov by Fujii, Nakamura, Seo, and Watatani [16]. (This is extended to the
complexity for positive operators in [8].)
loghA.G/n u; ui
h.G/ D lim
n!1 n
0 1
1
B :: C
where u D @ : A. Here, for each natural number n, the number
1
an .G/ D hA.G/n u; ui
is called the Schwarz constant for G and is equal to the number of n-paths in G.
To consider the distribution of spectral entropies for graphs, we give the following
example.
Example 14. For k = 2, n = 1, there exist finite graphs fGn .k/g with r.Gn .k// D
k 1=n . For example, for the cyclic permutation U.n/ with n vertices, i.e.,
0 1
0 0 0 1
B1 0
B 0C C
n1
X B :: :: C
A.U.n// D Rn D e.kC1/ mod n ˝ ek D B
B0 1 : :CC;
kD0 B: :: C
@ :: : 0A
0 0 1 0
let Gn .k/ be a graph including exactly k U.n/’s as subgraphs with only one common
vertex called the center, as in the following examples, see Fig. 5.2.
128 J.I. Fujii
b
G2 .2/ G3 .2/ b b G4 .2/
b
b @
Ib
6 AA
U
kD2 ?
b b @
R b
6 b @Ib
1 1 1
r D2 r D2 r D2
A
KA
2
?
3 4
b
b - b @
R b
b? A
KA
1 1
r D 33 rD3 4
b - b @
R b
G2 .3/ G3 .3/ G4 .3/
by replacing m with mn n C 1.
Considering the tensor products for the above examples, we have the distribution
for the spectral radii or entropies for graphs by Theorem 5.
Theorem 11. The entropies h.G/ for graphs G are densely distributed in the half-
line Œ0; 1/.
Examples 12–14 suggest another entropy for graphs as in [5]. Let an .v/ be the
number of n-paths in G started from the vertex v:
X
an .v/ D hA.G/n ev ; eu i:
u2V .G/
5 Spectrum and Entropy for Infinite Directed Graphs 129
log an .v/
H.G/ D sup lim :
v2V .G/ n!1 n
Thus, T .GI v/Œn1=n 5 kAn k2=n ! r.G/2 for all v, hence H.G/ 5 2h.G/.
To show h.G/ D log r.G/ 5 H.G/, put A D A.G/, B D A , and r D
r.G/ D r.A/ D r.B/. Theorem 3 shows there exist unit positive approximate
proper vectors fxn g of r for B such that kzn k 5 1=.nk n1 / where zn D .B r/xn .
Here we may assume that there is a vertex v with ı infn hev ; xn i > 0. Putting
˛n D ..An1 C rAn2 C C r n1 /ev ; zn /; we have
X X
T .G W v/Œn D hAn ev ; ew i D hev ; B n ew i
w2V w2V
D r n hev ; xn i C ˛n = ır n C ˛n :
1 1
H.G/ = lim sup log T .GI v/Œn = lim sup log.ır n C ˛n / D log r D h.G/:
n!1 n n!1 n
130 J.I. Fujii
Next we show the equality for the finite case. The above equation holds when
r.G/ < 1. So suppose G is a finite nonnilpotent graph. Then G has an infinite free-
generating tree and consequently G has a cycle. Considering (strongly) connected
components, we may assume that the adjacency matrix A.G/ is irreducible. Then
the Perron–Frobenius theorem shows that there exists the unit positive eigenvector
p for an eigenvalue r.G/. Let e be a vector whose entries are all 1. Then
T .GI v/Œn D hG n ev ; ei
where ev is the vector corresponding to the vertex v. It follows from the positivity of
p that there exists a positive number ˛ such that ˛p e is a positive vector. Then
1
H.G/ D sup lim sup log T .GI v/Œn
v n!1 n
P
1 T .GI v/Œn 1 hG n e; ei
= lim sup log v D lim sup log
n!1 n he; ei n!1 n he; ei
1 r.G/n hp; ei
= lim log D log r.G/ D h.G/:
n!1 n he; ei
Conversely, we have
1
H.G/ 5 lim sup loghG n e; ei
n!1 n
1
5 lim sup log.˛ r.G/n hp; ei/ D log r.G/ D h.G/
n!1 n
Corollary 3. The entropies H.G/ for nonnilpotent graphs G are densely dis-
tributed in the half-line Œ0; 1/.
Example 15. As in Fig. 5.3, let Tk;m be the directed tree such that in the nth nodes,
.km/wn
k vertices have k arrows and others have none, where wn is the number of
5 Spectrum and Entropy for Infinite Directed Graphs 131
c
PP
) ? PP
q
P
c c c
@
? R
@ @
? R
@
c c c c c c
C C C C
?CW ?CW ?CW ?CW
ccc ccc ccc ccc
p pp pp
p p pp pp
p p pp pp
p p pp pp
p pp
p
?
Cantor set
the nth node vertices and the root (i.e., 0th node) vertex has k arrows, or w1 D k.
(In particular, Tk D Tk;0 is the k-ary directed tree.) For a tree Tk;m , we have
wn D k.k m/n1
and Tk;m is squarable in the sense that A.Tk;m /2 is also an adjacency operator for
2
some graph, say Tk;m . In fact,
2 n
Tk;m D Tk.km/;m.km/ and in general Tk;m D Tk.km/n1 ;m.km/n1 :
Here J is the dimension of the space on which the figure in discourse lies. In these
fractals, the ratio is k 1=J and the number of self-similar maps is k m. Thus the
similarity dimension is d D J log.k m/= log k and the relation to the entropies is
Finally, we apply our discussion to coding theory. If we put a letter on each arrow
in G, we may consider an infinite path in G as a message on G. Hereafter suppose
G is a finite directed graph, and consequently h.G/ D H.G/.
For a message x D .v0 ; v1 ; v2 ; : : :/ on a graph G, let xŒn be the n-path
.v0 ; v1 ; : : : ; vn / in x, say the first n-words in x. For a shift S on the message
S.: : : ; vi ; : : :/ D .: : : ; vi C1 ; : : :/, put
˚ ˇ
Xn D ] S j .x/Œn ˇ j D 1; 2; : : : ;
log Xn
h.x/ D lim :
n!1 n
By the definition, we have
Theorem 13. For all messages x on a finite directed graph G, h.x/ 5 h.G/. If G
is irreducible, then there exists a message x such that h.x/ D h.G/.
Proof. Since Xn is not greater than the Schwarz constant an D an .G/, we have
h.x/ 5 h.G/.
Next suppose G is irreducible. For any integer m = 1, let x1m ; x2m ; : : : ; xamm
be all the distinct m-words on G. For two words xim D v1 v2 vm and xinC1 D
u1 u2 un , there exists a path .vm ; w1 ; : : : ; wk ; u1 / from vm to u1 in G since G is
irreducible. Let wm;n m n
i;j be w1 w2 wk if xi xi C1 is not the word on G, and otherwise
m m;n m
the empty word. Then xi wi;j xi C1 is the word on G. Thus we put a message x by
5 Spectrum and Entropy for Infinite Directed Graphs 133
where H.G.P// is the entropy as a Markov source. In fact, for A.G/ D .aij / and
its Frobenius vector f D .ri /, the above maximum is attained at B D .bij / with
ri aij
bij D :
rj r.G/
Here we deal with block source encoding and decoding without noise, which
is used for data compression. The (finite state) block encoder (resp. decoder) with
length N means the map W x 7! y (resp. W y 7! x)O for a message x, the
encoded message y, and the replica (i.e., decoded message) xO such that the i th
O
block S iN .y/ŒN (resp. S iN .x/ŒN ) depends only on S iN .x/ŒN (resp. S iN .y/ŒN )
for all i . Then, Ziv showed the following lemma in [25].
Here we assume that the messages x and xO are written by an alphabet of M letters
and y by that of M 0 letters with M = M 0 . Considering the case that the encoded
message is on a finite directed graph, we can show the estimation by the entropy
of the graph, which is better than by log M 0 , and considered as a generalization of
Ziv’s result [25].
Theorem 14. (Bound for invertibility) Let F be a finite directed graph and suppose
that a message x is encoded to the message on F . If h.x/ > h.F /, then x 6D b
x.
Proof. To show the contraposition, suppose that there exists a block encoder ' and
a block decoder such that x D b x . Then Theorem 13 implies h.y/ 5 h.F /. It
follows from Ziv’s data processing lemma that h.b x / 5 h.y/ 5 h.F /. By x D b x,
we have h.x/ D h.b x /, so that h.x/ 5 h.F /. t
u
Finally in this section, we try to generalize Ziv’s block source coding theorem
in [25], which, however, included a somewhat ambiguous part. In [2], S. Arimotro
reformulated it to a mathematically accurate statement. Now we generalize Ziv–
Arimoto’s coding theorem by a finite graph. Recall that an irreducible finite graph
G is aperiodic if there is a positive integer m such that there exists an m-path from
v to u for all vertices v and u.
134 J.I. Fujii
Theorem 15. (Coding theorem of graph version) For an aperiodic finite directed
graph F , let x be the message on the alphabet of M letters and encoded messages
on F . If h.x/ < h.F / for all x, then there exists a pair of N -block encoder and
decoder with x D xO ..x//.
Proof. To estimate length for codewords, suppose that we can take N and its largest
divisor ` with `2 M ` 5 N . For all the distinct `-words x1` ; x2` ; ; xs` in the i th
block S iN .x/ŒN , we have s D X` 5 M ` . Since F is aperiodic, there exists a
set of m-paths from u and v for all vertices u and v of F . Taking an integer k with
bkm = M ` = bkm1 where bn is the Schwarz constant of F , we can translate the
words xi` over A into the codewords yikm on F . As in the proof of Theorem 13,
there exist m-words zm i with y1
km m km m
z1 y2 z2 yM km m
zs being also the words on
F , which is called the list of the casts and defines the first L letters in the codeword
S iN .y/ŒN . Then we have
km1
L D .k m C m/s D kX` 5 X` m C 1 C log M `
log bkm1
mC1 k m 1 log M
5N 2
C :
` log bkm1 `
There are at most N` vectors in the parsed S iN .x/ŒN . Then the remainder of the
i th block codeword S iN .y/ŒN is taken to be the list of the addresses: Each word
S iN Cj ` .x/Œ` is encoded into a word on F pointing to the place of the correspond-
ing `-word in the list part. Thus the length Q D q m of this codeword is large
enough if
bQ1 < X` 5 bQ ;
or equivalently
qm1
q <mC1C log X` :
log bqm1
N
and lim D 0, we can take N large enough to make K 5 N . t
u
`!1 `
Proof. It follows from Theorem 13 that h.x/ 5 h.G/ < h.F / for all messages x
on G. Thereby Theorem 15 implies the required result. u
t
5.7 Notes
The adjacency operator for graphs was introduced by Mohar [20] for an undi-
rected case and then by Fujii et al. [12] for a general case. The latter is the starting
point of our study of infinite directed graphs from the viewpoint of operator theory
[5, 7, 9–11, 13–16, 19, 24]. In particular, Seo and the author investigated spectral
properties and various operations for graphs. Based on these studies, the author
introduced two entropies of infinite graphs and discussed the difference between
them [5]. On the other hand, considering S. Arimoto’s idea for Ziv’s coding theo-
rem in a Japanese text [2], Y. Seo and the author obtained a generalization of his
theorem in [11].
References
4. Edgar GA (1990) Measure, topology and fractal geometry. Springer, New York
5. Fujii JI (1993) Entropy of graphs. Math Japon 38:39–46
6. Fujii JI (1995) The Marcus-Khan theorem for Hilbert space operators. Math Japon 41:531–535
7. Fujii JI, Fujii M (1993) Theorems of Williams and Pasadena. Math Japon 38:35–37
8. Fujii JI, Fujii M (2002) Kolmogorov’s complexity for positive definite matrices. Lin Algebra
Appl 341:171–180
9. Fujii JI, Seo Y (1993) Graphs and numerical center of mass. Math Japon 38:351–359
10. Fujii JI, Seo Y (1995) Graphs and tensor products of operators. Math Japon 41:245–252
11. Fujii JI, Seo Y (1997) Entropy and coding for graphs. Int J Math Stat Sci 6(1):63–77
12. Fujii M, Sasaoka H, Watatani Y (1989) Adjacency operators of infinite directed graphs. Math
Japon 34:727–735
13. Fujii M, Sasaoka H, Watatani Y (1990) The numerical range of an infinite directed graph. Math
Japon 35:577–582
14. Fujii JI, Sasaoka H, Watatani Y (1991) The spectrum of an infinite directed graph. Math Japon
36:607–625
15. Fujii M, Nakamoto M, Seo Y (1996) Graphs and Gersgorin’s theorem. Math Japon 44:517–523
16. Fujii M, Nakamoto M, Seo Y, Watatani Y (1996) Graphs and Kolmogorov’s complexity. Math
Japon 44:113–117
17. Furuta T (2001) Invitation to linear operators. Taylor & Francis, New York
18. Halmos PR (1982) A Hilbert space problem book, 2nd edn. Springer, Berlin, New York
19. Matsumoto A, Seo Y (1996) Graphs and Fibonacci numbers. Math Japon 44:317–322
20. Mohar B (1982) The spectrum of an infinite graph. Lin Algebra Appl 48:245–256
21. Mohar B, Woess W (1989) A survey on spectra of infinite graphs. Bull Lond Math Soc 21:
209–234
22. Paulsen I (1986) Completely bounded maps and dilations (Pitman Res Notes Math 146).
Longman Scientific and Technical, Essex, and John Wiley and Sons, New York
23. Schaefer HH (1980) Topological vector spaces. Springer, Berlin, New York
24. Seo Y (1993) Graphs and nilpotent operators. Math Japon 38:1089–1093
25. Ziv J (1978) Coding theorems for individual sequences. IEEE Trans Inf Theory IT-24:405–412
Chapter 6
Application of Infinite Labeled Graphs
to Symbolic Dynamical Systems
Kengo Matsumoto
6.1 Introduction
Graph theory has intersections with other branches of mathematics. The theory of
symbolic dynamics is one of them. It has significant uses for coding theory and
formal language theory in information sciences. The class of symbolic dynami-
cal systems is a basic part of topological dynamical systems. Graph-theoretical
K. Matsumoto ()
Department of Mathematics, Joetsu University of Education, Joetsu 943-8512, Japan
e-mail: [email protected]
techniques and linear algebraic techniques are very useful to study symbolic
Z
Q1Let ˙ be a finite set, called an alphabet. Let ˙ be the infinite
dynamical systems.
product spaces i D1 ˙i where ˙i D ˙, endowed with the product topology.
The transformation on ˙ Z given by ..xi /i 2Z / D .xi C1 /i 2Z is called the (full)
shift. Let be a shift-invariant closed subset of ˙ Z i.e. ./ D . The topological
dynamical system .; j / is called a subshift. QWe denote j by and write the
subshift as for short. We denote by X . 1 i D1 ˙i / the set of all right-infinite
sequences that appear in .
Symbolic dynamical systems have several subclasses by viewing the underlying
graphs. The class of Markov shifts, which are often called SFT (shifts of finite type)
comes from finite directed graphs, and the class of sofic shifts, which are a general-
ization of Markov shifts, comes from finite directed labeled graphs. In the study of
Markov shifts and sofic shifts, graph-theoretical techniques are very useful. More
generally we apply a theory of infinite labeled graphs to studying general symbolic
dynamical systems, by introducing a class of infinite labeled graphs, called -graph
systems. Its matrix presentation is called a symbolic matrix system. The notions of
the -graph system and symbolic matrix system are generalized notions of a finite
labeled graph and symbolic matrix for sofic shifts to general subshifts. Strong shift
equivalence and shift equivalence between symbolic matrix systems are formulated
such that two subshifts are topologically conjugate if and only if the canonical sym-
bolic matrix systems are strong shift equivalent. We construct several kinds of shift
equivalence invariants for symbolic matrix systems. They are the dimension groups,
the Bowen–Franks groups, and the nonzero spectra that are generalizations of the
corresponding notions for nonnegative matrices. The K-groups for symbolic ma-
trix systems are introduced. They are also shift equivalence invariants and stronger
than the Bowen–Franks groups but weaker than the dimension triples. These kinds
of shift equivalence invariants naturally induce topological conjugacy invariants for
subshifts. In particular the K-groups and the Bowen–Franks groups induce not only
topological conjugacy invariants for subshifts, but also flow equivalence invariants.
As entropic quantities, the volume entropy and the -entropy for -graph systems
are introduced. They are shift equivalence invariants and hence induce topological
conjugacy invariants of subshifts. The -entropy measures a distance from sofic
shifts. The volume entropy does not necessarily coincide with classical topological
entropy unless the subshift is sofic.
A finite sequence D .1 ; :::; k / of elements j 2 ˙ is called a word. We
denote by jj the length k of . A word D .1 ; :::; k / is said to appear in
x D .xi /i 2Z 2 ˙ Z if xm D 1 ; :::; xmCk1 D k for some m 2 Z. For a subshift
, we denote by Bk ./ the set of all words of length k appearing in some x 2 ,
where B0 ./ denotes the empty word. We set B ./ D [1 B ./. A matrix
kD0 k
with entries in nonnegative integers is called a nonnegative matrix. Throughout the
chapter, ZC and N denote the set of all nonnegative integers, and the set of all posi-
tive integers, respectively. For an introduction to the theory of symbolic dynamical
systems, see [21, 33] (cf. [11, 27]).
The chapter is organized as follows. In Sects. 6.2–6.4, basic classes of subshifts
called topological Markov shifts that are defined by finite directed graphs, sofic
shifts that are defined by finite labeled graphs, and coded shifts that are defined
6 Application of Infinite Labeled Graphs to Symbolic Dynamical Systems 139
by codes, respectively, are briefly explained. In Sect. 6.5, -graph systems and
symbolic matrix systems are introduced as a presentation of subshifts. In Sect. 6.6,
strong shift equivalences and shift equivalences of symbolic matrix systems are
defined and studied. In Sect. 6.7, nonnegative matrix systems are introduced to de-
fine K-theoretic invariants of symbolic matrix systems. In Sect. 6.8, K-theoretic
invariants for symbolic matrix systems called dimension groups, K-groups, and
Bowen–Franks groups are introduced. They yield topological conjugacy invariants
of subshifts. In Sect. 6.9, spectrum, -entropy, and volume entropy for -graph sys-
tems and symbolic matrix systems are introduced. They are closely related to the
topological entropy of subshifts. In Sect. 6.10, the K-groups and the Bowen–Franks
groups for a class of nonsofic shifts is presented. In Sect. 6.11, a relation of the
K-theoretic invariants for -graph systems and symbolic matrix systems to K-theory
for C -algebras is remarked. Finally, in Sect. 6.12, conclusions and further works
are described.
The classification of symbolic dynamical systems has been very important and one
of the central problems in the theory of topological dynamical systems. The clas-
sification problem was first examined for a class of symbolic dynamical systems
called topological Markov shifts. Each dynamical system of the class is determined
by a single square nonnegative matrix. Hence the behavior of such a dynamical sys-
tem depends on the underlying matrix. Let A be an n n nonnegative matrix. Put
VA D f1; : : : ; ng: the vertex set. Write A.i; j / edges from i 2 VA to j 2 VA . We
have a directed graph denoted by GA . Let ˙ be the set EA of all edges of GA . Let
sA and rA be the maps from EA to VA that assign the source vertex and the range
vertex of an edge respectively. Let A be the set of all bi-infinite sequences .ei /i 2Z
of ei 2 EA with rA .ei / D sA .ei C1 /; i 2 Z. Then A becomes a subshift, called the
topological Markov shift defined by nonnegative matrix A.
In [52], R. F. Williams introduced the notions of strong shift equivalence and
shift equivalence between nonnegative matrices and showed that two topological
Markov shifts are topologically conjugate if and only if the underlying matrices are
strong shift equivalent. Strong shift equivalence implies shift equivalence. Although
the converse implication had been a long-standing open problem, Kim and Roush
[20] have solved negatively for even irreducible matrices.
Two nonnegative matrices M and N are said to be strong shift equivalent in
1-step, written as M N; if there exist rectangular nonnegative matrices R and S
1
such that
M D RS; N D SR:
Definition 6.2.1 ([52]). Two matrices A and B are said to be strong shift equiv-
alent in l-step, written as A B; if there exist nonnegative square matrices
l
A1 ; A2 ; : : : ; Al1 such that
140 K. Matsumoto
A A1 A2 Al1 B:
1 1 1 1 1
We say A and B are strong shift equivalent if A B for some l, and write it as
l
A B:
Definition 6.2.3 ([52]). Two matrices A and B are said to be shift equivalent of
lag l, written as A B; if there exist nonnegative rectangular matrices R and S
l
such that
Definition 6.3.1 ([47]). Two symbolic matrices A and B are said to be strong
shift equivalent in l-step, written as A B; if there exist symbolic matrices
l
A1 ; A2 ; : : : ; Al1 such that
A A1 A2 Al1 B:
1 1 1 1 1
We say A and B are strong shift equivalent if A B for some l, and write it as
l
A B:
Two x D .xn /n2N ; y D .yn /n2N 2 X are said to be past equivalent if P .x/ D P .y/.
Let V be the equivalence classes of X under the past equivalence. As is sofic,
the set V is a finite set. We write an edge labeled ˛ from Œx to Œy if Œy D Œ˛x,
where ˛x D .˛; x1 ; x2 ; : : : /. We have a finite labeled graph G with vertex set V .
The labeled graph is called the left Krieger cover graph for the sofic shift [25,26].
Let us denote by A its symbolic matrix. We call the matrix A the canonical
symbolic matrix for the sofic shift :
Nasu has proved the following fundamental theorem of sofic shifts.
Theorem 6.3.2 ([47]). Sofic shifts and 0 are topologically conjugate if and only
0
if their canonical symbolic matrices A and A are strong shift equivalent.
Definition 6.3.3 ([4]). Two symbolic matrices A and B are said to be shift equiv-
alent of lag l, written as A B; if there exist symbolic rectangular matrices
l
R and S such that
Let CN be the set of all words in ˙ whose products are reduced to 1. It is easy to
see that CN is a code, and the resulting coded shift CN is not sofic. The coded shift
is called the Dyck shift of order N and written as DN . Its language is accepted by a
push-down automaton and forms a context-free language (cf. [9, 17]).
We first explain the notion of the Bratteli diagram that appears in the theory of
operator algebras (see [5, 12]). A Bratteli diagram consists of a vertex set V D
V1 [ V2 [ and an edge set E D E1;2 [ E2;3 [ where each Vl and El;lC1
are finite and nonempty. We have maps s; r W E ! V such that s.El;lC1 / D Vl ,
r.El;lC1 / D VlC1 . They are called a source map and a range map, respectively. For
u 2 Vl ; v 2 VlC1 ; put
2. For f 2 El;lC1 , v 2 VlC2 with .v/ D r.f /, there exists e 2 ElC1;lC2 such that
Pk;l D f.ek ; ekC1 ; : : : ; el1 /jei 2 Ei;i C1; r.ei / D s.ei C1 / for i D k; kC1; : : : ; l 2g
lk times
‚ …„ ƒ
Lk;l D f.ek /.ekC1 / .el1 / 2 ˙ ˙ j .ek ; ekC1 ; : : : ; el1 / 2 Pk;l g
the set of all labeled paths from Vk to Vl . Put Ll D L1;lC1 and endow it with
discrete topology. We set
the set of all right infinite sequences consisting of labels along infinite paths. The
topology on XL is defined from open sets of the form
for .1 ; : : : ; k / 2 Lk : By the local property of the -graph system, one sees:
1. if .˛1 ; ˛2 ; : : : / 2 XL ; we have .˛2 ; ˛3 ; : : : / 2 XL ,
2. if .˛k ; : : : ; ˛l1 / 2 Lk;l for l > k, we have .˛k ; : : : ; ˛l1 / 2 LkC1;lC1 :
As in [33, Definition 1.3.1], a set L of words of ˙ is called a language if it satisfies
the following conditions:
(a) Every subword of a word w in L belongs to L.
(b) For a word w in L, there are nonempty words u; v in L such that uwv be-
longs to L.
Let L.L/ be the set of all words appearing in XL . That is, L.L/ D [kl Lk;l : Then
Proposition 6.5.2. L.L/ is a language.
By [33, Proposition 1.3.4], we see
Theorem 6.5.3. There exists a subshift over alphabet ˙ whose language is
L.L/. Namely the set B ./ of all admissible words of the subshift is L.L/:
The subshift is realized as
We denote by L the subshift in the above theorem and call it the subshift pre-
sented by the -graph system L.
We next construct -graph systems from subshifts. For a subshift over ˙,
denote by X its right one-sided subshift. Set
The subshift is a sofic shift if and only if ˝l D ˝lC1 for some l 2 N. For a
fixed l 2 N, let Fil ; i D 1; 2; : : : ; m.l/ be the set of all l-past equivalence classes
of X . Hence X is a disjoint union of Fil ; i D 1; 2; : : : ; m.l/. The vertex set Vl at
level l consist of the sets Fil ; i D 1; : : : ; m.l/. We write an edge with label a from
the vertex Fil 2 Vl to FjlC1 2 VlC1 if ax 2 Fil for some x 2 FjlC1 . We denote
by El;lC1 the set of all edges from Vl to VlC1 . There exists a natural map l from
VlC1 to Vl by mapping FjlC1 to Fil when Fil contains FjlC1 . Set V D [1 lD1 Vl and
1
E D [lD1 El;lC1 . The labeling of edges is denoted by W E ! ˙. We then see
We further assume that both the matrices Ml;lC1 and Il;lC1 have no zero columns
and no zero rows. For j , there uniquely exists i such that Il;lC1 .i; j / ¤ 0. By the
above conditions one sees m.l/ m.l C 1/: The pair .M; I / is called a symbolic
matrix system over ˙.
146 K. Matsumoto
Two symbolic matrix systems .M; I / over ˙ and .M0 ; I 0 / over ˙ 0 are said to
be isomorphic if m.l/ D m0 .l/ for l 2 N and there exist a specification from ˙
to ˙ 0 and an m.l/ m.l/ permutation matrix Pl for each l 2 N such that
Pl Ml;lC1 ' M0l;lC1 PlC1 ; 0
Pl Il;lC1 D Il;lC1 PlC1 for l 2 N:
and
2 3 2 3
a a b 1 0 0
MYl;lC1 D 40 b 05 ; Y
Il;lC1 D 40 1 05 for l 2:
b 0 0 0 0 1
In this section, we define two kinds of strong shift equivalences between symbolic
matrix systems. One is called the properly strong shift equivalence that exactly re-
flects a bipartite decomposition of the associated -graph systems. The other one
is called the strong shift equivalence that is weaker than the former strong shift
equivalence. They coincide at least among symbolic matrix systems whose -graph
systems are predecessor-separated and left-resolving, and hence between canonical
symbolic matrix systems for subshifts. The latter is more easily defined and treated
6 Application of Infinite Labeled Graphs to Symbolic Dynamical Systems 147
than the former. The main purpose in this section is to see that topological conjugacy
between two subshifts is completely characterized by strong shift equivalence be-
tween their canonical symbolic matrix systems. We first define properly strong shift
equivalence between two symbolic matrix systems as a generalization of strong shift
equivalence between two nonnegative matrices defined by Williams in [52] and be-
tween two symbolic matrices defined by Nasu in [47]. For the details of this section
see [36]. P
For alphabets
P C; D, put C D D P fcd jc 2 C; d 2 Dg: For x D j cj 2 SC
and y D k dk 2 SD , define xy D j;k cj dk 2 SC D .
Let .M; I / and .M0 ; I 0 / be symbolic matrix systems over ˙ and ˙ 0 ,
respectively, where Ml;lC1 ; Il;lC1 are m.l/ m.l C1/ matrices and M0l;lC1 ; Il;lC1
0
0 0
are m .l/ m .l C 1/ matrices.
Definition 6.6.1. Two symbolic matrix systems .M; I / and .M0 ; I 0 / are said to be
properly strong shift equivalent in 1-step, written as .M; I / .M0 ; I 0 /; if there
1pr
exist alphabets C; D and specifications
' W ˙ ! C D; W ˙0 ! D C
and increasing sequences n.l/; n0 .l/ on l 2 N such that for each l 2 N, there exist
an n.l/ n0 .l C 1/ matrix Pl over C; an n0 .l/ n.l C 1/ matrix Ql over D; an
n.l/ n.l C 1/ matrix Xl over f0; 1g, and an n0 .l/ n0 .l C 1/ matrix Xl0 over f0; 1g
satisfying the following equations:
'
Ml;lC1 ' P2l Q2lC1 ; M0 l;lC1 ' Q2l P2lC1 ; (6.2)
0 0 0
Il;lC1 D X2l X2lC1 ; Il;lC1 D X2l X2lC1 (6.3)
and
Two symbolic matrix systems .M; I / and .M0 ; I 0 / are said to be properly strong
shift equivalent in N-step, written as .M; I / .M0 ; I 0 /; if there exists a
N pr
sequence of symbolic matrix systems .M.i / ; I .i / /; i D 1; 2; : : : ; N 1 such that
They give a properly strong shift equivalence in 1-step between .M; I / and .M; I /.
u
t
We now introduce the notion of a bipartite symbolic matrix system and a bipartite
-graph system.
" #
0 Pl;lC1 Xl;lC1 0
Ml;lC1 D ; Il;lC1 D 0 :
Ql;lC1 0 0 Xl;lC1
Lemma 6.6.4. For a bipartite symbolic matrix system .M; I / as above, set
and
l;lC1 D P2l Q2lC1 ;
MCD MDC
l;lC1 D Q2l P2lC1 ;
CD DC 0 0
Il;lC1 D X2l X2lC1 ; Il;lC1 D X2l X2lC1 :
Then both pairs .MCD ; I CD / and .MDC ; I DC / are symbolic matrix systems over
C D and D C , respectively, and they are properly strong shift equivalent in 1-step.
D
2. .VlC1 / D VlD ; C
.VlC1 / D VlC :
Lemma 6.6.6. A symbolic matrix system is bipartite if and only if its corresponding
-graph system is bipartite.
Nasu introduced the notion of bipartite subshift in [47, 48]. A subshift over
alphabet ˙ is said to be bipartite if there exist disjoint subsets C; D ˙ such that
any .xi /i 2Z 2 is either
Lemma 6.6.7. A subshift is bipartite if and only if its canonical symbolic matrix
system .M ; I / is bipartite.
Proof. It is clear that a bipartite canonical symbolic matrix system gives rise to a
bipartite subshift from the preceding lemma. Suppose that is bipartite with respect
to alphabets C; D. Denote by .V ; E ; ; / the canonical -graph system L
for . As in the construction of the canonical -graph system, the vertex set Vl is
the set of all l-past equivalence classes fFil gi D1;:::;m.l/ . Put
so that we have a disjoint union VlC [ VlD D Vl to yield a bipartite decomposition
of L . t
u
.MCD ; I CD / .MDC ; I DC /
1pr
D
n n
n1 n1
1 1
0
where
0 ; : : : ;
n are symbolic conjugacies and 1 ; : : : ; n are either forward or
backward bipartite conjugacies.
Theorem 6.6.12. If two symbolic matrix systems are properly strong shift equiva-
lent, their presented subshifts are topologically conjugate.
Proof. Suppose .M; I / .M0 ; I 0 /: We use the same notation as in the def-
1pr
inition of properly strong shift equivalence. Set D L and 0 D L0 : By
the preceding lemma, we have a 2-block map ˆ from B2 ./ to ˙ 0 defined by
ˆ.x1 x2 / D y0 where .y0 / D d1 c2 and '.xi / D ci di ; i D 1; 2. Let ˆ1 be
the sliding block code induced by ˆ so that ˆ1 is a map from to ˙ 0 Z . We also
write as ˆ the map from to the set of all words of ˙ 0 defined by
6 Application of Infinite Labeled Graphs to Symbolic Dynamical Systems 151
'
Il1;l Ml;lCn ' X2l2 P2l1 Q2l P2lC1 Q2lC2 P2lC2n3 Q2lC2n2 X2lC2n1 ;
Definition 6.6.13. Two symbolic matrix systems .M; I / and .M0 ; I 0 / are said to
be strong shift equivalent in 1-step, written as .M; I / .M0 ; I 0 /; if there exist
1st
alphabets C; D and specifications
' W ˙ ! C D; W ˙0 ! D C
such that for each 1 < l 2 N, there exist an m.l 1/ m0 .l/ matrix Hl over C and
an m0 .l 1/ m.l/ matrix Kl over D satisfying the following equations:
' 0
Il1;l Ml;lC1 ' Hl KlC1 ; Il1;l M0l;lC1 ' Kl HlC1
and
0 0
Hl Il;lC1 D Il1;l HlC1 ; Kl Il;lC1 D Il1;l KlC1 :
152 K. Matsumoto
Two symbolic matrix systems .M; I / and .M0 ; I 0 / are said to be strong shift equiv-
alent in N-step, written as .M; I / .M0 ; I 0 /; if there exist symbolic matrix
N st
systems .M.i / ; I .i / /; i D 1; 2; : : : ; N 1 such that
We simply call it a strong shift equivalence. Similarly to the case of properly strong
shift equivalence, we see that strong shift equivalence on symbolic matrix systems
is an equivalence relation.
Proposition 6.6.14. Properly strong shift equivalence in 1-step implies strong shift
equivalence in 1-step.
Proof. Let Pl ; Ql ; Xl , and Xl0 be the matrices in the definition of properly strong
shift equivalence in 1-step between .M; I / and .M0 ; I 0 /: We set
0
Hl D X2l1 P2l1 ; Kl D X2l1 Q2l1 :
They give rise to a strong shift equivalence in 1-step between .M; I / and .M0 ; I 0 /.
t
u
Conversely we have
Proposition 6.6.15 ([41]). Let .M; I / and .M0 ; I 0 / be the symbolic matrix sys-
tems for -graph systems L and L0 , respectively. Suppose that both L and L0 are
left-resolving and predecessor-separated. The following conditions are equivalent:
1. .M; I / and .M0 ; I 0 / are strong shift equivalent in l-step.
2. .M; I / and .M0 ; I 0 / are properly strong shift equivalent in l-step.
Hence the two notions, strong shift equivalence and properly strong shift equiva-
lence, coincide with each other in the canonical symbolic matrix systems.
By a similar argument to the proof of Theorem 6.6.12, we obtain
Theorem 6.6.16. If two symbolic matrix systems (not necessarily canonical) are
strong shift equivalent, their presented subshifts are topologically conjugate.
We next introduce the notion of shift equivalence between two symbolic matrix
systems as a generalization of Williams’s notion for nonnegative matrices [52] and
Boyle–Krieger’s notion for symbolic matrices [4]. Let .M; I / and .M0 ; I 0 / be two
symbolic matrix systems over alphabets ˙ and ˙ 0 , respectively. For N 2 N, we put
.˙/N D ˙ ˙ and .˙ 0 /N D ˙ 0 ˙ 0 W the N -times products.
Definition 6.6.17. For N 2 N, two symbolic matrix systems .M; I / and .M0 ; I 0 /
are said to be shift equivalent of lag N if there exist alphabets CN ; DN and specifi-
cations
'1 W ˙ CN ! CN ˙ 0 ; '2 W ˙ 0 DN ! DN ˙
6 Application of Infinite Labeled Graphs to Symbolic Dynamical Systems 153
and
1 W .˙/N ! CN DN ; 2 W .˙ 0 /N ! DN CN
such that for each l 2 N, there exist an m.l/ m0 .l C N / matrix Hl over CN and
an m0 .l/ m.l C N / matrix Kl over DN satisfying the following equations:
'1 '2
Ml;lC1 HlC1 ' Hl M0lCN;lCN C1 ; M0l;lC1 KlC1 ' Kl MlCN;lCN C1 ;
1 0 2
Il;lCN MlCN;lC2N ' Hl KlCN ; Il;lCN M0lCN;lC2N ' Kl HlCN
and
0 0
Il;lC1 HlC1 D Hl IlCN;lCN C1 ; Il;lC1 KlC1 D Kl IlCN;lCN C1 :
Then .Mn ; I n / becomes a symbolic matrix system whose presented subshift is the
n-higher power shift .n/ of .
154 K. Matsumoto
Proposition 6.6.19. If symbolic matrix systems .M; I / and .M0 ; I 0 / are shift
equivalent, their presented subshifts and 0 are eventually conjugate.
They are an m.nl n/ m0 .nl/ matrix over C and an m0 .nl n/ m.nl/ matrix over
D, respectively. They yield a strong shift equivalence in 1-step between .Mn ; I n /
and .M0 n ; I 0 n / so that their presented subshifts are topologically conjugate. t
u
Properly shift equivalences .M; I / .M0 ; I 0 / are defined in [36, 41]. They
N pr
are slightly stronger than shift equivalence and weaker than properly strong shift
equivalence.
In this section, we introduce the notion of a nonnegative matrix system that is also
a generalization of nonnegative matrices. We then generalize strong shift equivalent
and shift equivalence between nonnegative matrices to between nonnegative matrix
systems. Let .Al;lC1 ; Il;lC1 /; l 2 N be a pair of sequences of rectangular matrices
such that the following conditions for each l 2 N are satisfied:
1. Al;lC1 is an m.l/ m.l C 1/ rectangular matrix with entries in nonnegative
integers.
2. Il;lC1 is an m.l/ m.l C 1/ rectangular matrix with entries in f0; 1g satisfying
the relation:
We further assume that both the matrices Al;lC1 and Il;lC1 have no zero columns
and no zero rows. For j , there uniquely exists i such that Il;lC1 .i; j / ¤ 0. The
above conditions imply that m.l/ m.l C1/: The pair .A; I / is called a nonnegative
matrix system. The following is basic.
Lemma 6.7.1. For a symbolic matrix system .M; I /, let Ml;lC1 be the m.l/
m.l C 1/ nonnegative matrix obtained from Ml;lC1 by setting all the symbols equal
to 1. Then the resulting pair .M; I / becomes a nonnegative matrix system.
6 Application of Infinite Labeled Graphs to Symbolic Dynamical Systems 155
We write the matrices above as supp.Ml;lC1 / D Ml;lC1 and call Ml;lC1 the support
of Ml;lC1 . The pair .M; I / is also called the support of .M; I / or the nonnegative
matrix system associated with .M; I /.
Definition 6.7.2. Two nonnegative matrix systems .A; I / and .A0 ; I 0 / are said to
be strong shift equivalent in 1-step, written as .A; I / .A0 ; I 0 /; if for each
1st
1 < l 2 N, there exist an m.l 1/ m0 .l/ nonnegative matrix Hl and an
m0 .l 1/ m.l/ nonnegative matrix Kl satisfying the equations:
0
Il1;l Al;lC1 D Hl KlC1 ; Il1;l A0l;lC1 D Kl HlC1
and
0 0
Hl Il;lC1 D Il1;l HlC1 ; Kl Il;lC1 D Il1;l KlC1 :
Two nonnegative matrix systems .A; I / and .A0 ; I 0 / are said to be strong shift equiv-
alent in N-step, written as .A; I / .A0 ; I 0 /; if there exist nonnegative matrix
N st
systems .A.i / ; I .i / /; i D 1; 2; : : : ; N 1 such that
m.l/
ZC D f.n1 ; n2 ; : : : ; nm.l/ / 2 Zm.l/ jni 0; i D 1; 2 : : : m.l/g:
ZI t D limfIl;lC1
t
W Zm.l/ ! Zm.lC1/ g;
!
ZC
It
D limfIl;lC1
t
W Zm.l/
C ! Zm.lC1/
C g:
!
156 K. Matsumoto
Definition 6.7.4. For nonnegative matrix systems .A; I / and .A0 ; I 0 / and L 2 N, a
homomorphism from the group ZI t to the group ZI 0 t is called a finite homomor-
0
phism of lag L if it satisfies the condition .Zm.l/ / Zm .lCL/ for all l 2 N; where
m0 .l/
Zm.l/
and Z are naturally embedded into ZI t and ZI 0 t , respectively.
Proposition 6.7.5. Two nonnegative matrix systems .A; I / and .A0 ; I 0 / are strong
shift equivalent in 1-step if and only if there exist order-preserving finite homomor-
phisms of lag 1: W ZI t ! ZI 0 t and
W ZI 0 t ! ZI t such that
ı D .A;I / ; ı D .A0 ;I 0 / :
For a nonnegative matrix system .A; I /, we set the m.l/ m.l C k/ matrices:
for each l; k 2 N.
Definition 6.7.6. Two nonnegative matrix systems .A; I / and .A0 ; I 0 / are said to
be shift equivalent of lag N if for each l 2 N, there exist an m.l/ m0 .l C N /
nonnegative matrix Hl and an m0 .l/ m.l C N / nonnegative matrix Kl satisfying
the equations:
and
0 0
Il;lC1 HlC1 D Hl IlCN;lCN C1 ; Il;lC1 KlC1 D Kl IlCN;lCN C1 :
Proposition 6.7.7. Two nonnegative matrix systems .A; I / and .A0 I 0 / are shift
equivalent of lag N if and only if there exist order-preserving finite homomorphisms
of lag N : W ZI t ! ZI 0 t and
W ZI 0 t ! ZI t such that
and
ı D N
.A;I / ; ı
D N
.A0 ;I 0 / : (6.7)
We call the ordered group ..A;I / ; C .A;I / / the dimension group for .A; I /. Since
the map ı.A;I / W ZI t .k/ ! ZI t .k C 1/ defined by ı.A;I / .ŒX; k/ D .ŒX; k C 1/
for X 2 ZI t yields an automorphism on .A;I / that preserves the positive cone
C .A;I /
. We also denote it by ı.A;I / and call it the dimension automorphism. The
triple ..A;I / ; C
.A;I / ; ı.A;I / / is called the dimension triple for .A; I /.
Proposition 6.8.1. If two nonnegative matrix systems are shift equivalent, their
dimension triples are isomorphic.
158 K. Matsumoto
t
By the relation (6.5), the map Il;lC1 W Zm.l/ ! Zm.lC1/ naturally induces homo-
morphisms: il W Kl .A; I / ! KlC1 .A; I / for
D 0; 1:
Definition 6.8.3. The K-groups for .A; I / are defined as the inductive limits of the
Abelian groups:
6 Application of Infinite Labeled Graphs to Symbolic Dynamical Systems 159
For a symbolic matrix system .M; I /, its K-groups K0 .M; I /; K1 .M; I / are de-
fined to be the K-groups for its support. The groups K .A; I / are also represented
in the following way.
Proposition 6.8.4.
1. K0 .A; I / D ZI t =.id .A;I / /ZI t D .A;I / =.id ı.A;I / / .A;I / ;
2. K1 .A; I / D Ker.id .A;I / / in ZI t D Ker.id ı.A;I / / in .A;I / :
Since the dimension triple ..A;I / ; C
.A;I / ; ı.A;I / / is invariant under shift equiv-
alence of nonnegative matrix systems, we thus have
Proposition 6.8.5. The groups Ki .A; I /; i D 0; 1 are invariant under shift equiv-
alence of nonnegative matrix systems.
Set the Abelian group
the projective limit of the system: Il;lC1 W Zm.lC1/ ! Zm.l/ ; l 2 N: The sequence
Al;lC1 ; l 2 N naturally acts on ZI as an endomorphism, denoted by A. The identity
on ZI is denoted by I .
We call BF 0 .A; I / the Bowen–Franks group for .A; I / of degree zero and
BF 1 .A; I / the Bowen–Franks group for .A; I / of degree one.
ı
0 ! Ext1Z .K0 .A; I /; Z/ ! BF 0 .A; I / ! HomZ .K1 .A; I /; Z/ ! 0
In the above theorem, Ext1Z is the derived functor of the Hom-functor in homological
algebra. The formulations above come from the universal coefficient theorem for
K-theory of the C -algebra OL associated with the -graph system L ([40],
cf. [6]).
Remark 1. As Ext1Z .K1 .A; I /; Z/ D 0; the following short exact sequence clearly
holds by Theorem 6.8.8(2).
ı
0 ! Ext1Z .K1 .A; I /; Z/ ! BF 1 .A; I / ! HomZ .K0 .A; I /; Z/ ! 0:
Hence we have
Let .A ; I / be the canonical nonnegative matrix system for a subshift . Define
Theorem 6.8.9. The K-groups Ki ./ and the Bowen–Franks groups BF i ./
for subshift are Abelian groups that are topological conjugacy invariants of
subshifts.
6 Application of Infinite Labeled Graphs to Symbolic Dynamical Systems 161
Suppose that is a sofic shift. We denote by m./ the cardinality of the vertices
of the left Krieger cover graph for and A its adjacency matrix. Then
The Bowen–Franks group for the nonnegative matrix was first invented for use as
an invariant of flow equivalence of the associated topological Markov shift rather
than topological conjugacy [3, 15, 49]. For a general subshift, we have
Theorem 6.8.10. The K-groups K ./ and hence the Bowen–Franks groups
BF ./ for subshifts are also invariant under flow equivalence of subshifts.
It is well known that the set of all nonzero eigenvalues of a nonnegative matrix M is
a shift equivalence invariant. The set of M is called the nonzero spectrum of M and
plays an important rôle for studying dynamical properties of the associated topolog-
ical Markov shift (cf. [21, 33]). In this section, we introduce the notion of spectrum
of nonnegative matrix system .A; I /. It is an eigenvalue of .A; I / in the sense stated
below. We denote by Sp.A; I / the set of all eigenvalues of .A; I /: As the sequence
of the sizes of matrices Al;lC1 ; Il;lC1 ; l 2 N is increasing, it seems to be natural to
deal with eigenvalues of .A; I / with a certain boundedness condition defined below
on the corresponding eigenvectors. We fix a nonnegative matrix system .A; I / for a
while. A sequence fvl gl2N of vectors vl D .vl1 ; : : : ; vlm.l/ / 2 Cm.l/ ; l 2 N is called
an I -compatible vector if it satisfies the conditions:
Definition 6.9.1. For a complex number ˇ, a nonzero I -compatible vector fvl gl2N
is called an eigenvector of .A; I / for eigenvalue ˇ if it satisfies the conditions:
by Spb .A; I / the set of all nonzero bounded eigenvalues of .A; I /, respectively.
We call them the nonzero spectrum of .A; I / and the nonzero bounded spectrum of
.A; I /, respectively.
Theorem 6.9.2. If two nonnegative matrix systems are shift equivalent, their non-
zero spectra coincide.
Now if the vectors ul are zero for all l l0 for some l0 , by the equality
Hl KlCN vlC2N D Il;lCN AlCN;lC2N vlC2N , we see
We next show that the nonzero bounded spectrum of .A; I / is also invariant under
shift equivalence. Put
X
m.l/
NA D max Al;lC1 .i; j /
j
i D1
Pm.l/
for l 2 N: By the relation (6.5), the right-hand side maxj i D1 Al;lC1 .i; j / does
not depend on the choice of l 2 N. For an I -compatible vector fvl gl2N , we put
Pm.l/
kvl k D i D1 jvli j. The sequence fkvl kgl2N is increasing. If fvl gl2N is nonnegative,
fkvl kgl2N is constant and hence fvl gl2N is bounded. We set
X
m.lC1/
.LA v/li D Al;lC1 .i; j /vlC1
j for i D 1; : : : ; m.l/; l 2 N:
j D1
Then LA gives rise to a bounded linear operator on the Banach space BI that sat-
isfies kLA k D NA ; where the norm of LA is given by kLA k D supv¤0 kLkvk A vk1
1
.
Therefore we have
Proposition 6.9.4. For a complex number ˇ, it belongs to Spb .A; I / if and only if
it satisfies LA v D ˇv for some nonzero v 2 BI . That is, the bounded spectra of
.A; I / are nothing but the eigenvalues of the bounded linear operator LA on the
Banach space BI .
By a similar manner to the proof of Theorem 6.9.2, we have
Theorem 6.9.5. If two nonnegative matrix systems are shift equivalent, their
nonzero bounded spectra coincide.
Let .LA / be the set of all spectra of LA as a bounded linear operator on the Banach
space BI . The general theory of bounded linear operators tells us that the set .LA /
is not empty. Let rA be the spectral radius of the operator LA on BI ; that is, rA D
supfjrj W r 2 .LA /g: By a proof similar to [46, Lemma 4.1], we have
Proposition 6.9.6. There exists a state v 2 SI such that LA v D rA v. Hence we
have rA 2 Spb .A; I /.
It is well known that the topological entropy htop ./ for subshift is given by
1
htop ./ D lim log ]Bk ./
k!1 k
where ]Bk ./ denotes the cardinality of the set Bk ./ of all admissible words of
length k in the subshift (cf. [21, 33]). We say a symbolic matrix system .M; I /
is left-resolving if a symbol appearing in M.i; j / cannot appear in M.i 0 ; j / for
other i 0 ¤ i ; equivalently, its -graph system is left-resolving. As in Sect. 6.5, the
canonical symbolic matrix system is left-resolving.
Proposition 6.9.7. Let .M; I / be a left-resolving symbolic matrix system and
.M; I / its support. For any ˇ 2 Spb .M; I /, we have the inequalities:
Proof. The inequality log jˇj log rM is clear. Take v 2 SI such that LM v D
rM v. We have for k 2 N,
X
m.kC1/
rM vi D
k 1
M1;kC1 .i; j /vkC1
j :
j D1
Pm.1/
As i D1 v1i D 1, it follows that
0 1
X
m.1/ X
m.kC1/
k
rM @max M1;kC1 .i; j /A vkC1
j D kLkM k:
j
i D1 j D1
Pm.1/
We may find j0 such that kLkM k D i D1 M1;kC1 .i; j0 /. Since .M; I / is left-
Pm.1/
resolving, the number i D1 M1;kC1 .i; j0 / is majorized by ]Bk ./. Thus we
obtain the inequalities
k
rM kLkM k ]Bk ./:
1
As kLkM k k ! rM for k ! 1, we have the desired inequalities. t
u
For a subshift , define the nonzero spectrum Sp ./ and the nonzero bounded
spectrum Spb ./ of by the nonzero spectrum and the nonzero bounded spectrum
of the canonical nonnegative matrix systems .M; I / for , respectively. We thus
have
Theorem 6.9.8. Both the sets Sp ./ and Spb ./ are not empty and topological
conjugacy invariants of subshifts. In particular, Spb ./ is bounded by the topolog-
ical entropy of the subshift .
Other entropic quantities for a -graph system L have been introduced in [30,42];
the first one is called -entropy, written as h .L/, which measures a growth rate of
the cardinalities of the vertex sets fVl gl2N . The second one is called the volume
entropy, written as hvol .L/; which measures a growth rate of the cardinalities of the
sets of labeled paths. Their definitions are as follows:
1
h .L/ D lim sup log ]Vl :
l!1 l
We denote by Pl .L/ the set of all labeled paths starting at a vertex in V1 and termi-
nating at a vertex in Vl ; and by ] Pl .L/ its cardinality. The volume entropy is defined
by the formula:
1
hvol .L/ D lim sup log ]Pl .L/:
l!1 l
Theorem 6.9.9. Both h .L/ and hvol .L/ are invariant under shift equivalence of
-graph systems.
6 Application of Infinite Labeled Graphs to Symbolic Dynamical Systems 165
This implies that they yield topological conjugacy invariants of subshifts. We see
that hvol .L/ is given by the topological entropy of a topological dynamical system
.L ; XL / associated with the -graph system L [42].
6.10 Example
We give examples of the K-groups and the Bowen–Franks groups for a class of
certain nonsofic subshifts that include the synchronizing counter shift C defined in
Sect. 6.4. Let ˙N be the set of symbols fa1 ; : : : ; aN ; b; cg for a fixed N 2 N. The
nonsofic subshift CN is the coded shift over ˙N whose forbidden words are
m
‚…„ƒ ‚…„ƒ k
where the word ai b c aj means ai b b c c aj : In [45], the C -algebra OCN
m k
associated with the subshift CN has been studied so that its K-groups and Bowen–
Franks groups that are those of the canonical symbolic matrix system for CN have
been calculated. We have
Proposition 6.10.1.
The author has constructed a C -algebra OL from the -graph system L ([40],
cf. [10, 37]). The C -algebra OL has a canonical action ˛ of the one-dimensional
torus group T, called gauge action. The fixed point algebra FL of OL under ˛ is an
AF-algebra which is stably isomorphic to the cross product OL ˛ T. Let .M; I /
be the nonnegative matrix system for L. The invariants studied in this chapter are
described in terms of the K-theory for the C -algebra in the following way:
..M;I / ; C
.M;I / ; ı.M;I / / D .K0 .FL /; K0 .FL /C ; ˛
O /;
Ki .M; I / D Ki .OL /; i D 0; 1;
i C1
BF .M; I / D Ext
i
.OL /; i D 0; 1
166 K. Matsumoto
where ˛O denotes the dual action of ˛ and Ext1 .OL / D Ext.OL /; Ext0 .OL / D
Ext.OL ˝ C0 .R//. The normalized nonnegative eigenvectors of .M; I / exactly cor-
respond to the KMS-states for ˛ on the C -algebra OL . Hence the set of all bounded
spectra with nonnegative eigenvectors is the set of all inverse temperatures for the
admitted KMS states [46], cf. [13].
As a consequence, we see that infinite labeled graphs called -graph systems yield
presentations of symbolic dynamical systems so that several kinds of computable
topological conjugacy invariants of symbolic dynamical systems are defined. The
invariants are related to invariants of the associated C -algebras.
Computations of these invariants for other kinds of symbolic dynamical systems
are seen, for example, in [7, 8, 31]. Related works to C -algebras are, for example,
[1, 32, 44].
Acknowledgments The author would like to deeply thank Matthias Dehmer and Jun Ichi Fu-
jii for their invitation to the author to write this chapter and for their helpful suggestions in the
presentation of this paper.
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Chapter 7
Decompositions and Factorizations
of Complete Graphs
Petr Kovář
There are several real-life problems that lead to graph decompositions or con-
structing block designs. One of them – the design of ad hoc wireless networks –
is described in Sect. 7.1.1. We proceed by giving a detailed overview of methods
used for decompositions and spanning tree factorizations of complete graphs and
in later sections we try to generalize them. Thus, this chapter provides a survey of
techniques as well as a new result in this area.
P. Kovář ()
Department of Applied Mathematics, Technical University Ostrava, 17. listopadu,
708 33 Ostrava–Poruba, Czech Republic
e-mail: [email protected]
Various difficulties have to be resolved while designing ad hoc networks. After the
network structure is changed locally (due to some failure) it can take a long time
until this change is absorbed by the network, in particular, by the routing tables.
Resolving such a failure by reconnecting nodes within the network may lead to huge
diameter or high load for certain nodes in the network structure. Let us concentrate
on wireless networks of mobile units of a firefighter department. The firefighters
in action communicate with each other and headquarters broadcasts orders to all
units. Their wireless networks consist of several mobile units, usually about two
dozen with rather low traffic (compared with an Internet network) and with a limited
number of stationary units. Each unit can communicate with every other unit but
some pairs may temporarily lose connection since the firefighters are moving in the
terrain. It is crucial to restore connections quickly, since blackouts can jeopardize
the operation and firefighters’ lives. We want both to quickly restore connectivity
and keep appropriate network parameters: a low number of hops (small diameter,
usually 3–10) and balance (low highest degree, up to 20). Each unit has its unique ID
and responds only to this particular ID. Every unit operates as receiver, transmitter,
and router to receive messages from one unit and forward it to another unit. Routing
is maintained by the units itself.
Reformulating this problem as a graph theory problem we require network
designs that are connected and do not contain circuits. The set of all possible con-
nections forms a complete graph. Each particular network forms a spanning tree in
this complete graph.
We present a method of decomposing a complete graph into spanning trees that
are all isomorphic to the same structure. We obtain a collection of isomorphic factors
(network structures), forming a pool of networks, all with the same diameter and the
same highest degree. Moreover, all pairs of networks are edge disjoint, thus if one
particular connection fails, no other factor from the pool will be affected by this
failure. Instead of repairing one broken connection we swap to an entirely alternate
network.
The list of networks can be hard-coded with the software on the units. In case of
lost connection a broadcast message from the two separated units can resolve the
problem immediately by switching to one of the backup networks. Once removed,
a network structure can be put back into the list. We expect the missing connection
to restore in time.
There are some obvious and some less obvious necessary conditions for a
G-decomposition of a given graph H .
It is easy to see that the number of edges jE.G/j has to divide the number of
edges jE.H /j since each edge of the graph H belongs to one copy of G. Moreover
there are restrictions on the degree sequence of G. If k D jE.H /j=jE.G/j is the
number of copies of G in H , then the multiset D in which the degree of every
vertex of G appears exactly k times has to be decomposable into multisets Di ,
i D 1; 2; : : : ; jV .G/j, such that the sum of degrees in each Di corresponds to the
degree of a vertex wi 2 V .H /. If H is r-regular this condition is simpler, the sum
of elements in each Di has to be r. In particular, if H is a complete graph Kn , then
the sum of elements in each Di has to be n 1.
Example 1. We show that the graph H ' Kr can be decomposed into G ' K4
only if r 1 .mod 12/. The number of edges r.r 1/=2 has to be divisible by 6,
172 P. Kovář
thus r 0; 1 .mod 12/. Moreover the degree 3 of every vertex in K4 has to divide
r 1, thus r 1 .mod 3/. Combining these conditions, the claim follows.
On the other hand there are also structural limitations that apply to the exis-
tence of a G-decomposition of H . A caterpillar is a tree such that by removing
all leaves we obtain a path. Although the graphs R1 and R2 in Fig. 7.1 have the
same number of edges and the same degree sequence, the caterpillar R1 does and
the caterpillar R2 does not decompose the complete graph K6 (for a small graph a
brute force search can be performed; a general nonexistence result addressing cer-
tain caterpillars with diameter four is presented in [14]). The structural restrictions
depend strongly on the particular class of graphs and are difficult to explore in gen-
eral. Therefore such structural necessary conditions are known almost exclusively
for highly symmetric graphs, such as vertex transitive graphs, and only sparsely for
trees. Some results are presented in Sect. 7.3.
7x
Definition 3. Let G be a graph with m edges and the vertex set V .G/ and let be an
injection W V .G/ ! S where S is a subset of the set f0; 1; 2; : : : ; 2mg. The length
of an edge xy is defined as `.x; y/ D minfj.x/ .y/j; 2m C 1 j.x/ .y/jg.
The set of vertex labels is denoted by .V .G//.
year. Through the years the names ˛-labeling, -labeling, and graceful labeling for
the ˇ-valuation (see Golomb [18]) became more popular. The importance of the
valuations for decompositions is apparent from the following paragraphs.
In the next paragraphs several other labelings are defined. There are plenty of
definitions, some of them rather technical, that are used for spanning tree factoriza-
tions of complete graphs. Later, in Sect. 7.4 we try to find a general labeling that
extends features of most of the labelings described here. Therefore the techniques
are explained in detail.
˛-Labeling
Theorem 1. If a graph G with m edges has an ˛-labeling, then there exists a cyclic
G-decomposition of the complete graph K2kmC1 , where k is any natural number.
It should be pointed out that not all decompositions are necessarily cyclic as
shown by the next example.
On the other hand, there are trees that have no ˛-labeling (see [2]), hence the
property of being bipartite is not a sufficient condition for an ˛-labeling to exist.
1 5
4 3 a
5 3
7 4
0 5 1 3 2 6 5
Recall that the main scope of this chapter is factorization of complete graphs. Since
G-factorizations are a special case of G-decompositions, then besides the necessary
conditions given in Sect. 7.1.3 more restrictions apply. For a G-factorization of Kn
to exist, all the multisets Di (defined on page 171) have to be of the same size,
namely k where k is the number of factors isomorphic to G in Kn . Moreover, since
the degree of every vertex x in each factor Gi has to be at least one, the largest
degree .G/ has to be at most n k. We call this the degree condition.
Let T be a spanning tree of Kn . Thus T is a tree on n vertices (and m D n 1
edges) and since !
n 1
jE.Kn /j D D n.n 1/
2 2
it follows that n has to be even, say n D 2t, and there have to be exactly n=2 D t
factors in a T -factorization of K2t and the largest degree .T / D nk D 2t t D t.
Example 7. No star K1;n1 can factorize the complete graph Kn due to the degree
condition. A double-star is a tree with only two vertices of degree t greater than 1
176 P. Kovář
+
factorizing K6
(called nonleaves). A double-star satisfies the degree condition for factorizing K2t
and it can easily be observed that it actually does decompose K2t for every t 2.
See Fig. 7.5.
Let G be a graph with m edges and m C 1 vertices, with possibly some of them
isolated. Since we are factorizing the complete graph (on m C 1 vertices) into iso-
morphic copies of G it follows that the order of the complete graph has to be even.
For factorization of regular complete bipartite graphs Kn;n Fronček introduced the
bipartite -labeling; see [12]. Although we are factorizing complete graphs, the
notion of a, bipartite -labeling is used in most of the subsequent labelings and
plays an important role in Sect. 7.4. We give the definition here.
Definition 5. Let G be a bipartite graph with n edges and the vertex set V .G/ D
V0 [ V1 . Let be an injection W Vi ! Si , where Si is a subset of the set
f0i ; 1i ; : : : ; .n 1/i g, i D 0; 1. The length of an edge .x0 ; y1 / for x0 2 V0 and
7 Decompositions and Factorizations of Complete Graphs 177
It was shown in [12] that the existence of a bipartite -labeling of a graph G implies
a bicyclic decomposition of the complete graph Kn;n .
Theorem 3. Let a bipartite graph G with n edges have a bipartite -labeling. Then
there exists a bicyclic decomposition of Kn;n into n copies of G.
This idea plays an important role for all the blended, swapping, 2n-cyclic blended,
and fixing labelings.
-Symmetric Labeling
This concept was introduced by Eldergill in [8]. The following theorem (proven
in [8]) shows how this applies to spanning tree factorizations.
0
9 1
8 2
7 3
Fig. 7.6 Symmetric graph
with a -symmetric graceful 6 4
labeling 5
178 P. Kovář
Blended -Labeling
Blended -labeling (or blended labeling for short) was introduced by Fronček [12]
as a generalization of the -symmetric graceful labeling.
Definition 7. Let G be a graph with V .G/ D V0 [ V1 , V0 \ V1 D ;, and jV0 j D
jV1 j D r. Let be an injection, W Vi ! f0i ; 1i ; : : : ; .r 1/i g, i D 0; 1.
The pure length of an edge .xi ; yi / with xi ; yi 2 Vi , where i 2 f0; 1g, for
.xi / D pi and .yi / D qi is defined as
where p; q 2 f0; 1; : : : ; r 1g are the vertex labels without subscripts. The edges
.xi ; yi / for i D 0; 1 with the pure length `i i are called pure edges and the edges
.x0 ; y1 / with the mixed length `01 are called mixed edges.
Theorem 5. Let G with 4n C 1 edges have a blended -labeling. Then there exists
a bicyclic decomposition of K4nC2 into 2n C 1 copies of G.
Example 9. An example of a blended labeling of R1 is shown in Fig. 7.7.
7 Decompositions and Factorizations of Complete Graphs 179
20 21
In a blended labeling all vertices in the “left” partite set V0 are always 00 ; 10 ; : : : ;
.2n 1/0 and in the “right” partite set V1 always 01 ; 11 ; : : : ; .2n 1/1 . Therefore
we can omit the labels in the figures.
Swapping Labeling
Swapping labeling was introduced by Kovářová in her Ph.D. thesis [22]. Unlike
blended labeling this labeling guarantees the factorization of complete graphs of
order 0 modulo 4. For a proof see [22].
Definition 9. A graph G with 4n1 edges has a swapping blended labeling (briefly
swapping labeling) if the following is satisfied. The vertex set V .G/ D V0 [ V1 ,
V0 \ V1 D ;, and jV0 j D jV1 j D 2n. Let be an injection, W Vi ! f0i ; 1i ; : : : ;
.2n 1/i g for i D 0; 1. Suppose the lengths are defined as in Definition 7, then
(1) f`i i .xi ; yi /W .xi ; yi / 2 E.G/g D f1; 2; : : : ; ng, for i D 0; 1,
(2) there exists an isomorphism ' such that G is isomorphic to G 0 , where
V .G 0 / D V .G/ and E.G 0 / D E.G/ n f.k0 ; .k C n/0 /; .l1 ; .l C n/1 /g[
f.k0 ; .l C n/1 /; ..k C n/0 ; l1 /g,
(3) f`01 .x0 ; y1 /W .x0 ; y1 / 2 E.G/g D f0; 1; : : : ; 2n 1g n f`01 .k0 ; .l C n/1 /g.
Again the vertex set of G with a swapping labeling can be split into three sub-
graphs: H0 and H1 induced on V0 and V1 , respectively, and a bipartite subgraph
H01 with the partite sets V0 and V1 . The labelings of H0 and H1 induced by
have all different pure lengths (Condition (1)). The labeling of H01 induced
by gives edges of almost all different mixed lengths. Edges of mixed length
`01 .k0 ; .l C n/1 / D l C n k .mod 2n/ are missing (Condition (3)) among the
first n=2 factors. In the next n=2 factors the longest pure edges are removed from
the graphs H0 , H1 and edges of mixed length `01 .k0 ; .l C n/1 / are added to the
bipartite graph H01 .
Theorem 6. Let G be a graph on 4n vertices with 4n1 edges that has a swapping
blended labeling. Then there exists a G-decomposition of K4n into 2n isomorphic
copies of G.
Example 10. The caterpillar R3 in Fig. 7.8 allows a swapping labeling. Figure 7.9
shows the four factors of K8 given by this labeling. Again we omit the vertex labels,
since they are implied by the drawing.
The switching labeling defined by Fronček and Kubesa in [16] also allows factor-
izations of K4n into isomorphic spanning trees. In comparison to swapping labeling
switching labeling is more restrictive since it requires certain strong automorphisms
that exist only for very special classes of trees.
2 n-Cyclic Labeling
So far the vertex set of G (as well as K2n ) was decomposed into two sets of size n.
For -symmetric labeling there is a strong automorphism required and for blended
labeling n has to be odd, for the swapping labeling n has to be even. Kovářová
in [22] approached the problem of factorizations of complete graphs into trees with
a given diameter by decomposing the vertex set into 2n partite sets Vi of size k.
This technique is designed for factorizations into “less dense” graphs with higher
diameter. Hence the following definitions.
Definition 10. A tree T is called an underlying tree of U if the graph U arises from
the tree T by blowing up two vertices r, s of T by Kk and all the remaining vertices
by K k D kK1 . Every edge of the tree is replaced by the edges of Kk;k .
Definition 11. Let G beSa graph with 2nk 1 edges, for k odd and k; n > 1, and
the vertex set V .G/ D i2n1D0 Vi , where jVi j D k and Vi \ Vj D ; for i 6D j .
Let be an injection, W Vi ! f0i ; 1i ; 2i ; : : : ; .k 1/i g, for i D 0; 1; : : : ; 2n 1.
7 Decompositions and Factorizations of Complete Graphs 181
By Hij we denote the bipartite subgraph of G induced on the vertices of the partite
sets Vi and Vj with edges of mixed length `ij , and by Hi we denote the subgraph
of G induced on the vertices of Vi with edges of pure length `i i .
We say that G has a 2n-cyclic blended labeling (2n-cyclic labeling for short)
if there exists an underlying tree T on 2n vertices with a -symmetric graceful
labeling such that the following hold:
(1) For some vertex s 2 T and its symmetric image t D s C n .mod 2n/ we have
Notice that after omitting subscripts the labelings induced on Hs and Ht are
-labelings and the labelings induced on all bipartite graphs Hij are bipartite -
labelings. In [13] the following theorem is proven.
Theorem 7. Let G with 2nk 1 edges be a graph that allows a 2n-cyclic blended
labeling for k odd and k; n > 1. Then there exists a G-decomposition of K2nk into
nk copies of G.
Fixing Labeling
By relaxing the condition of having a bipartite -labeling in each Hij (as introduced
in the previous paragraph) and requiring that all vertices in one of the partite sets,
say Vi , are always of degree one, we obtain fixing labeling as it was introduced
by Kovářová in [21]; see Fig. 7.10. Therefore fixing labeling is more general than
2n-cyclic labeling.
G be a graph with 2nk 1 edges, for k odd and k; n > 1, and
Definition 12. Let S
vertex set V .G/ D i2n1
D0 Vi , where jVi j D k and Vi \ Vj D ; for i 6D j . Let be
rotated vertex
fixed vertex
Notice that if neither i nor j is a fixed vertex then the labeling of Hij induced
by is a bipartite -labeling. Fixing labeling has been used in several papers (see
Sect. 7.3) for spanning tree factorizations of complete graphs based on the next the-
orem proved in [21].
Theorem 8. Let a graph G with 2nk 1 edges, for k odd and k; n > 1, have a
fixing blended labeling. Then there exists a G-decomposition of K2nk into nk
copies of G.
Both 2n-cyclic labeling and fixing labeling require the underlying tree to be sym-
metric and the number of vertices in each partite set Vi to be equal to the same odd
number. The second restriction can be relaxed; see Sect. 7.2.
4 1 6 9
5 0
Fig. 7.11 Underlying tree T 2 3 8 7
with a symmetric -labeling
7 Decompositions and Factorizations of Complete Graphs 183
fixed vertex
true in general for swapping labeling, but for certain graphs it is possible to obtain
swapping labelings that give weakly semisurjective factorizations.
The main idea is to reduce the graph G 0 (a caterpillar or a lobster; see [14,15]) on
2n C 2m vertices into two smaller graphs, one on 2n vertices and the second on 2m
vertices, usually both with the same diameter. Let us focus on the first possibility
reducing G 0 to G on 2n vertices; the second is done analogously. In the reduction
we remove 2m leaves v1 ; v2 ; : : : ; vm and u1 ; u2 ; : : : ; um to obtain a graph on 2n ver-
tices. Suppose we have a semisurjective (or weakly semisurjective) G-factorization
of K2n with vertex partition V0 ; V1 , both Vi of size n. Having all the vertices
v1 ; v2 ; : : : ; vm in G 0 adjacent to vertices of V0 and all the vertices u1 ; u2 ; : : : ; um
adjacent to vertices in V1 we have reduced G 0 to G.
To achieve this reduction in general, we define the following.
Definition 14. Let N be the graph obtained from P4 with vertices y0 ; x0 ; x1 ; y1
and edges y0 x0 ; x0 x1 ; x1 y1 by blowing up the inner vertices x0 ; x1 by Kn the end-
vertices y0 ; y1 by K m D mK1 . The edge x0 x1 of P4 is replaced by Kn;n and the
edges y0 x0 ; x1 y1 of P4 are replaced by the edges of Km;n and Kn;m , respectively.
The vertex set of N is then V .N / D Y0 [ X0 [ X1 [ Y1 , where jX0 j D jX1 j D n,
jY0 j D jY1 j D m, and jV .N /j D 2n C 2m.
Similarly let Z be the graph obtained from P40 with vertices x0 ; y1 ; y0 ; x1 and
edges x0 y1 ; y1 y0 ; y0 x1 by blowing up the inner vertices y0 ; y1 of P40 by Km and
the end-vertices x0 ; x1 by K n D nK1 . The edge y1 y0 of P40 is replaced by Km;m
and the edges x0 y1 ; y0 x1 of P40 are replaced by the edges of Kn;m and Km;n ,
respectively.
The vertex set of Z is then the same as the vertex set of N , V .Z/ D V .N /.
It is easy to observe that the graphs N and Z factorize the complete graph
K2nC2m into factors N and Z which may or may not be isomorphic (depending
on whether m D n); see Fig. 7.14. We omit the proof.
Lemma 1. If a graph G decomposes both graphs N and Z then G decomposes the
complete graph K2nC2m .
Each of the graphs N and Z can be further factorized into isomorphic factors.
The reduction is indeed the key step in a recursive method described in detail in [14].
The inductive step is based on m, therefore we try to keep m as small as possible. To
prove the base for the induction a long list of graphs, called starting cases, of
relatively small size up to a certain value had to be shown to factorize (weakly)
semisurjectively the corresponding complete graph. This required a rather elaborate
approach; see [14, 15].
7.2.2 Limitations
N
X0 X1
Y0 Y1
P4
x0 y1
y0 x1
X0 X1
Z
Y1 Y0
P⬘4
x0 y1
y0 x1
we choose the smaller value, say m. Depending on the examined class of graphs the
list of starting cases can already be, for m D 3 or m D 5, considerably long. For
each of these graphs a labeling that guarantees factorization has to be found. Various
labelings have to be used for various base graphs; the choice of labeling depends on
the parity of n. In Sect. 7.4 we try to propose a unified and a more general approach.
Moreover, the recursion described in Sect. 7.2.1 strongly depends on the structure
of the graphs N and Z. They are both of diameter 3; this may be a restriction on the
structure of G.
7.3.1 Trees
The decomposition of complete graphs has attracted attention for more than four
decades. This research was definitely inspired by the famous conjecture by Ringel
in 1963 saying that every tree with m edges decomposes the complete graph K2mC1 .
Kotzig extended this conjecture saying that all trees are graceful; see, e.g., [35]. For
an up-to-date survey of results on graceful and -labelings see [17].
186 P. Kovář
Theorem 9. Let T be any tree with exactly four nonleaf vertices v1 , v2 , v3 and v4
such that deg.v1 / deg.v2 / deg.v3 / deg.v4 / 2. If T factorizes K2n then
(i) either deg.v1 / D n and deg.v2 / C deg.v3 / C deg.v4 / D n C 2,
(ii) or deg.v1 / C deg.v4 / D deg.v2 / C deg.v3 / D n C 1.
and Vanden Eynden in [9]. For all positive integers m; n, where m C n 1 divides
mn, there exists a spanning tree factorization of Km;n .
The general problem of finding a factorization for a given spanning tree remains
far from being solved.
Suppose there exists a T -factorization of K2n . The observation that for symmet-
ric graceful labeling, blended labeling, swapping labeling, and fixing labeling in
general and for any known example it was always possible to split the vertex set
of T into two equal-sized partite sets so that the sum of degrees was the same in
each partite set led Kubesa to the conjecture that this is a necessary condition for a
T -factorization. This conjecture was disproven by Meszka [29] who found an infi-
nite class of trees factorizing a complete graph but not allowing such a partitioning
of the vertex set. The smallest counterexample has 56 vertices.
On the other hand Tan [33] showed that the conjecture holds for trees such that:
(1) the tree T has at most three different degrees or (2) the maximum degree .T /
is at most 4 or at least n 3.
In this section we describe a method that generalizes all of the methods for a
G-factorization of K2n presented in Sect. 7.1. We start by defining/redefining some
terms. Later in this section the method of recursive labeling is presented and in the
last part examples are given.
188 P. Kovář
Example 12. In Fig. 7.15 is shown the caterpillar T ' R1 with two vertices r, s
chosen. Below is a blown-up graph U ŒT I kI r; s for k D 3.
r s
b
The labeling introduced below extends features of the fixing labeling described
in Sect. 7.1.6. We rewrite the definition of fixable and fixed vertices of T . By N.v/
we denote the set of vertices adjacent to v.
Definition 18. Let T be a tree on 2n vertices; let r; s be distinct vertices in T and
k a positive integer. Let G be a subgraph in U ŒT I kI r; s . If F is a set of vertices in
T such that
˚
F D i 2 V .T /W i ¤ r; s where degG .xi / D 1 8xi 2 V .Hij / and 8j 2 N.i / ;
then F is called a set of fixable vertices in T for a given G. All vertices in F are
called fixable. Let VF F be any set of vertices that are independent in T . We call
VF a fixed set and all vertices i 2 VF we call fixed vertices.
We point out that in comparison to the previous Definition 12, in Definition 18,
the requirement of T being symmetric has been lifted. For an example see Fig. 7.16.
Now we can define a new labeling that we will use to factorize complete graphs
into spanning trees.
Definition 19. Suppose T factorizes the complete graph K2n and r, s form a
semisurjective pair of vertices in T . Let G be a graph with 2nk 1 edges, n; k > 0,
and the vertex set
V .G/ D [i2n1
D0 Vi ; where jVi j D k and Vi \ Vj D ; for i ¤ j :
fixing
r r
a
bip. r bip. r fixing fixing
r s
bip. r
b
fixing swapping bip. r fixing
r s
Fig. 7.16 The idea of recursive labeling: (a) for k odd; (b) for k even
190 P. Kovář
(1) the labeling ij induced on Hij , for all ij 2 E.T /, is either a bipartite
labeling or one of the vertices i , j is a fixed vertex in T (for a nonempty
VF ),
(2) the labelings r and s induced on Hr and Hs are -labelings.
For k even
(1) the labeling ij induced on Hij ; for all ij 2 E.T /, ij ¤ rs, is either a
bipartite labeling or one of the vertices i; j is a fixed vertex in T (for a
nonempty VF ),
(2) the edge rs 2 E.T / and the labeling rs induced on Hrs along with the
edges of Hr and Hs is a swapping labeling.
For short we denote the graph Hrs along with the edges of Hr and Hs by Hrs [
Hr [ Hs .
To avoid technical details in the proof of the following theorem we use properties of
known labelings. First we prove two lemmas. Why we split the proof into lemmas
becomes apparent in the last subsection.
Lemma 2. Let G be a graph with 2nk 1 edges, n; k > 1, that allows a recursive
labeling. Then there exists a G-decomposition of U ŒT I kI r; s into k copies of G.
for all i D 0; 1; : : : ; 2n1. Notice that if i 2 VF then i D . The power it denotes
the t-th composition i ı i ı : : : ı i . Obviously all graphs Gt for t D 1; 2; : : : ; k
are isomorphic to G since it .xi /jt .yj / 2 E.Gt / , xi yj 2 E.G/.
To show that G1 ; G2 ; : : : ; Gk form a G-factorization of U ŒT I kI r; s it is enough
to show that every edge of U ŒT I kI r; s appears in some copy Gt . By the definition
of recursive labeling each ij (the restriction of to a Hij if ij 2 T ) is for k odd
either a bipartite labeling if i; j 62 VF or a fixing labeling of a bipartite graph if
i 2 VF and j 62 VF . The restrictions r to Hr and s to Hs give a -labeling. The
factors are obtained by i ; j as shown in the proofs of Theorems 3, 2, and 8. For k
even the reasoning similar is. All edges of Hrs , Hr , and Hs appear in some Gt by
Theorem 6. t
u
We require k > 1 otherwise G ' T and the task is trivial and n > 1 since there
have to be at least two partite sets in U ŒT I kI r; s .
Lemma 3. Let T be a tree that factorizes K2n and let r; s be a semisurjective pair
of vertices in T . Then U ŒT I kI r; s factorizes K2nk into k isomorphic copies of
U ŒT I kI r; s .
Theorem 10. Let a graph G with 2nk 1 edges, n; k > 1, allow a recursive
labeling. Then there exists a G-decomposition of K2nk into nk copies of G such
that if x; y is a semisurjective pair of vertices in T with a fixed set VF , then all
pairs ix ; jy , ix 2 Vx , jy 2 Vy for i; j D 0; 1; : : : ; k 1 form a semisurjective pair
in G for k odd if x; y 62 VF and for k even if x; y 62 .VF [ fr; sg/.
Notice that for k even some vertices of G such that rs is a swapping labeling of
Hrs [ Hr [ Hs may also be a semisurjective pair.
Corollary 1. If the graph G with 2nk 1 edges is a tree, then the G-decomposition
becomes a G-factorization of K2nk .
Now it should be clear why we call such labeling recursive. If G is a tree it can
become an underlying tree T 0 ' G of a larger graph U ŒT 0 I k 0 I r 0 ; s 0 for some inte-
ger k 0 and a semisurjective pair r 0 ; s 0 in T 0 . The vertices r 0 ; s 0 exist by Theorem 10.
7.4.3 Examples
Example 13. In [14] it was shown that the caterpillar R4 in Fig. 7.17 factorizes
the complete graph K8 . R4 has a symmetric -labeling, but it does not have a
swapping labeling. A recursive labeling of R4 is given in Fig. 7.18. Both factors
of U ŒP4 I 2I r; s are given below. The underlying graph is P4 , which factorizes K4
so that the two nonleaf vertices form a semisurjective pair; see Fig. 7.14. The vertex
labels are implied by the drawing by adopting the convention from Example 11 and
choosing a fixed set VF containing both leaves of P4 .
Example 14. It may seem that the lobster in Fig. 7.19 has a recursive labeling.
Indeed the labeling induced on H01 [ H0 [ H1 is a swapping labeling, the labeling
induced on H12 is a bipartite -labeling, and we are fixing the vertices in V3 . Also
the underlying graph P4 factorizes K4 as in the previous example. But the pair of
vertices r (a leaf) and s (nonleaf) of P4 is not a semisurjective pair in P4 . In fact it
was shown in [15] that this lobster does not factorize K8 at all. The proof is rather
technical and is based on a careful examination of adjacent nonleaf vertices and
counting edges among these vertices and adjacent leaves.
a V0 V1 V2 V3
The recursive labeling from Sect. 7.4.1 extends both of the most general methods
(fixing and swapping labelings) known so far for spanning tree factorizations of
complete graphs. In comparison to fixing labeling the underlying graph T does not
have to be symmetric. Taking a symmetric underlying graph and restraining k to odd
values the recursive labeling becomes a fixing labeling. Taking n D 1 (two partite
set V0 and V1 ) the recursive labeling becomes for k even a swapping labeling and
for k odd a blended labeling.
Moreover, the pairs of semisurjective vertices are specified. Thus by finding a
recursive labeling of some tree G (not a general graph G if we require connectivity)
we can easily proceed by blowing it up again and searching for recursive labeling of
the blown-up graph as well. Or we can use such a method similarly as in Sect. 7.2
and in certain cases “reduce” a given tree G to smaller trees and search for recursive
labeling of the smaller graph. Then G will also have a recursive labeling by the
second part of Theorem 10.
7.5 Conclusion
The problem of spanning tree factorization of complete graphs has been studied
for more than 10 years. No necessary and sufficient condition is known for a tree
to allow such factorization and no such easy condition is expected to exist. There
are several methods used to find factorizations; in this chapter we gave a more gen-
eral approach combining most of the previously introduced concepts. Yet a complete
classification of all trees whether they do or do not factorize the corresponding com-
plete graph is far from being solved. On the other hand the presented techniques can
be used not only for trees, but also for general graphs.
194 P. Kovář
There were several assumptions made during the description of recursive labeling,
that in some cases can be lifted and still a decomposition or a factorization of the
complete graph K2nk will be obtained. We list them here.
The permutations i used for cyclic decompositions do not have to be cyclic.
This would lead to a more general statement in Lemma 2 whereas Lemma 3 and
Theorem 10 would remain unchanged.
The underlying graph T does not have to be a tree. However if T is not spanning,
we cannot obtain a G-factorization of K2nk . On the other hand, if T is spanning
and contains more then 2n1 edges, then more than two vertices of T have to be
replaced by Kk in the process of blowing up. This would result in modification
of Lemma 3. Hence also the definition of U ŒT I kI r; s has to be modified and
the notion of a semisurjective set has to be introduced. This would lead only to a
slight modification of Theorem 10.
For carefully picked underlying trees and their copies one can use this method
not only for decomposition of complete graphs but also of other graphs. On the
other hand, one should not expect this method to give general results.
The firefighters network is usually overdesigned. In idle time we can perform net-
work measuring for each possible connection between two units, and compute and
broadcast reliabilities for each connection. Based on this a weighted complete graph
can be constructed. The zero weight stands for a connection loss between a pair of
units. Now the reliability for each of the precomputed factors can be obtained and
among all the factors in the list we can instantly pick the “best.” We can expect that
this network will have the longest operational time.
Another enhancement may lay in permuting the vertex set prior choos-
ing a particular factor. If it is apparent from the measured data that one unit
has a weak connection to many units (this unit may have strained from the
group), we can reorder the IDs of the vertices so that this particular vertex
forms a leaf in the most reliable factors. Hereby we enforce a more stable
network.
The proposed method can be used also for large-scale networks, both locally and
globally. We can also use various factors on subnets of a larger net, e.g., on a set
of relatively close vertices. The main advantage is to control the diameter and a
bounded maximal degree. This can be subject to further research.
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are considered in more detail. Algorithmic issues and relations with several other
concepts, arising from various convex and interval structures in graphs, are also
presented.
8.1 Introduction
In this chapter by the notion of a graph we usually mean an undirected graph with-
out loops or multiple edges. The only exception is in Sect. 8.6 where directed graphs
are also briefly considered. As usual, V .G/ and E.G/ denote the vertex and the
edge sets of a graph G, respectively. Unless stated differently n and m denote the
number of vertices and number of edges of a graph, respectively. We start by for-
mally defining the most basic concepts.
The length of a path is the number of its edges. Let u and v be vertices of a
connected graph G. A shortest u; v-path is also called a u; v-geodesic. The (shortest
path) distance is defined as the length of a u; v-geodesic in G and is denoted by
dG .u; v/, or d.u; v/ for short if the graph is clear from the context. The correspond-
ing metric space is also called graphic metric space, associated with the graph G; see
[40]. The eccentricity of a vertex v of a graph G is the maximum distance between v
and any other vertex of G. The diameter of G, denoted by diam.G/, is the maximum
A. Tepeh ()
University of Maribor, FEECS, Smetanova 17, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia
e-mail: [email protected]
eccentricity of vertices in G, and the radius is the minimum such eccentricity. The
(geodesic) interval I.u; v/ between u and v is the set of all vertices on all shortest
u; v-paths. Given a set S V .G/, its geodetic closure I ŒS is the set of all vertices
lying on some shortest path joining two vertices of S I that is,
[
I ŒS D fv 2 V .G/ W v 2 I.x; y/; x; y 2 S g D I.x; y/:
x;y2S
A set S V .G/ is called a geodetic set in G if I ŒS D V .G/; that is, every vertex in
G lies on some geodesic between two vertices from S . The geodetic number g.G/
of a graph G is the minimum cardinality of a geodetic set in G.
See [14] for many aspects of distances in graphs and the Encyclopedia of
Distances [40] for a comprehensive collection of different appearances of distances
in a variety of areas.
The problem of determining the geodetic number of a graph was initiated by
Harary, Loukakis, and Tsouros in 1986 and their result appeared as a published
paper in 1993, see [52]. It is shown there that finding the geodetic number of a graph
is an NP-hard problem with its decision version being the NP-complete problem.
They also determined geodetic numbers in some graph classes. Results about the
geodetic number appeared in the literature before the publication of the article [52];
see [14, 15]. Even before that closely related two-person games on graphs, called
achievement and avoidance games, were introduced and examined in [13]; see [50,
53, 75] for more on this topic.
Chartrand et al. [31] proved that for any integer k between 2 and n there ex-
ists a graph on n vertices with geodetic number k. Moreover, for positive integers
r; d; k 2 with r d 2r, there exists a connected graph G with rad.G/ D r,
diam(G/ D d , and g.G/ D k.
Several lower and upper bounds for the geodetic number involving different
graph parameters have been found. Obviously 2 g.G/ n for any connected
graph G. Among graphs on n vertices only complete graphs attain the upper bound,
while the family of graphs that attain the lower bound is much richer (see Sects. 8.3
and 8.4 for a discussion on median graphs with g.G/ D 2). In [15] it is shown that
g.G/ D 2 if and only if there exist two vertices u and v with d.u; v/ D diam.G/ and
every vertex of G lies on a geodesic between vertices u and v. It is also shown there
that g.G/ D n1 if and only if G D .Kn1 [Kn2 [ [Knr /˚K1 , where r 2 and
n1 ; n2 ; : : : ; nr are positive integers satisfying the equality n1 Cn2 C Cnr D n1
and ˚ denotes the join of graphs (the only vertex not needed in a geodetic set is the
cut vertex of G). Chartrand et al. [31] obtained the following general upper bound:
g.G/ n diam.G/ C 1. It is attained, for instance, by complete graphs and paths.
A vertex is simplicial (also extreme or complete) if its neighborhood induces
a complete graph. A simplicial vertex obviously belongs to any geodetic set
of a graph, hence, the number of simplicial vertices is a lower bound on the
geodetic number [31]. A graph G is an extreme geodesic graph if all simpli-
cial vertices of G already form a geodetic set (which is therefore also unique).
Extreme geodesic graphs are therefore those graphs in which every vertex lies on
8 Geodetic Sets in Graphs 199
a geodesic between two simplicial vertices; see [29]. Trees and complete graphs
provide typical examples of such graphs, and this implies that the following state-
ment is true: for every pair a; n of integers with 2 a n, there exists a connected
extreme geodesic graph G on n vertices with g.G/ D a. Moreover, in [29] it is also
shown that for every pair a; b of integers with 0 a b and b > 2, there exists a
connected graph G with a simplicial vertices and g.G/ D b. On the other hand, all
cut-vertices are clearly excluded from any minimum geodetic set. In addition, for
any graph G containing k end-blocks, g.G/ k, see [28], where an end-block of
graph G is a block containing only one cut-vertex.
Atici and Vince [2] provided a lower bound for the edge geodetic number, de-
noted by ge .G/. Its definition differs from the definition of the usual geodetic
number in that also all edges of a graph G must be included in some geodesic
between two vertices from the geodetic set. Clearly ge .G/ g.G/. In [2] the fol-
lowing lower bound is shown: ge .G/ d3 log3 !.G/e, where !.G/ denotes the
clique number of graph G. Moreover, for any k there exists a graph G with
!.G/ D k that contains an edge geodetic set with d3 log3 ke C vertices, where
2 f0; 1g.
Using the probabilistic method together with a random greedy algorithm for ob-
taining geodetic sets, Chae et al. [23] determined the asymptotic behavior of the
geodetic number of random graphs with fixed edge probability. Starting with an
empty set S the so-called random greedy algorithm simply adds two nonadjacent
vertices at every step and checks whether S is a geodetic set. In [23] it is shown
that given a random graph Gn;p on n vertices with a fixed edge probability p, the
random greedy geodetic covering algorithm almost surely finds a geodetic set on
O.log.n// vertices. A more detailed analysis shows that almost surely g.Gn;p / D
1
.1 C o.1// logb n, where b D 1p .
One can also study geodetic sets that are extremal in some way other than having
the smallest cardinality. A geodetic set S is called a minimal geodetic set if no
proper subset of S is a geodetic set. Of course, every minimum geodetic set is a
minimal geodetic set, but the converse is not true as the example in Fig. 8.1 shows.
Namely, fu; v; wg is a minimal geodetic set of K2;3 but not its minimum geodetic
set (the unique minimum geodetic set is fx; yg). The upper geodetic number of a
graph G, denoted by g C .G/, is defined as the maximum cardinality of a minimal
geodetic set of G. It is shown in [30] that for a connected graph G on n vertices and
gC .G/ D n 1 it follows that g C .G/ D g.G/. Moreover, for every pair a; b of
integers with 2 a < b there exists a graph G with g.G/ D a and g C .G/ D b.
The Cartesian product is a widely useful operation on graphs that appears in various
settings. It is one of the four standard graph products [61], and the most impor-
tant one in metric graph theory. Several well-known classes of graphs are Cartesian
products: square-grids, hypercubes, Hamming graphs, prisms, etc.
The Cartesian product G H of graphs G and H is the graph with the vertex
set V .G/ V .H / in which vertices .g; h/ and .g 0 ; h0 / are adjacent whenever gg 0 2
E.G/ and h D h0 , or g D g 0 and hh0 2 E.H /. The most basic metric property of
the Cartesian product operation is that for any graphs G and H ,
Fig. 8.2 Cartesian products: K2 K2 K2 , K3 K2 K2 and K2 .K4 e/
In addition it is also easy to find the following useful observation about intervals in
Cartesian products which is already a part of the folklore.
The Cartesian product is associative and commutative, and K1 is the unit. Hence,
one can define the Cartesian power in a natural way. The simplest nontrivial exam-
ples are powers of edge-graphs .K2 /k that are known as k-cubes Qk or hypercubes.
Using Lemma 1 and induction on k one quickly finds that g.Qk / D 2; see also
[15]. In Fig. 8.2 three examples of Cartesian products are depicted, namely the
3-cube, the Hamming graph K3 K2 K2 , and the product of K2 and the diamond
K4 e.
We start with general bounds on the geodetic number of the Cartesian product of
two graphs, that are expressed in terms of geodetic numbers of factor graphs.
p g.G H / pq q:
These bounds were proved for the first time by Jiang et al. [63], who also con-
structed infinite families of graphs attaining each of the bounds. We present several
classes of graphs that attain the lower bound in Theorem 1. For the upper bound, the
following construction was given in [63]. First, graphs Dpt are defined on vertices
.ij / .ij /
x1 ; : : : ; xp ; z and y1 ; : : : ; yt for all i; j , 1 i < j p (altogether pC1Ct p2
vertices); where each of the vertices y1.ij / ; : : : ; yt.ij / is adjacent exactly to xi ; xj and
z, z is adjacent to all vertices in Dpt z, and there are no edges between any xi and
xj . It is easy to see that x1 ; : : : ; xp is a geodetic set in Dpt , and in fact g.Dpt / D p.
The following result shows that the upper bound in Theorem 1 is attained by prod-
ucts of graphs Dpt with complete graphs.
The bounds in Theorem 1 are rather far apart and may not be very useful, but
they cannot be improved in general. By applying Lemma 1, Brešar et al. [12] found
a simple proof of the upper bound in Theorem 1. They also looked for better bounds
when a graph has a minimum geodetic set with some special structure.
Let G be a graph and let S D fx1 ; : : : ; xk g be a geodetic set of G. Then S is a
linear geodetic set if for any x 2 V .G/ there exists an index i , 1 i < k, such that
x 2 I Œxi ; xi C1 .
Theorem 2. [12] Let G and H be graphs on at least two vertices with g.G/ D p
and g.H / D q. Suppose that both G and H contain linear minimum geodetic sets.
Then j pq k
g.G H / :
2
Many graphs admit linear minimum geodetic sets; complete graphs and graphs G
with g.G/ D 2 are obvious instances of such graphs. For another example consider
complete bipartite graphs Kn;m with n; m 4. It is known [31] and easy to see
that g.Kn;m / D 4. Moreover, selecting the first two vertices of a minimum geodetic
set from one bipartition set and the last two vertices from the other yields a linear
geodetic set.
Combining Theorem 2 with the lower bound from Theorem 1 we infer
Corollary 1. [12] Let G be a graph on at least two vertices that admits a linear
minimum geodetic set and let H be a graph with g.H / D 2. Then g.G H / D
g.G/.
The above result also implies that the geodetic number of the product of two
graphs with geodetic number 2 is also 2. For example, the Cartesian product of an
arbitrary finite number of paths has geodetic number 2. In particular, this applies to
hypercubes and square-grid graphs.
For another class of graphs attaining the lower bound in Theorem 1 the following
property of geodetic sets was introduced in [12]. Let G be a graph. If S is a geodetic
set of G such that
we say that S is a complete geodetic set of G. (Clearly any complete geodetic set is
also a linear geodetic set.)
Proposition 2. [12] Let G and H be nontrivial graphs both having a complete min-
imum geodetic set. Then g.G H / D maxfg.G/; g.H /g.
Proposition 3. (i) [12] For any trees T1 and T2 with `1 and `2 leaves,
g.T1 T2 / D maxf`1 ; `2 g:
(ii) [84] For any tree T with ` leaves and a complete graph Km ,
The Cartesian product of the form GK2 is called the prism over G. Geodetic
sets of prisms were considered in [31], where the authors observed the inequality
g.GK2 / g.G/; and provided a sufficient condition for the appearance of equal-
ity. A necessary and sufficient condition for the equality was obtained by Lu [68],
and independently also in [10]. To present it, we need the following notation. For
S1 ; S2 V .G/, and S1 \ S2 D ;, let
i.e., the set of vertices that lie on some geodesic between a vertex of S1 and a vertex
of S2 .
Theorem 3. [10, 68] Let G be a nontrivial connected graph. Then g.GK2 / D
g.G/ if and only if G possesses a geodetic set S that can be partitioned into
nonempty subsets S1 and S2 such that .I ŒS1 \ I ŒS2 / [ I ŒS1 ; S2 D V .G/.
A characterization of the graph G that enjoys g.GK3 / D g.G/ was obtained
recently in [84]. It is more complex than the above, and involves a partition of a
geodetic set of G into three nonempty subsets enjoying several conditions. These
conditions are not in an optimal form, and we present a more brief formulation.
In addition, our approach can be applied to Cartesian products with arbitrary com-
plete graphs.
Note that the condition in Theorem 3 is equivalent to the conjunction of condi-
tions I ŒS1 [ I ŒS1 ; S2 D V .G/ and I ŒS2 [ I ŒS1 ; S2 D V .G/. We generalize it
as follows (for notational convenience I ŒSi ; Si stands for I ŒSi ).
Theorem 4. Let G be a nontrivial connected graph. Then g.GKk / D g.G/ if
and only if G possesses a geodetic set S that can be partitioned into nonempty
subsets S1 ; : : : ; Sk such that for all i D 1; : : : ; k:
k
[
I ŒSi ; Sj D V .G/:
j D1
204 B. Brešar et al.
Proof. Note that vertices of GKk can be written as follows: for any x 2 V .G/,
and i 2 f1; : : : ; kg, let xi D .x; i /. Then xi is adjacent to xj for j ¤ i , and also to
yi whenever xy 2 E.G/.
Suppose that G possesses a geodetic set S that can be partitioned into nonempty
S
subsets S1 ; : : : ; Sk such that for all i D 1; : : : ; k, kj D1 I ŒSi ; Sj D V .G/: Then
let S 0 be the set of vertices in GKk defined as
k
[
Si fi g:
i D1
Let xi D .x; i / be an arbitrary vertex in GKk . Then by the condition of the theo-
rem, x lies in the interval between two vertices y and z from Si (in which case, xi
clearly lies in the interval between yi and zi ), or it lies in I.y; w/, where y 2 Si
and w 2 Sj for some j ¤ i . In the latter case we infer by Lemma 1 that xi lies in
I.yi ; wj /, where clearly yi ; wj 2 S 0 . Hence, I ŒS 0 D V .GKk /, and obviously
jS 0 j D jS j D g.G/.
For the converse, let S 0 be a minimum geodetic set of GKk with jS 0 j D g.G/.
Let Si0 D S 0 \ .V .G/ fi g/, and note that Si0 ¤ ; for all i D 1; : : : ; k, since S 0 is
a geodetic set. Fix i and consider an arbitrary vertex xi . Take any two vertices in S 0
for which xi lies in the interval between them. Clearly, at least one of these vertices
ui is in Si0 . Hence, xi 2 I.ui ; vj /, where vj is the other vertex. Let St be the natural
projection of St0 on G for all t D 1; : : : ; k. Now, if vj 2 Si , then x 2 I.u; v/ where
both u; v 2 Si . Otherwise, x 2 I.u; v/, where u 2 Si ,v 2 Sj . Hence, x 2 I ŒSi or
S
x 2 I ŒSi ; Sj . Since x was arbitrarily chosen, we infer kj D1 I ŒSi ; Sj D V .G/,
and we have proved this for an arbitrary i . The proof is complete.
One of the most important classes of graphs derived from related metric structures
is that of median graphs. They are defined as the graphs in which for every triple of
vertices u; v; w 2 V .G/ the intersection I.u; v/ \ I.u; w/ \ I.v; w/ consists of pre-
cisely one vertex (which is called the median of the triple u; v; w). Median graphs
have been rediscovered several times, and a rich structure theory has been devel-
oped, cf. the survey [64] and the book [61]. Applications of median graphs can
be found in computer science, phylogenetics, social choice theory, etc.; see, for
example, [6, 25, 82]. Geodetic sets and the geodetic number in median graphs were
first investigated in [10] and later also in [3, 11].
Brešar and Tepeh [10] studied minimum geodetic sets in median graphs with
respect to the procedure that involves so-called peripheral subgraphs of a median
graph. For a connected graph and an edge xy of G we denote
For an edge xy of G let Uxy denote the set of vertices u that are in Wxy and have a
neighbor in Wyx . If for some edge xy, Wxy D Uxy , we call the set Uxy a peripheral
set and a subgraph induced by a peripheral set is a peripheral subgraph (note that
this is different from the concept of periphery as defined in Sect. 8.1).
A subset S of the vertex set of a graph G is convex if for any two vertices u; v 2 S ,
I.u; v/ is a subset of S . Bandelt et al. [5] characterized median graphs as connected
bipartite graphs in which for every edge ab of G, the sets Uab and Uba are convex.
Another very useful characterization of median graphs due to Mulder is based on a
special expansion procedure [70, 72]. Let H be a connected graph and P its convex
subgraph, meaning the subgraph, induced by a convex subset V .P / of V .H /. Then
the peripheral expansion of H along P is the graph G obtained as follows. Take
the disjoint union of a copy of H and a copy of P (denoted by P 0 in Fig. 8.3). Join
each vertex u in the copy of P with the vertex that corresponds to u in the copy of
H (actually in the subgraph P of H ). We say that the resulting graph G is obtained
by a (peripheral) expansion from H along P , and denote this operation in symbols
by G D pe.H; P /. Mulder [73] characterized median graphs as graphs that can be
obtained from K1 by a sequence of peripheral expansions; see also [9]. In [10] the
following relation between geodetic numbers of a median graph and its peripheral
expansion was obtained.
Moreover, it was shown that both bounds are sharp. In fact, by using the structure
of minimum geodetic sets in H , situations when g.G/ D g.H / were character-
ized. Let S and T be two disjoint subsets of V .G/. Then a u; v-geodesic is called a
geodesic on S if u; v 2 S and a u; v-geodesic is called a geodesic between S and T
if u 2 S and v 2 T .
The upper bound in Theorem 5 is attained for an infinite family of median graphs
(see [10] for the construction), which also gives the answer to the question of how
large the difference can be between g.pe.H; P // and g.H /.
Proposition 4. [10] For every k 2 N there exists a median graph G that can
be obtained by the peripheral expansion from a median graph H such that
g.G/ D g.H / C k.
Trees are median graphs in which peripheral subgraphs are precisely the one-
vertex subgraphs induced by each leaf and the minimum geodetic set of a tree
consists of all leaves [31]. But unlike in trees, it may happen that in a median
graph a minimum geodetic set contains vertices that are not in a peripheral sub-
graph; see Fig. 8.4. On the other hand, it was shown in [10] that given a geodetic
set S of a median graph, every periphery contains a vertex from S . This was
the motivation for introducing the concept of the periphery transversal number
pt.G/ as the smallest number of vertices that meet all peripheral subgraphs [3, 11].
Clearly, pt.G/ g.G/ and it turns out that median graphs with geodetic number
2 and those with periphery transversal number 2 coincide. As already mentioned
in Sect. 8.1, general graphs with g.G/ D 2 were characterized in [15]. Cagaanan
et al. [22] proved that the geodetic number of a join of two connected noncom-
plete graphs is 2 if and only if both the diameter and the geodetic number of one of
the graphs is 2. However, much more is known about median graphs with geodetic
number 2. Before we give the complete list of thus far known characterizations of
such graphs we need some preliminary notions.
A subgraph H of a graph G is isometrically embeddable in G if dH .u; v/ D
dG .u; v/ for every u; v 2 V .H /. Edges e D xy and f D uv of a graph G are in the
Djoković–Winkler relation if dG .x; u/CdG .y; v/ 6D dG .x; v/CdG .y; u/ [41,83].
Relation is reflexive and symmetric. Winkler [83] proved that it is also transitive
in partial cubes (i.e., isometric subgraphs of hypercubes), and so it is an equiva-
lence relation on the edge set of any median graph, since median graphs are partial
cubes [71]. By the result of Eppstein [45] every partial cube G can be isometrically
embedded into the n-dimensional grid Zn for sufficiently large n. Denote by pi the
projection from Zn to a copy of Z, denoted by Zi . Clearly pi .G/ is a discrete interval
8 Geodetic Sets in Graphs 207
Characterizations (iii) and (iv) hold also in the more general case of partial
cubes. A geometric interpretation of characterization (iv) is that a partial cube G
n
has a geodetic set fa;
Qnbg if and only if G can be isometrically embedded into Z
in such a way that i D1 Œai ; bi contains V .G/. The characterization (vi) answers
the following question from location theory: for which median graphs G is their
vertex-set the (anti)median set of some profile on G; see [3] for more details. The
fifth characterization leads to the question of whether there is a general connection
between the geodetic number of a median graph and the structure that is derived
from intersecting peripheral subgraphs. For this purpose the periphery graph P .G/
of a median graph G was introduced in [11] as the graph whose vertices are pe-
ripheral subgraphs in G and two vertices are adjacent in P .G/ if and only if the
peripheral subgraphs intersect. It was proved that there are median graphs whose
periphery graph has independence number 2, and have arbitrarily large geodetic
number; see also [4].
Harary et al. [52] observed that finding the geodetic number of a graph is an NP-
hard problem with its decision variation being NP-complete. Douthat and Kong
showed that the decision problem regarding the geodetic number of a graph remains
NP-complete when restricted to the class of chordal graphs [43], and when restricted
208 B. Brešar et al.
to the class of bipartite graphs [42]. They also noted that the problem becomes poly-
nomially solvable in the class of split graphs. Atici later showed that the following
more general decision problem is NP-complete: given a graph G and an integer
k jV .G/j, is there a set S V .G/ with jS j D k such that I ŒS D V .G/ [1].
In [52] an algorithm for finding the geodetic number is also proposed. However,
Hansen and van Omme [51] observed that the approach from [52] has a serious
mistake and presented an example for which the algorithm fails and does not pro-
duce a geodetic set. They proposed another approach by developing a 0–1 integer
programming model to find the geodetic number of a graph. We present it next.
For each vertex vk 2 V .G/ consider all geodesics passing through vk . This can
be easily done once the distance matrix of G is known, by finding pairs of vertices
forming the following set
Let S denote a minimum geodetic set of G. The idea is then to define binary
variables of two types: xk , 1 k jV .G/j, and yij , where .vi ; vj / 2 Pk and it
holds that
(
1; if vk 2 S
xk D
0; if vk … S
and
(
1; if vi ; vj 2 S
yi;j D
0; otherwise
The following model then constructs a minimum geodetic set:
n
X
Minimize xk
kD1
subject to
X
1 xk yij ; vk 2 V .G/; (8.2)
.vi ;vj /2Pk
yij xi ; i D 1; : : : ; n; (8.3)
yij xj ; j D 1; : : : ; n; (8.4)
xi C xj 1 yij ; i; j D 1; : : : ; n; (8.5)
Moreover, if .G/ 2 log2 n one can check in O.m log n/ time whether G
is a median graph, and determine all -classes and all Uab sets. The next lemma
describes all geodetic sets of G D pe.H I P / with regard to H .
Lemma 3. [3] Let G D pe.H I P / be a median graph and fx; yg a geodetic set
of H , where y 2 P . Then the set fx; zg, where z is the neighbor of y in GnH , is a
geodetic set in G. Moreover, all minimum geodetic sets of G are of this form.
If fx; yg is a geodetic set in G then this is the only minimum geodetic set contain-
ing x, since, by Lemma 3, x is uniquely determined by y and vice versa. Moreover,
it also follows that for a median graph G D pe.H I P / with g.G/ D 2, all minimum
geodetic sets of G can be obtained from the minimum geodetic sets of H in O.jP j/
time. Therefore if the representation of G as a sequence of peripheral expansions,
starting from K1 , is known, then all minimum geodetic sets of G can be obtained in
O.n/ time. It remains then to find efficiently the representation of G by a sequence
of peripheral expansions starting from K1 .
Theorem 8. [3] Let G be a median graph with .G/ 2 log2 n. Then a represen-
tation of G by a sequence of peripheral expansions can be found in O.m log n/ time.
210 B. Brešar et al.
In the proof of Theorem 8 the following idea is used: the peripheral Uab -sets are
characterized by the fact that @Uab consists of jUab j independent edges that meet
every vertex of a Uab -set, where @Uab is the set of edges with one endvertex in Uab
and the other in G n Uab . In other words, Uab is peripheral if
for every v 2 Uab . Clearly degUab .v/ C 1 degG .v/ for v 2 G. Thus, setting
If fx; yg is a geodetic set then a pair x and y is called a geodetic pair. Using
the ideas described above an algorithm is presented in [3] that recognizes whether
a given graph G is a median graph with g.G/ D 2, and can be implemented to run
within the time complexity O.m log n/. In the case where G is a median graph with
g.G/ D 2 the algorithm also gives the list of all geodetic pairs of G.
The algorithm does the following. First it checks whether the maximum degree
of G is bounded by 2 log2 n. If the answer is positive, it checks whether G is also a
median graph, and in which case it determines all -classes and all Uab sets. Next
it computes the value of ex.Uab / for all Uab sets and then determines a peripheral
Uab set and removes it. Until one gets K1 , this dismantling procedure is repeated
(at each step a peripheral Uab set is determined and removed). Next we construct
G back again starting from K1 by a sequence of peripheral expansions, taking care
of all geodetic pairs using Lemma 3. If at any step there are no such pairs, then
g.G/ > 2. Otherwise the algorithm also lists all geodetic pairs. As observed above,
it can be implemented to run in O.m log n/ time.
The study of abstract convexity spread in the early 1950s, and resulted in a purely
axiomatic definition of convex sets that generalizes the classical concept of con-
vexity in Euclidean spaces (see a survey on this topic [80], or [17] for a brief
introduction to the abstract convexity in graphs). In this section we present results
in which problems arising in convexity theory relate to geodetic sets.
Recall that a subset W of the vertex set of a graph G is convex if for any two
vertices u; v 2 S , I.u; v/ is a subset of S . The smallest convex set containing S is
called the convex hull of S and is denoted by CH.S /. The operation of geodetic
closure is somewhat similar to the convex hull operation. In fact, the concept of
the geodetic set can be regarded as a variation of the following concept introduced
8 Geodetic Sets in Graphs 211
by Everett and Seidman [47]. The set S for which CH.S / D V .G/ is called the
hull set of a graph G, and the size of a minimum hull set of G is called the hull
number of G, denoted h.G/. Given a set S of vertices in a graph G, it is clear that
I ŒS CH.S /. Hence, if S is a geodetic set of G then also CH.S / D V .G/,
and so for any graph G, h.G/ g.G/. Much work concerning the hull number of
graphs was done by Chartrand and Zhang, see [32] for some additional references
on these studies. The hull number of median graphs was considered by Mulder [73],
showing that h.G/ D pt.G/ for any median graph G. The hull number of Cartesian
products of graphs was studied in Cagaanan and Canoy [20,21], where it was shown
that h.GH / D maxfh.G/; h.H /g. Canoy et al. [22] considered the hull and the
geodetic number of joins of two graphs.
Given a graph G and a convex set S V .G/, a vertex v 2 S is called an ex-
treme vertex of S if S n fvg is also convex. A graph G is called a convex geometry
if every convex set of G is the convex hull of its extreme vertices (this property
is also called the Minkowski–Krein–Milman property [48, 62, 65]). Graphs with
this property are properly contained in the class of distance hereditary graphs [17].
A connected graph G is distance hereditary if for every connected induced sub-
graph H of G and every two vertices u; v 2 H , dH .u; v/ D dG .u; v/ [57]. A graph
is chordal if it contains no induced cycle of length greater than 3 and a chordal graph
is called Ptolemaic if it is distance hereditary. Farber and Jamison [48] proved that a
graph G is a convex geometry if and only if G is Ptolemaic. Hence, if S is a convex
set in a Ptolemaic graph G, then we can rebuild the set S from its extreme vertices
using the convex hull operation. This cannot be done with every graph, however,
Cáceres et al. [17] extended the set of extreme vertices of S to the contour set,
C t.G/, that enables one to rebuild S using the vertices in C t.G/ and the convex
hull operation. The contour set C t.G/ of a graph G is defined by
In order to find the convex hull of a set S one can start by taking the union of
intervals over all pairs of vertices of S . Hence, one may ask whether the geodetic
closure of the contour of S equals S . More specifically, when the contour set of a
graph is also its geodetic set, we have the following (partial) result.
Theorem 10. [17] Let G be a distance hereditary graph. Then C t.G/ is a geodetic
set for G.
The geodeticity of the contour C t.G/ and other related sets was also studied in
[18, 19, 33, 36]. The vertex v is said to be a boundary vertex of u if no neighbor of
v is farther away from u than v. By @.u/ we denote the set of all boundary vertices
of u. Hernando et al. [55] proved that fug [ @.u/ is a geodetic set for an arbitrary
vertex u 2 V .G/. The boundary @.G/ of a graph G is the set of all of its boundary
vertices [33].
212 B. Brešar et al.
Theorem 11. [18] The boundary @.G/ of any connected graph G is a geodetic set.
In fact this result follows from the stronger result that the so-called expanded
contour ˝.G/ D C t.G/ [ Ecc.C t.G// of every connected graph G is geodetic
[18]. (Recall that eccentricity Ecc.G/ is the set of eccentric vertices of a graph,
where a vertex v is called an eccentric vertex of G if no vertex in V .G/ is farther
away from some vertex u 2 V .G/ than v.)
In [19] the geodeticity of significant subsets of the boundary (periphery, contour
set, and eccentricity) was studied for the class of perfect graphs. There are exam-
ples of perfect graphs for which neither Per.G/, Ecc.G/, nor Ct.G/ are geodetic
sets [16]. However, the contour set of a graph is also geodetic in several perfect
graph classes (we have already mentioned that distance hereditary graphs possess
this property). In particular, this is true for chordal graphs
Theorem 12. [19] The contour set of every chordal graph is a geodetic set.
The state of the art on this topic is presented in [19]. The main open problem is
still the case of bipartite graphs (namely, whether the contour set of any bipartite
graph is a geodetic set). In particular this was conjectured for median graphs [10].
In [18] the question was posed whether the geodetic closure of the contour
set I ŒC t.G/ is always a geodetic set. The authors approached this question by
trying to prove that for every graph G its expanded contour ˝.G/ is contained in
I ŒC t.G/ but this still remains an open problem. However, they obtained a number
of conditions under which the contour set of a graph is a geodetic set or at least the
geodetic closure of the contour set is geodetic. The following partial results were
proved in [18].
Theorem 13. [18] Let G be a connected graph. Then C t.G/ is a geodetic set if
one of the following is true:
(i) jC t.G/j D 2.
(ii) C t.G/ D Per.G/.
Theorem 14. [18] For a connected graph G the geodetic closure of C t.G/ is a
geodetic set if one of the following conditions is fulfilled:
Several concepts can be found in the literature that in various ways relate to geodetic
sets and the geodetic number. We briefly present some of them without an ambition
8 Geodetic Sets in Graphs 213
Geodetic sets can be studied in directed graphs as well. Chartrand and Zhang
[27] introduced the geodetic number of an oriented graph as follows. Let D be an
oriented graph, and S V .D/. Then I ŒS is the set of all vertices that lie on some
shortest (directed) u; v-path for u; v 2 S . The minimum size of a set S such that
I ŒS D V .D/ is called the geodetic number of an oriented graph D. Recall that
given a graph G, an orientation of G is an oriented graph obtained from G by
orienting all of its edges to one of the two directions. Now, if G is a graph, then the
lower orientable geodetic number g .G/ of G is the minimum geodetic number
among all orientations of G, and the upper orientable geodetic number g C .G/ of G
is the maximum such geodetic number [27]. It was proved that for every connected
C
graph G of order at least g .G/ < g .G/, and for every two integers n and m
n3,
with 1 n 1 m 2 , there exists a connected graph G with n vertices and m
edges such that gC .G/ D n [27]. These concepts together with oriented variations
of hull numbers were studied in Chartrand et al. [34], developed further by Farrugia
[49], and in turn by Hung et al. [58]. Chang et al. [24] considered the concept of
a geodetic spectrum of a graph G, which is defined as the set of geodetic numbers
of all orientations of G, and determined it for several classes of graphs (the concept
of a strong geodetic spectrum concerning only strongly connected orientations was
also studied [24]).
Forcing concepts have been considered for various graph invariants, including
the geodetic number. The forcing geodetic number was introduced by Chartrand
and Zhang [26] as follows. Let G be (an undirected) graph, and let S be a minimum
geodetic set of a graph G. A subset T of S is called a forcing subset of S , if S is
the unique minimum geodetic set that contains T . The minimum size of a forcing
subset of a minimum geodetic set in G is called the forcing geodetic number f .G/
of a graph G. Clearly f .G/ g.G/ in any graph G, and it was shown that any pair
of integers is realizable as the forcing geodetic and the geodetic number of some
graph, with only two exceptions (both parameters cannot be 1 (resp. 2) at the same
time). An analogous theorem was proved by Zhang [85] for the so-called upper
forcing geodetic number. Given a minimum geodetic set S a forcing subset T is
called critical if no subset of T is a forcing subset of S . The maximum size of a
critical forcing subset of a minimum geodetic set in G is called the upper forcing
geodetic number f C .G/. Clearly, f .G/ f C .G/ g.G/, and, solving a problem
of Zhang [85], Tong proved [78] that for any nonnegative integers a, b, and c with
1 a b c 2 or 4 a C 2 b c, there exists a connected graph G
with f .G/ D a, f C .G/ D b, and g.G/ D c. See also [79] for some recent
developments in this area.
The concept of geodetic number was introduced roughly two decades ago, while
most of the corresponding papers were published in the last 10 years. In this chapter
we tried to present a concise survey of known results and a state of the art of recent
8 Geodetic Sets in Graphs 215
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Chapter 9
Graph Polynomials and Their Applications I:
The Tutte Polynomial
9.1 Introduction
has the important universal property that essentially any multiplicative graph
invariant with a deletion/contraction reduction must be an evaluation of it. These
deletion/contraction operations are natural reductions for many network models
arising from a wide range of problems at the heart of computer science, engineer-
ing, optimization, physics, and biology.
In addition to surveying a selection of the Tutte polynomial’s many properties
and applications, we use the Tutte polynomial to showcase a variety of principles
and techniques for graph polynomials in general. These include several ways in
which a graph polynomial may be defined and methods for extracting combinatorial
information and algebraic properties from a graph polynomial. We also use the Tutte
polynomial to demonstrate how graph polynomials may be both specialized and
generalized, and how they can encode information relevant to physical applications.
We begin with the Tutte polynomial because it has a rich and well-developed
theory, and thus it serves as an ideal model for exploring other graph polynomials
in Chap. 10. Furthermore, because of the Tutte polynomial’s long history, extensive
study, and its universality property, it is often a “point of contact” for research
into other graph polynomials in that their study frequently includes exploring their
relations to the Tutte polynomial. These interrelationships are a central theme of the
Chap. 10.
In this chapter we give both recursive and generating function formulations of the
Tutte polynomial, and state its universality in the form of a recipe theorem. We give
a number of properties and combinatorial interpretations for various evaluations of
the Tutte polynomial. We recover colorings, flows, orientations, network reliability,
etc., and related polynomials as specializations of the Tutte polynomial. We discuss
the coefficients, zeros, and derivatives of the Tutte polynomial, and conclude with a
brief discussion of computational complexity.
The graph terminology that we use is standard and generally follows Diestel [26].
Graphs may have loops and multiple edges. For a graph G we denote by V .G/ its
E also called a
set of vertices and by E.G/ its set of edges. An oriented graph, G,
digraph, has a direction assigned to each edge.
We first recall some of the notions of graph theory most used in this chapter. Two
graphs G1 and G2 are isomorphic, denoted G1 ' G2 , if there exists a bijection
W V .G1 / ! V .G2 / with xy 2 E.G1 / if and only if .x/.y/ 2 E.G2 /. We
denote by .G/ the number of connected components of a graph G, and by c.G/
the number of nontrivial connected components, that is, the number of connected
9 The Tutte Polynomial 221
The operations of deletion and contraction of an edge are essential to the study of
the Tutte polynomial. The graph obtained by deleting an edge e 2 E.G/ is just
Gne WD .V; Ene/. The graph obtained by contracting an edge e in G results from
identifying the endpoints of e followed by removing e, and is denoted G=e. When
e is a loop, G=e is the same as Gne. It is not difficult to check that both deletion
and contraction are commutative, and thus, for a subset of edges A, both GnA and
G=A are well defined. Also, if e ¤ f , then Gne=f and G=f ne are isomorphic;
thus for disjoint subsets A; A0 E.G/, the graph GnA=A0 is well defined. A graph
H isomorphic to GnA=A0 for some choice of disjoint edge sets A and A0 is called
a minor of G. A class G of graphs is minor closed if whenever G is in G then any
minor of G is also in the class.
A graph invariant is a function f on the class of all graphs such that
A graph polynomial is a graph invariant where the image lies in some polynomial
ring.
222 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
Three special graphs are important. One is the rank 0 graph L consisting of a
single vertex with one loop edge, another is the rank 1 graph B consisting of two
vertices with one bridge edge between them, and the third one is the edgeless graph
E1 on one vertex.
A graph is planar if it can be drawn in the plane without edges crossing, and it
is called a plane graph if it is so drawn in the plane. A drawing of a graph in the
plane separates the plane into regions called faces. Every plane graph G has a dual
graph, G , formed by assigning a vertex of G to each face of G and joining two
vertices of G by k edges if and only if the corresponding faces of G share k edges
in their boundaries. Notice that G is always connected. If G is connected, then
.G / D G. If G is planar, in principle it may have many plane duals, but when G is
3-connected, all its plane duals are isomorphic. This is not the case when G is only
2-connected.
There is a natural bijection between the edge set of a planar graph G and the
edge set of G , any one of its plane duals, so we can assume that G and G have
the same edge set E. It is easy to check that A E is a spanning tree of G if and
only if E n A is a spanning tree of G . Thus, a planar graph and any of its plane
duals have the same number of spanning trees. Furthermore, if G is a planar graph
with rank function r, and G is any of its plane duals, then the rank function of G ,
denoted r , can be expressed as
These observations reflect a deeper relation between G and G that we will see
captured by the Tutte polynomial at the end of Sect. 9.3.2.
9 The Tutte Polynomial 223
T .GI x; y/ D x i y j : (9.3)
This follows readily from Definition 9.3.1 by induction on the number of ordinary
edges in G H or G [ H .
This result follows from routine checking using Definition 9.3.3 and (9.1).
We need to develop a little terminology before presenting the spanning trees defini-
tion of the Tutte polynomial. First, given a spanning tree S and an edge e 62 S , there
is a cycle defined by e, namely the unique cycle in S [ e. Similarly, for an edge
f 2 S , there is a cut defined by f , namely the set of edges C such that if f 0 2 C ,
then .S f / [ f 0 is a spanning tree.
Assume there is a total ordering on the edges of G, say E D fe1 ; : : : ; em g,
where ei ej if i < j . Given a fixed tree S , an edge f is called internally active
if f 2 S and it is the smallest edge in the cut defined by f . Dually, an edge e
is externally active if e 62 S and it is the smallest edge in the cycle defined by e.
The internal activity of S is the number of its internally active edges and its external
activity is the number of externally active edges. With this, we have the following
definition of the Tutte polynomial.
226 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
Definition 9.3.5. If G is a connected graph with a total order on its edge set, then
X
T .GI x; y/ D tij x i y j ; (9.6)
i;j
where tij is the number of spanning trees with internal activity i and external
activity j .
Two important observations follow immediately from the equivalence of
Definitions 9.3.3 and 9.3.5. One is that the terms tij in Definition 9.3.5 are in-
dependent of the total order used in the edge set, since there is no ordering of the
edges in Definition 9.3.3. The other is that the coefficients in Definition 9.3.3 must
be nonnegative since the coefficients in Definition 9.3.5 clearly are.
The universality property discussed here is one of the most powerful aspects of the
Tutte polynomial. It says that essentially any graph invariant that is multiplicative
on disjoint unions and one-point joins of graphs and that has a deletion/contraction
reduction must be an evaluation of the Tutte polynomial. Several applications of this
theorem appear throughout the rest of this chapter and in the next chapter as well.
Various generalizations of the Tutte polynomial are careful to retain this essential
property, and analogous universality properties are sought in the context of other
graph polynomials.
Definition 9.4.1. Let G be a minor closed class of graphs. A graph invariant f from
G to a commutative ring R with unity is called a generalized Tutte–Gröthendieck
invariant, or T–G invariant, if f .E1 / is the unity of R, if there exist fixed elements
a; b 2 R such that for every graph G 2 G and every ordinary edge e 2 G; then
Thus, the Tutte polynomial is a T–G invariant, and in fact, since the following
two results give both universal and unique extension properties, it is essentially the
only T–G invariant, in that any other must be an evaluation of it. Theorem 9.4.2 is
known as a recipe theorem since it specifies how to recover a T–G invariant as an
evaluation of the Tutte polynomial.
Theorem 9.4.2. Let G be a minor closed class of graphs, let R be a commutative
ring with unity, and let f W G ! R. If there exists a; b 2 R such that f is a T–G
invariant, then
9 The Tutte Polynomial 227
x0 y0
f .G/ D ajE.G/jr.E.G// b r.E.G// T GI ; ; (9.9)
b a
Furthermore, we have the following unique extension property, which says that
if we specify any four elements a; b; x0 ; y0 2 R, then there is a unique well-defined
T–G invariant on these four elements.
If a or b are not units of R, then (9.9) and (9.10) are interpreted to mean using
expansion (9.4) of Definition 9.3.3, and cancelling before evaluating.
These results can be proved by induction on the number of ordinary edges
from the deletion/contraction definition of the Tutte polynomial. See, for example,
Brylawski [15], Oxley and Welsh [71], Brylawski and Oxley [17], Welsh [109], and
Bollobás [11] for detailed discussions of these theorems and their consequences.
Examples applying this important theorem may be found throughout Sect. 9.6,
where it may be used to show that all of the graph polynomials surveyed there are
evaluations of the Tutte polynomial.
Spanning subgraphs, and in particular spanning trees, play a fundamental role in the
theory of Tutte polynomials as we have already seen in Definition 9.3.5. This is also
reflected in the most readily attainable interpretations for evaluations of the Tutte
polynomial, which enumerate various spanning subgraphs. We begin with these
here, writing £.G/ for the number of spanning trees of a connected graph G.
228 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
Combinatorial interpretations are known for the Tutte polynomial at all integer
values along the line y D x. In addition to those for T .G; 1; 1/ and T .G; 2; 2/ pre-
viously given, we have the following interpretation for T .GI 1; 1/ due to Read
and Rosenstiehl [76]. We also show alternative interpretations for T .GI 1; 1/ and
T .GI 3; 3/ in Sect. 9.5.3.
The incidence matrix D of a graph G defines a vector space over Z2 , called the
cycle space C. The bicycle space B is then just C \ C ? .
One method of extracting information from a graph polynomial is via its relation
to some other graph invariant. The following interpretations for the Tutte polyno-
mial of a planar graph along the line x D y derive from its relation to the Martin
polynomial [61], m.GI E x/, a one-variable graph polynomial for Eulerian digraphs
that we discuss further in Chap. 10.
We first recall that the medial graph of a connected planar graph G is constructed
by placing a vertex on each edge of G and drawing edges around the faces of G.
The faces of this medial graph are colored black or white, depending on whether
they contain or do not contain, respectively, a vertex of the original graph G. This
face two-colors the medial graph. The edges of the medial graph are then directed
so that the black face is on the left. We refer to this as the directed medial graph of
!
G and denote it by Gm . An example is given in Fig. 9.2.
Martin [61] showed that, for a planar graph G, the relation between the Martin
!
polynomial and Tutte polynomial is m.Gm I x/ D T .GI x; x/. Evaluations for the
Martin polynomial in [32] then give the following interpretations of the Tutte poly-
nomial.
!
Let Dn .Gm / D f.D1 ; : : : ; Dn /g, where .D1 ; : : : ; Dn / is an ordered partition
!
of E.Gm / into n subsets such that G restricted to Di is 2-regular and consistently
oriented for all i .
!
Theorem 9.5.4. Let G be a planar graph with oriented medial graph Gm . Then, for
n a positive integer,
X Pn
.n/c.G/ T .GI 1 n; 1 n/ D .1/ i D1 c.Di / :
!
Dn .Gm /
!
Fig. 9.2 On the left-hand side we have a planar graph G. On the right-hand side we have Gm with
the vertex faces colored black, oriented so that black faces are to the left of each edge
230 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
!
Theorem 9.5.5. Let G be a planar graph with oriented medial graph Gm . Then, for
n a positive integer,
X
nc.G/ T .GI 1 C n; 1 C n/ D 2./ ;
!
where the sum is over all edge colorings of Gm with n colors so that each (possibly
empty) set of monochromatic edges forms an Eulerian digraph, and where ./ is
the number of monochromatic vertices in the coloring .
proof using Theorem 9.4.2 by Brylawski and Oxley in [17]. Comparing Item 4 with
Theorem 9.5.1, Item 2, shows that the number of score vectors equals the number
of spanning forests of G. For Items 5 and 6, see Gioan [39].
Some other evaluations of the Tutte polynomial can also be interpreted in terms
of orientations. Recall that an anticircuit in a digraph is a closed trail so that the
directions of the edges alternate as the trail passes through any vertex of degree
!
greater than 2. Note that in a 4-regular Eulerian digraph such as Gm , the set of
anticircuits can be found by pairing the two incoming edges and the two outgoing
edges at each vertex.
Two surprising results from Las Vergnas [56] and Martin [62] are the following.
Corollary 9.5.8. If G is a connected planar graph, then the dimension of the bicycle
!
space is a.Gm / 1.
Here we illustrate the wide range of applicability of the Tutte polynomial while
demonstrating some proof techniques for showing that a graph invariant is related to
the Tutte polynomial. The advantage of recognizing an application-driven function
as a specialization of the Tutte polynomial is that the large body of knowledge about
the Tutte polynomial is then available to inform the desired application. We say a
graph polynomial is a specialization of the Tutte polynomial if it may be recovered
from the Tutte polynomial by some substitution for x and y, with possibly some
prefactor.
For various substitutions along different algebraic curves in x and y, the Tutte
polynomial has interpretations as the generating function of combinatorial quantities
or numerical invariants associated with a graph. Some of these were considered long
before the development of the Tutte polynomial, and others were discovered to be
unexpectedly related to the Tutte polynomial. We survey six of the more well known
of these application-driven generating functions.
232 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
The chromatic polynomial, introduced by Birkhoff [8], and see also Whitney [112],
because of its theoretical and applied importance, has generated a large body of
work. Chia [21] provides an extensive bibliography on the chromatic polynomial,
and Dong et al. [29] give a comprehensive treatment.
For positive integer , a -coloring of a graph G is a mapping of V .G/ into the
set Œ D f1; 2; : : : ; g. Thus there are exactly n colorings for a graph on n vertices.
If is a -coloring such that .i / ¤ .j / for all ij 2 E, then is called a proper
(or admissible) coloring.
We wish to find the number, .GI /, of admissible -colorings of a graph G. As
noted by Whitney [112], the four-color theorem can be formulated in this general
setting as follows: If G is a planar graph, then .GI 4/ > 0.
The following theorem is due to Birkhoff in [8] and independently by Whitney
in [112]. We sketch the latter’s proof.
Theorem 9.6.1. If G D .V; E/ is a graph, then
X
.GI / D .1/jAj .A/ : (9.15)
AE
Proof. Let Pij be the set of -colorings such that vertices i and j receive the same
color. Let PNij be the complement of Pij in the set of -colorings. Then, the value
.GI / can be computed using the inclusion–exclusion principle.
ˇ ˇ
ˇ ˇ
ˇ\ ˇ
.GI / D ˇˇ PNij ˇˇ
ˇij 2E ˇ
Xˇ ˇ X ˇ ˇ
D n ˇPij ˇ C ˇPij \ Pkl ˇ
ij 2E ij;kl2E
ˇ ij ¤klˇ
ˇ\ ˇ
ˇ
jE j ˇ
ˇ
C .1/ ˇ Pij ˇˇ : (9.16)
ˇij 2E ˇ
ˇ ˇ
Every term is of the form ˇ\ij 2A Pij ˇ for some A E, and hence corresponds
to the subgraph .V; A/, where A is the set of edges given by the indices of the Pij ’s.
Thus, the cardinality of this set is the number of -colorings that have a constant
value on each of the connected components of .V; A/, that is, .A/ . The sum on the
right-hand side of (9.15) is then precisely (9.16). t
u
Note that Items 1 and 4 together give a recursive alternative definition of the
chromatic polynomial.
Also in Read [75] is the following not so trivial, but not difficult to prove, prop-
erty of the chromatic polynomial.
Theorem 9.6.3. If G is the union of two vertex set induced subgraphs H1 and H2
such that the intersection H1 \ H2 is a vertex set induced subgraph isomorphic to
Kp , then
.H1 I /.H2 I /
.GI / D :
.Kp I /
Thus, although Proposition 9.6.2, Item 4 suggests that the chromatic polynomial
might be a T–G invariant, by Theorem 9.6.3, it is not multiplicative on the one point
join of two graphs. However, as is frequently the case, this can be addressed by
a simple multiplier; it is easy to check that .G/ .GI / is a T–G invariant. The
relation between the Tutte and chromatic polynomials may then be found by apply-
ing Theorem 9.4.2 with the help of Proposition 9.6.2, Item 4. We give an alternative
proof of this relationship deriving from Theorem 9.6.1.
Theorem 9.6.4. If G D .V; E/ is a graph, then
One way to generalize the chromatic polynomial is to count all possible colorings
of the graph G, not just proper colorings. In order to differentiate between proper
234 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
and improper colorings, we keep track of the edges between vertices of the same
color, calling them bad edges. This leads to the bad coloring polynomial.
where b./ is the set of bad edges in the -coloring . With this last expression it is
again easy to get the relation to the Tutte polynomial using the following derivation
of Noble (private communication).
Theorem 9.6.6. For a graph G D .V; E/ we have that
Ct
B.GI ; t C 1/ D t r.E / .G/
T GI ;1 C t :
t
Proof.
X
B.GI ; t C 1/ D .1 C t/jb./j
WV !Œ
X X
D t jAj
WV !Œ Ab./
X X
D t jAj
AE WV !Œ
Ab./
X
D t jAj .A/ :
AE
Thus,
X
B.GI ; t C 1/ D t jAj .A/
AE
X r.E /r.A/
r.E / .G/
jAjr.A/
Dt t
t
AE
Dt r.E / .G/
T GI 1 C ; t C 1 :
t
t
u
9 The Tutte Polynomial 235
Again, the above result could also be obtained from the universal property
of the Tutte polynomial given in Theorem 9.4.2 by applying it to B.GI N ; t/ D
.G/
B.GI ; t/ and verifying that:
N
1. B.GI N
; t/ D B.G N
n eI ; t/ C .t 1/B.G=eI ; t/, if e is an ordinary edge.
N N
2. B.GI ; t/ D t B.G n eI ; t/, if e is a loop.
N
3. B.GI N
; t/ D .t C 1/B.G=eI ; t/, if e is a bridge.
The dual notion to a proper -coloring is a nowhere zero -flow. A standard resource
for the material in this section is Zhang [116], and Jaeger [48] gives a good survey.
Let G be a graph with an arbitrary but fixed orientation, and let H be an Abelian
group with 0 as its identity element. An H -flow is a mapping of the oriented edges
E
E.G/ into the elements of the group H such that Kirchhoff’s law is satisfied at each
vertex of G; that is, X X
e/ C
.E e / D 0;
.E
eEDu!v eEDu v
for every vertex v, and where the first sum is taken over all arcs towards v and the
second sum is over all arcs leaving v. An H -flow is nowhere zero if never takes
the value 0.
By replacing the group element on an edge e by its inverse, it is clear that two
orientations that differ only in the direction of exactly one arc eE have the same
number of nowhere zero H -flows for any H . Thus, this number does not depend
on the choice of orientation of G. In fact, when H is finite, it does not depend
on the structure of the group, but rather only on its cardinality. The following, due
to Tutte [103], relates the number of nowhere zero flows of G over a finite group
and Tutte polynomial of G. The reason for the notation becomes clear with
Corollary 9.6.8.
Theorem 9.6.7. Let G D .V; E/ be a graph and H a finite Abelian group. If
.GI H / denotes the number of nowhere zero H -flows then
.GI H / D .G n eI H / .G=eI H /;
236 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
and hence .GI H / satisfies (9.7). It is also easy to check that .GI H / satisfies
(9.8). Since .LI H / D 0 and .BI H / D jH j 1, the result follows from
Theorem 9.4.2. t
u
Consequently, .GI / is a polynomial called the flow polynomial which for
an integer at least 1 gives the number of nowhere zero flows of G in a group of order
. We call any nowhere zero H -flow simply a -flow if jH j D .
If the Abelian group is Z3 , and the graph is 4-regular, then the Tutte polynomial
at .0; 2/ counts the number of nowhere zero Z3 -flows on G. But these flows are
in one-to-one correspondence with orientations such that at each vertex exactly two
edges are directed in and two out. Such an orientation is called an ice configuration
of G (see Lieb [58] and Pauling [72] for this important model of ice and its physical
properties). Thus, we have the following corollary.
Corollary 9.6.8. If G is a 4-regular graph, then T .GI 0; 2/ equals the number of
ice configurations of G.
We mentioned previously that proper colorings are the dual concept of nowhere
zero flows, and now with Theorem 9.6.3 and (9.5) we observe that
for G a connected planar graph and G , any of its plane duals. Thus, to each
-proper coloring in G corresponds nowhere zero Z -flows of G . A bijective
proof can be found in Diestel [26].
The four-color theorem and the duality relation between colorings and nowhere
zero H -flows then mean that every bridgeless planar graph has a 4-flow. For a cubic
graph, having a nowhere zero Z2 Z2 -flow is equivalent to being 3-edge-colorable.
Therefore, as the Petersen graph is not 3-edge-colorable, it has no 4-flow. However,
the Petersen graph does have a 5-flow. In fact, the famous 5-flow conjecture of
Tutte [103] postulates that every bridgeless graph has a 5-flow.
The 5-flow conjecture is clearly difficult as it is not even apparent that every graph
will have a -flow for some . However, Jaeger [47] proved that every bridgeless
graph has an Z2 Z2 Z2 -flow, thus every bridgeless graph has an 8-flow. Subse-
quently Seymour [85] proved that every bridgeless graph has a Z2 Z3 -flow, thus
every graph has a 6-flow.
Not much is currently known about properties of the flow polynomial apart from
those that can be deduced from its duality with the chromatic polynomial and efforts
to solve the 5-flow conjecture. However, for some recent work in this direction, see
Dong and Koh [28] and Jackson [46].
If, after this redistribution, the height at some vertex exceeds its threshold, we again
apply the toppling rule (9.18), and so on, until we arrive at a stable configuration and
the loading resumes. The sequence of topplings is called an avalanche. We assume
that an avalanche is “instantaneous”, so that no loading occurs during an avalanche.
The value si is called the dissipation at site i . We say that si is dissipative if
si > 0 and nondissipative if si D 0. It may happen that an avalanche continues with-
out end. We can avoid this possibility by requiring that from every non-dissipative
site i , there exists a path to a dissipative site j . In other words, there is a sequence
i0 ; : : : ; in , with i0 D i , in D j and Mik1 ;ik < 0, for k D 1; : : : ; n. In this case,
following Gabrielov [37], we say that the system is weakly dissipative, and we as-
sume that a system is always weakly dissipative. In a weakly dissipative system,
any configuration hE will eventually arrive at a stable configuration. But the process
is infinite, and the stable configurations are clearly finite. Thus, some stable config-
urations recur, and these are called critical configurations.
The sandpile process has an Abelian property, in that if at some stage, two sites
can topple, the resulting stable configuration after the avalanche is independent of
the order in which the sites toppled. Thus, for any configuration h, E the process even-
tually arrives at a unique critical configuration cE.
Let G be a connected graph, q 2 V .G/, and L0 be the minor of the Laplacian
of G resulting from deleting the row and column corresponding to q. When the
matrix M is L0 for some vertex q, the Abelian sandpile model coincides with the
chip-firing game or dollar game on a graph that was defined by Biggs [7]. For
the rest of this section we assume M is given in this way.
For a configuration h, E we define its weight to be w.h/E D PN hi . If cE is a
i D0
critical configuration, we define its level as
c / D w.E
level.E c / jE.G/j C deg.q/:
238 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
This definition may seem a little unnatural, but it is justified by the following
theorem of Biggs [7], which tells us that it is actually the right quantity to consider
if we want to grade the critical configurations.
Theorem 9.6.9. If G D .V; E/ is a connected graph and hE a critical configuration
of G, then
E jEj jV j C 1:
0 level.h/
The rightmost quantity is called the cyclomatic number of G. We now consider the
generating function of these critical configurations.
Definition 9.6.10. Let G D .V; E/ be a graph and for nonnegative integers i let ci
be the number of critical configurations with level i . Then the critical configuration
polynomial is
jE jjV
XjC1
Pq .GI y/ D ci y i :
i D0
Theorem 9.6.11. For a connected graph G and any vertex q, the generating func-
tion of the critical configurations equals the Tutte polynomial of G along the line
x D 1, that is,
Pq .GI y/ D T .GI 1; y/;
Many of the invariants reviewed thus far have various applications in the sci-
ences, engineering, and computer science. However, when a graph models some
kind of network (e.g., electrical, communication, etc.), then the applicability of
the reliability polynomial we discuss next is particularly apparent.
Definition 9.6.13. Let G be a connected graph or network with n vertices and m
edges, and suppose that each edge is independently chosen to be active with proba-
bility p. Then the (all terminal) reliability polynomial is
9 The Tutte Polynomial 239
X
R.GI p/ D p jAj .1 p/jE Aj
A spanning
connected
(9.19)
X
mnC1
D gk p kCn1
.1 p/ mknC1
;
kD0
Proof. We first note from the rank generating expansion of Definition 9.3.3 that
X
mnC1
T .GI 1; y C 1/ D gk y k ;
kD0
since the only nonvanishing terms are those corresponding to A E with r.E/ D
r.A/, that is, spanning connected subgraphs.
We then observe that
X
mnC1
R.GI p/ D gk p kCn1 .1 p/mknC1
kD0
X
mnC1 k
p
D p n1 .1 p/mnC1 gk
1p
kD0
p
Dp n1
.1 p/ GI 1; 1 C
mnC1
T
1p
1
D p n1 .1 p/mnC1 T GI 1; :
1p
t
u
If we extend the reliability polynomial to graphs with more than one component
by defining R.G [ H I p/ WD R.G; p/R.H; p/, then this result may also be proved
using the universality property of the Tutte polynomial. Observe that if an ordi-
nary edge is not active (this happens with probability 1 p), then the reliability
of the network is the same as if the edge were deleted. Similarly, if an edge is ac-
tive (which happens with probability p), then the reliability is the same as it would
240 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
be if the edge were contracted. Thus, the reliability polynomial has the following
deletion/contraction reduction:
With this, and noting that R.G H I p/ D R.GI p/R.H I p/ with R.L; p/ D 1
and R.BI p/ D p, Theorem 9.6.14 also follows immediately from Theorem 9.4.2.
There is a vast literature about reliability and the reliability polynomial; for a
good survey, including a wealth of open problems, we refer the reader to Chari and
Colbourn [20].
X
d
f .x/ D fk x d k ; (9.20)
kD0
Theorem 9.6.15. The Tutte polynomial gives the face enumerators for both .G/
and .G/:
X
d
T .GI x C 1; 1/ D fk x d k D f.G/ .x/;
kD0
9 The Tutte Polynomial 241
and
X
d
i
T .GI 1; y C 1/ D fi y d D f .G/ .x/:
i D0
X
d
h .x/ D hi x d i :
i D0
The face enumerator and shelling polynomial are related in a somewhat surpris-
ing way, namely
h .x C 1/ D f .x/: (9.21)
Both .G/ and .G/ are known to be shellable (see, for example, Provan and
Billera [74]), and thus (9.21) gives the following corollary to Theorem 9.6.15, relat-
ing the two shelling polynomials to the Tutte polynomial (see Björner [9]).
Corollary 9.6.16. Let G be a graph. Then
X
d
T .GI x; 1/ D h.M / .x/ D hi x d i
i D0
and
X
d
i
T .GI 1; y/ D h.G/ .y/ D hi y d :
i D0
The reader may have noticed that the reliability polynomial as well as the face
enumerator and shelling polynomial of .G/ are all specializations of the Tutte
polynomial along the line x D 1. There is an important open conjecture in algebraic
combinatorics about the h-vectors (and hence the shelling polynomials), of the two
complexes coming from a graph (or, more generally, a matroid), namely that they
are “pure O-sequences”. For more details see Stanley [96] or [65]. The latter also
relates the shelling polynomial and the chip firing game. Let G be a graph with
n vertices and m edges. From Corollary 9.6.16 and Theorem 9.6.11, we get that
242 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
There is a large and ever-growing body of information about properties of the Tutte
polynomial. Here, we present some of them, again with an emphasis on illustrating
general techniques for extracting information from a graph polynomial.
The ˇ invariant does not change with the insertion of parallel edges or edges in
series. Thus, homeomorphic graphs have the same ˇ invariant. The ˇ invariant is
9 The Tutte Polynomial 243
also occasionally called the chromatic invariant, because the derivative 0 .GI 1/ D
.1/r.G/ ˇ .G/, where .GI x/ is the chromatic polynomial.
Definition 9.7.3. A series–parallel graph is a graph constructed from a digon (two
vertices joined by two edges in parallel) by repeatedly adding an edge in parallel to
an existing edge, or adding an edge in series with an existing edge by subdividing
the edge. Series–parallel graphs are loopless multigraphs, and are planar.
Brylawski [14] and also [16], in the context of matroids, showed that the ˇ in-
variant completely characterizes series–parallel graphs.
Theorem 9.7.4. G is a series–parallel graph if and only if ˇ .G/ D 1.
Using the deletion/contraction definition of the Tutte polynomial, it is quite easy
to show that the ˇ invariant is unchanged by adding an edge in series or in parallel
to another edge in the graph. This, combined with the ˇ invariant of a digon being
one, suffices for one direction of the proof. The difficulty is in the reverse direc-
tion, and the proof is provided in [15] by a set of equivalent characterizations for
series–parallel graphs, one by excluded minors and another that the ˇ invariant is
1 for series–parallel graphs. For graphs, the excluded minor is K4 (cf. Duffin [30]
and Oxley [70]). Succinct proofs may also be found in Zaslavsky [115]. The fun-
damental observation, which may be applied to other situations, is that there is a
graphical element, here an edge which is in series or parallel with another edge,
which behaves in a tractable way with respect to the computation methods of the
polynomial.
The ˇ invariant has been explored further, for example, by Oxley in [70] and by
Benashski et al. in [5]. Oxley characterized 3-connected matroids with ˇ 4, and
a complete list of all simple 3-connected graphs with ˇ 9 is given in [5].
A wide variety of combinatorial interpretations have also been found for the ˇ
invariant. Most interpretations involve objects other than graphs, but we give two
graphical interpretations below. The first is due to Las Vergnas [55].
Theorem 9.7.5. Let G be a connected graph. Then 2ˇ .G/ gives the number of
orientations of G that have a unique source and sink, independent of their relative
locations.
Theorem 9.7.6. Let G D .V; E/ be a connected planar graph with at least two
edges. Then
1X
ˇD .1/c.E nP /C1 ;
2
E m which visit each vertex at least once.
where the sum is over all closed trails P in G
Like the interpretations for T .GI x; x/ given in Sect. 9.5.2, this result follows
from the Tutte polynomial’s relation to the Martin polynomial.
244 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
Graphs in a given class may have ˇ invariants of a particular form. McKee [63]
provides an example of this in dual-chordal graphs. A dual-chordal graph is
2-connected, 3-edge-connected, such that every cut of size at least four creates a
bridge. A graph has two vertices with three edges in parallel between them. A
dual-chordal graph has the property that it may be reduced to a graph by repeat-
edly contracting induced subgraphs of the following forms: digons, triangles, and
K2;3 ’s, where in all cases each vertex has degree 3 in G.
The proof follows from considering the acyclic orientations of G with unique
source and sink and applying the results of Green and Zaslavsky [43].
After observing that t1;0 D t0;1 in the development of the ˇ invariant, it is nat-
ural to ask if there are similar
P relations among the coefficients tij of the Tutte
polynomial T .GI x; y/ D tij x i y j and whether there are combinatorial interpre-
tations for these coefficients as well. The answer is yes, although less is known. The
most basic fact, and one which is not obvious from the rank-nullity formulation of
Definition 9.3.3, is that all the coefficients of the Tutte polynomial are nonnegative.
That t1;0 D t0;1 is one of an infinite family of relations among the coefficients of
the Tutte polynomial. Brylawski [16] has shown the following.
for k D 0; 1 : : : ; m 1.
Theorem 9.7.9. Let G be a graph with a linear ordering of its edges. Let oi;j be
the number of orientations of G such that the number of edges that are smallest on
some consistently directed cocycle is i and the number of edges that are smallest on
a consistently directed cycle is j. Then
9 The Tutte Polynomial 245
X
T .GI x; y/ D oi;j 2.i Cj / x i y j ;
i;j
The proof is modeled on Tutte’s proof that the tij ’s are independent of the order-
ing of the edges by using deletion/contraction on the greatest edge in the ordering.
Another natural question is to ask if these coefficients are unimodular or perhaps
log concave, for example in either x or y. While this was originally conjectured to
be true (see Seymour and Welsh [86], Tutte [105]), then Schwärzler [83] found a
contradiction in the graph in Fig. 9.3. This counterexample can be extended to an
infinite family of counterexamples by increasing the number of edges parallel to e
or f .
The unimodularity question for the chromatic polynomial, raised by Read in [75],
is still unresolved.
Because the Tutte polynomial is after all a polynomial, it is natural to ask about its
zeros and factorizations. The importance of its zeros is magnified by their interpre-
tations. For example, since T .GI 0; y/ is essentially the flow polynomial, a root of
the form .0; 1 /, for a positive integer, means that G does not have a nowhere
zero flow for any Abelian group of order . Similarly, since T .GI x; 0/ is essentially
the chromatic polynomial, a root of the form .1 ; 0/ with a positive integer,
means that G cannot be properly colored with colors. In particular, a direct proof
the four-color theorem would follow if it could be shown that the Tutte polynomial
has no zero of the form .3; 0/ on the class of planar graphs. Of course, because of
the duality between the flow and chromatic polynomials, results for the zeros of the
one informs the other, and vice versa. Jackson [45] surveys zeros of both chromatic
and the flow polynomials.
As we discuss in Chap. 10, the chromatic polynomial has an additional interpreta-
tion as the zero-temperature antiferromagnetic Potts model of statistical mechanics.
In this context, its zeros correspond to numbers of spins for which the ground-state
degeneracy function may be nonanalytic. This has led to research into its zeros
246 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
where a0 ; : : : ; ak are integers and q.x/ is a polynomial with no integer roots in the
interval Œ0; k. In contrast to this we have the following result of Merino et al. [66].
The proof is quite technical and it heavily relies on Theorem 9.7.8 and that
ˇ.G/ ¤ 0 if and only if G has no loops and it is 2-connected.
If G is not 2-connected, then T .GI x; y/ can be factored. From Proposition 9.3.2
we get that if G is a disconnected
Q graph with connected components G1 ; : : : ; G ,
then T .GI x; y/ D i D1 T .Gi I x; y/. So we assume G is connected but
not 2-connected.
One of the basic properties mentioned in [17] is that y s jT .GI x; y/ if and only if
G has s loops. Thus, we assume G is loopless and connected but not 2-connected.
It is well known that such graphs have a decomposition into their blocks; see, for
example, [11]. A block of a graph G is either a bridge or a maximal 2-connected
9 The Tutte Polynomial 247
It is also most natural to differentiate the Tutte polynomial and to ask for combina-
torial interpretations of its derivatives. For example, Las Vergnas [57] has found the
following combinatorial interpretation of the derivatives of the Tutte polynomial. It
first requires a slight generalization of the notions of internal and external activities
given in Sect. 9.3.3.
Definition 9.7.12. Let G D .V; E/ be a graph with a linear order on its edges, and
let A E. An edge e 2 A and a cut C are internally active with respect to A
if e 2 C .EnA/ [ feg and e is the smallest element in C . Similarly, an edge
e 2 EnA and a cycle C are externally active with respect to A if e 2 C A [ feg.
In the case that A is a spanning tree, this reduces to the previous definitions of
internally and externally active.
Theorem 9.7.13. Let G be a graph with a linear ordering on its edges. Then
@pCq X
p q
T .GI x; y/ D pŠ qŠ x in.A/ y ex.A/ ;
@x @y
where the sum is over all subsets A of the edge set of G such that r .G/ r .A/ D p
and jAj r .A/ D q, and where in.A/ is the number of internally active edges with
respect to A, and ex.A/ is the number of externally active edges with respect to A.
The proof begins by differentiating the spanning tree definition of the Tutte poly-
nomial, Definition 9.3.5, which gives a sum over i and j restricted by p and q. This
is followed by showing that the coefficients of x i p y j q enumerate the edge sets
described in the theorem statement. The enumeration comes from examining, for
each subset A of E, the set of e 2 EnA such that there is a cut-set of G contained
in EnA with e as the smallest element (and dually for cycles).
The Tutte polynomial along the line x D y is a polynomial in one variable that,
for planar graphs, is related to the Martin polynomial via a medial graph construc-
tion. From this relationship, [31] derives an interpretation for the n-th derivatives of
this one variable polynomial evaluated at 2 in terms of edge disjoint closed trails in
the oriented medial graph.
248 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
Definition 9.7.14. For an oriented graph G E , let Pn be the set of ordered n-tuples
pN WD .p1 ; : : : ; pn /, where the pi ’s are consistently oriented edge-disjoint closed
E
trails in G.
!
Theorem 9.7.15. If G is a connected planar graph with oriented medial graph Gm ,
then, for all nonnegative integers n,
ˇ
@n ˇ X
n
nŠ X
T .GI x; x/ˇˇ D .1/nk N
2m.p/ ;
@x xD2 kŠ
!
kD0 N
p2P k Gm
!
N is the number of vertices of Gm not belonging to any of the trails in p.
where m .p/ N
Since the Tutte polynomial can also be formulated as a generating function, the tools
of generating functions, such as Möbius inversion and convolution, are available to
analyze it. A comprehensive treatment of convolution and Möbius inversion can
be found in Stanley [97]. Convolution identities are valuable because they write a
graph polynomial in terms of the polynomials of its substructures, thus facilitating
induction techniques. We have the following result from Kook et al. [53] using this
approach (see also [33]).
Theorem 9.7.16. The Tutte polynomial can be expressed as
X
T .GI x; y/ D T .G=AI x; 0/T . GjA I 0; y/;
where the sum is over all subsets A of the edge set of G, and where GjA is the
restriction of G to the edges of A; i.e., GjA D G n .E n A/.
This result is particularly interesting in that it essentially writes the Tutte polyno-
mial of a graph in terms of the chromatic and flow polynomials of its minors. It may
be proved in several ways, for example, by induction using the deletion/contraction
relation, or from the spanning trees expansion of the Tutte polynomial. However,
we present the first proof from [53], which is dependent on results of Crapo [24], to
illustrate an application of convolution.
Proof (sketch). We begin with a convolution
P product of two functions on graphs
into the ring ZŒx; y given by f g D AE .G/ f . GjA /g .G=A/. The identity for
convolution is ı.G/ which is 1 if and only if G is edgeless and 0 otherwise. From
Crapo [24], we have that
T .GI x C 1; y C 1/ D .
.1; y/
.x; 1// .G/ ;
where
.x; y/ .G/ D x r.G/ y r.G / . Kook et al. [53] then show that
.x; y/1 D
where the sum is over all subsets A of the set of vertices of G, and where GjA is the
restriction of G to the vertices of A.
Proof. Consider an .m C n/-coloring of G, and let A be the vertices colored by the
first m colors. Then an .m C n/-coloring of G decomposes into an m coloring of
GjA using the first m colors and an n coloring of GjAc using the remaining colors.
Thus,
P for any two nonnegative integers m and n, it follows that .GI m C n/ D
. GjA I m/ . GjAc I n/. Since the expressions involve finite polynomials, this
establishes the result for indeterminates x and y. t
u
We assume the reader is familiar with the basic notions of computational complex-
ity, but for formal definitions in the present context, see, for example, Garey and
Johnson [38] or Welsh [109].
We have seen that along different algebraic curves in the x–y plane, the
Tutte polynomial evaluates to many diverse quantities. Some of these, such as
T .GI 2; 2/ D 2jE j are very easy to compute, and others such as T .GI 1; 1/ may also
be computed efficiently, as in Sect. 9.5.1. In general though, the Tutte polynomial is
intractable, as shown in the following theorem of Jaeger et al. [49].
Theorem 9.8.1. The problem of evaluating the Tutte polynomial of a graph at a
point .a; b/ is #P -hard except when .a; b/ is on the special hyperbola
H1
.x 1/.y 1/ D 1
or when .a; b/ is one of the special points .1; 1/, .1; 1/, .0; 1/, .1; 0/, .i; i /,
.i; i /, .j; j 2 /, and .j 2 ; j /, where j D e 2 i=3 .
In each of the exceptional cases the evaluation can be done in polynomial time;
see Vertigan [107] and Gioan and Las Vergnas [41].
For planar graphs there is a significant difference. The technique developed using
the Pfaffian to solve the Ising problem for the plane square lattice by Kasteleyn [51]
250 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
can be extended to give a polynomial time algorithm for the evaluation of the Tutte
polynomial of any planar graph along the special hyperbola
H2
.x 1/.y 1/ D 2:
Theorem 9.8.2. The evaluation of the Tutte polynomial of bipartite planar graphs
at a point .a; b/ is #P -hard except when
A natural question then arises as to how well an evaluation of the Tutte poly-
nomial might be approximated. That is, if there is a fully polynomial randomized
approximation scheme, or FPRAS, for T at a point .x; y/ for a well-defined family
of graphs. Here, FPRAS refers to a probabilistic algorithm that takes the input s and
the degree of accuracy to produce, in polynomial time on jsj and 1 , a random
variable which approximates T .GI x; y/ within a ratio of 1 C with probability
greater than or equal to 3/4. For example, Jerrum and Sinclair [50] show that there
exists an FPRAS for T along the positive branch of the hyperbola H2 .
However, in general approximating is provably difficult as well. Recently,
Goldberg and Jerrum [42] have extended the region of the x–y plane for which
the Tutte polynomial does not have an FPRAS, to essentially all but the first quad-
rant (under the assumption that RP ¤ NP ). A consequence of this is that there is
no FPRAS for counting nowhere zero -flows for > 2. They also provide a good
overview of prior results. For a somewhat more optimistic prognosis in the case of
dense graphs, we refer the reader to [111], and to Alon et al. [2].
There has been an increasing body of work since the seminal results of Robertson
and Seymour [78–80] impacting computational complexity questions for graphs
with bounded tree-width (see Bodlaender’s accessible introduction to tree-width
in [10]). A powerful aspect of this work is that many NP -hard problems become
tractable for graphs of bounded tree-width. For example, Noble [67] and Andrze-
jak [3] have shown that the Tutte polynomial may be computed in polynomial time
(in fact it requires only a linear number of multiplications and additions) for ra-
tional points on graphs with bounded tree width. Makowsky et al. [60] provide
similar results for bounded clique-width (a notion with significant computational
complexity consequences analogous to those for bounded tree-width; see Oum
and Seymour [69]). Noble [68] gives a recent survey of complexity results for
9 The Tutte Polynomial 251
this area, including new monadic second-order logic methods and extensions to
the multivariable generalizations of the Tutte polynomial discussed in Chap. 10
(see also [59, 100]).
Although the Tutte polynomial is not in general computationally tractable,
there are some resources for reasonably sized graphs (up to about 100 edges).
These include Sekine et al. [84], which provides an algorithm to implement
the recursive definition. Common computer algebra systems such as Maple
and Mathematica will compute the Tutte polynomial for smallish graphs, and
there are also some implementations freely available on the Web, such as
http://ada.fciencias.unam.mx/rconde/tulic/ by R. Conde or http://homepages.mcs.
vuw.ac.nz/djp/tutte/ by G. Haggard and D. Pearce.
9.9 Conclusion
For further exploration of the Tutte polynomial and its properties, we refer the reader
to the relevant chapters of Welsh [109] and Bollobás [11] for excellent introductions,
and to Brylawki [16], Brylawski and Oxley [17], and Welsh [110] for an in-depth
treatment of the Tutte polynomial, including generalizations to matroids. Although
we focused on graphs here to broaden accessibility, matroids, rather than graphs, are
the natural domain of the Tutte polynomial, and Crapo [24] gives a compelling jus-
tification for this viewpoint. Farr [35] gives a recent treatment and engaging history
of the Tutte polynomial. Finally, we especially recommend Tutte’s own account of
how he “became acquainted with the Tutte polynomial” in [106].
Acknowledgments We thank all the friends and colleagues who offered many helpful comments
and suggestions during the writing of this chapter.
The first author was supported by the National Security Agency and by the Vermont Genetics
Network through Grant Number P20 RR16462 from the INBRE Program of the National Center
for Research Resources (NCRR), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The second author was supported by CONACYT of Mexico, Grant 83977.
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9 The Tutte Polynomial 255
10.1 Introduction
We have seen two methods for formulating a graph polynomial with the linear
recursion (deletion/contraction) and generating function definitions of the Tutte
polynomial in Chap. 9. Here we show several more. We begin with one of the earli-
est graph polynomials, the edge-difference polynomial, a multivariable polynomial
defined as a product and originally studied by Sylvester [129] and Peterson [113]
in the late 1800s. More recently, it has been used to address list coloring questions
(see Alon and Tarsi [8] and Ellingham and Goddyn [53]), where a list coloring of
a graph is a proper coloring of the vertices of a graph with the color of each vertex
selected from a predetermined list of colors assigned to that vertex.
Definition 10.2.1. The edge-difference polynomial. Let Q .v1 ; : : : ; vn / be an ordering
of the vertices of a graph G. Then D .GI x1 ; : : : ; xn / D i <j .xi xj /, where the
product is over all edges vi ; vj of G.
Note that a proper coloring of G corresponds to finding positive integer values
Ni (not necessarily distinct) for each of the xi ’s so that D .GI N1 ; : : : ; Nn / ¤ 0.
There are also several polynomials based on various determinants (or even per-
manents; see Pathasarthy [111] for a survey) involving the adjacency matrix of a
graph. Recall that A.G/, the adjacency matrix of a graph, has entries aij D 1 if
.i; j / is an edge of the graph and 0 if it is not. The characteristic polynomial is the
classic example of a such a graph polynomial, and is discussed further in Sect. 10.3.
Definition 10.2.2. The characteristic polynomial. Let A.G/ be the adjacency
matrix of a graph G. Then f .GI x/ D jxI A.G/j.
Other examples of such polynomials are the idiosyncratic polynomial introduced
by Tutte [133], that is defined by .GI x; y/ D jA.G/Cy.J I A/xI j, where J
is the matrix having all entries equal to 1. Also .GI x; y/ D jxI D.G/ C A.G/j,
where D.G/ is the degree matrix of G, that is, the diagonal matrix with deg.i / in
the position .i; i /, introduced by Kel’mans [93]. Note that J I A is the adjacency
matrix of the complement of G and when G is a simple graph, D.G/ A.G/ is
just the Laplacian matrix L.G/ of the graph.
10 Interrelations and Interpretations 259
v or or
Fig. 10.1 The three possible local reconfigurations at a vertex v, identified, from left to right, as
white, black, and crossing. Which strand passes over which in the crossing configuration does not
affect the computation
where c.S / is the number of components in the graph state S , and cr.S / is the
number of crossing vertex configurations chosen in the state S .
For example, if G is the -graph consisting of two vertices joined by three edges
in parallel, then P .GI x/ D x 3 3x 2 C 2x, as in Fig. 10.2. The Penrose polynomial
may also be computed via a linear recursion relation (see Jaeger [89], for example).
The Penrose polynomial has some surprising properties, particularly with respect
to graph coloring. The four-color theorem is equivalent to showing that every planar,
260 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
G= Gm =
–x +x –x2 +x
Fig. 10.2 Computing the Penrose polynomial of a graph G from the states of its medial graph
cubic, connected graph can be properly edge-colored with three colors. The Penrose
polynomial, when applied to planar, cubic, connected graphs, encodes exactly this
information (see Penrose [112]):
jV2 j
1
P .GI 3/ D P .GI 2/ D the number of 3-edge-colorings of G:
4
We present a further sampling of graph polynomials here. They are each related in
some way to the Tutte polynomial, and have additional relations among themselves.
These relations lead to combinatorial insights as results for any one polynomial then
inform those related to it.
where r is the rank function and the sum is over all linear subgraphs of G having
i vertices.
Note that because is a linear subgraph, r ./ is simply the number of compo-
nents in that are cycles. The proof of Proposition 10.3.2 uses Proposition 10.3.1
and can be found in Harary [82], while a detailed history of this result is given by
Cvetković et al. [45].
As with the Tutte polynomial we also have here some reduction formulas and an
expression for the derivative of the characteristic polynomial.
Theorem 10.3.3. The characteristic polynomial of a graph satisfies the following
identities:
1. f .G [ H I x/ D f .GI x/f .H I x/,
2. f .GI x/ D f .G
Pn e; x/ f .G u vI x/ if e D uv is a cut-edge of G,
@
3. @x f .GI x/ D v2V .G/ f .G vI x/.
A proof of these properties can be found in Godsil [75]. Item 1 is an easy exer-
cise in matrix theory, as in Horn and Johnson [85]. Item 2 can be proved by using
Proposition 10.3.2 and considering the linear subgraphs of G that use the edge e
and the ones that do not use it. The result follows because e is in no cycle of G if
and only if it is a cut-edge. Item 3 can be proved by using Proposition 10.3.1 since
any principal minor of order i is counted n i times in the right-hand side of the
formula in Item 3.
262 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
Lemma 10.3.4 (Kelly’s lemma). Let G and H be graphs, and let .H; G/ denote
the number of subgraphs of G isomorphic to H . Then
X
.jV .G/j jV .H /j/.H; G/ D .H; G v/:
v2V .G/
The proof is by a double counting argument, and it follows that .H; G/ is recon-
structible whenever jV .H /j < jV .G/j.
Tutte proved in [132] that the Tutte polynomial is reconstructible, and thus the
chromatic polynomial, the flow polynomial, the number of spanning trees and any
invariant mentioned in Chap. 9 are also reconstructible. Tutte also proved that the
characteristic polynomial is reconstructible in [133].
Theorem 10.3.5. The characteristic polynomial of a graph is reconstructible.
For the proof, note that we have immediately from Theorem 10.3.3 that f 0 .GI x/
is reconstructible. It then remains to prove that the constant term of f .GI x/ is re-
constructible. But by Proposition 10.3.1, this is the same as proving that jA.G/j
is reconstructible. Then, using Theorem 10.3.2 and an extension of Kelly’s lemma
(see [94]), the problem is reduced to proving that the number of Hamiltonian cycles
is reconstructible. A complete proof of Theorem 10.3.5 based on the proof in
Kocay [94], can be found in [75].
Let us turn now to the matching polynomial. An i -matching in a graph G is a set
of i edges, no two of which have a vertex in common. Let ˚i .G/ denote the number
of i -matchings, setting ˚0 .G/ D 1. Thus ˚1 .G/ D m is the number of edges of
G, and if n, the number of vertices, is even, then ˚n=2 .G/ is the number of perfect
matchings of G.
X
.GI x/ D .1/i ˚i .G/x n2i :
i 0
10 Interrelations and Interpretations 263
We outline a proof of Theorem 10.3.9 from Godsil [73] that uses some of the
results already mentioned for .GI x/ and f .GI x/. First, given a graph G and a
vertex u in G, the path tree T .G; u/ is the tree that has as its vertices the paths in G
which start at u, and where two such vertices are joined by an edge if one represents
a maximal proper subpath (i.e., all but the last edge) of the other. We then have the
following proposition from [73] that leads to a proof of Theorem 10.3.9.
Proposition 10.3.11. Let u be a vertex in a graph G, let T D T .G; u/ be the path
tree of G with respect to u, and let u0 be the vertex of T corresponding to the path
of length 0 beginning at u. Then
.G uI x/ .T u0 I x/ f .T u0 I x/
D D :
.GI x/ .T I x/ f .T I x/
The last equality follows from Corollary 10.3.8. Because all the roots of the char-
acteristic polynomial are real, we conclude that all zeros and poles of the rational
function .G uI x/=.GI x/ are real. An induction argument on the number of
vertices in G then yields the conclusion that all the zeros of .GI x/ are real.
An interesting combinatorial consequence of Theorem 10.3.9 is the following
result of Heilmann and Lieb [84], which gives a stark contrast with how little is
known about the coefficients of the chromatic polynomial.
Theorem 10.3.12. For any graph G, the sequence ˚0 .G/, ˚1 .G/, : : : of coeffi-
cients of g.GI x/ is log-concave, that is ˚i2 ˚i 1 ˚i C1 .
The characteristic polynomial has been well studied, particularly with respect to
graphs with the same characteristic polynomial. Godsil [75, 76] gives a thorough
treatment of both the characteristic and the matching polynomials. Another good
reference for the characteristic polynomial is Biggs [20]. Just as the matching poly-
nomial is a way to study the matchings of a graph, the characteristic polynomial is
10 Interrelations and Interpretations 265
a way to study the spectra of the adjacency matrix of a graph. Cvetković et al. have
written a book [45] dedicated to the spectra of the adjacency matrix, and Lovász
and Plummer [101] have a book devoted to the theory of matchings. Furthermore,
although the characteristic polynomial is not a complete invariant of graphs, it is
conjectured that the characteristic polynomial of a graph G is reconstructible from
its polynomial deck, i.e., from the set of characteristic polynomials of the cards
of G. See Gutman and Cvetković [78] for the conjecture, and then Cvetković and
Lepović [46], where it is proved in the case of trees.
where each ci .t/ is a periodic function with integer period. Since i.P I t/ is a quasi-
polynomial, it can be defined for all t 2 Z. In fact, we have the following reciprocity
law due to Ehrhart [49]:
Definition 10.3.13. Let P be an integral convex d -polytope. Then the Ehrhart poly-
nomial of P is
i.P I t/ D c0 C c1 t C C cd 1 t d 1 C cd t d :
From the early works of Ehrhart [50] and Macdonald [102] it is known that c0 D1
and cd D vol.P /, and that cd 1 is half of the surface area of P , normalized with
P
respect to the sub-lattice on each face of P . Specifically, cd 1 D 1=2 F
vold 1 .F /, where F ranges over all facets of P and the volume of a facet is
measured intrinsically with respect to the lattice Zm \ LF , where LF is the affine
hull of F . The other coefficients were not well understood, until the later work
of Betke and Kneser [19], Pommersheim [116], Kantor and Khovanskii [90], and
266 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
Diaz and Robins [47], but such interpretations go beyond the scope of this chapter.
For the complexity of computing these coefficients see Barvinok [16]. A reference
for integer point enumeration in polytopes is Beck and Robins [18].
In the special case that P is a zonotope there is a combinatorial interpretation
for the coefficients of the Ehrhart polynomial. First recall that if A is an r m real
matrix written in the form A D Œa1 ; :::; ar , then it defines a zonotope Z.A/ which
consists of those points p of Rm that can be expressed in the form
m
X
pD i ai ; 0 i 1:
i D1
In other words, Z.A/ is the Minkowski sum of the line segments Œ0; ai , for
1 i n. For more on zonotopes, see McMullen [105].
When A has integerP entries, Stanley [125], using techniques from Shephard [121],
proved that i.P I t/ D X f .X /t jXj , where X ranges over all linearly independent
subsets of columns of A and where f .X / denotes the greatest common divisor of
all minors of sizes jX j of the matrix A.
When A is a totally unimodular matrix, that is, the determinant of every square
submatrix is 0 or ˙1, then Z.A/ is described as a unimodular zonotope. For these
polytopes the previous result shows that
r
X
i.Z.A/I t/ D fk t k ;
kD0
where fk is the number of subsets of columns of the matrix A which are lin-
early independent and have cardinality k. In other words, the Ehrhart polynomial
i.Z.A/I t/ is the generating function of the number of independent sets in the regular
matroid M.A/.
The incidence matrix D.G/ of a graph G is totally unimodular, a long-standing
result due to Poincaré [115] with a modern treatment given by Biggs [20]. A lin-
early independent subset of columns in D corresponds to a subset of edges with no
cycle. Thus, the coefficient fk in this case is the number of spanning forests of G
Pr exactly
with k edges. From the previous chapter we know that T .GI x C 1; 1/ D
rk
kD0 fk x , where r is the rank of the graph G. With these ingredients we get
the following relation to the Tutte polynomial from Welsh [138].
Theorem 10.3.14. If G is a graph and D is its incident matrix then the Ehrhart
polynomial of the unimodular zonotope Z.D/ is given by
1
i.Z.D/I t/ D t r T GI 1 C ; 1 ;
t
In particular we have that the number of lattice points strictly inside Z.D/ is
.1/r T .GI 0; 1/.
the number of boundary components of the surface, and t.G/, an index of the
orientability of the surface. The value of t.G/ is 0 if the surface is orientable, and
1 if it is not. Thus, t.G/ is 1 if and only if for some cycle in G, the product of the
signs of the edges is negative.
Definition 10.3.16. Let G be a ribbon graph, that is, a graph embedded in a surface.
Then the topological Tutte polynomial of Bollobás and Riordan is given by
X
R.GI x; y; z; w/ D .x 1/r.G/r.A/ y n.A/ z.A/bc.A/Cn.A/ wt .A/
AE.G/
As previously, r.A/, .A/, n.A/, and now also bc.A/ and t.A/, refer to the spanning
subgraph of G with edge set A, here with its embedding inherited from G.
Clearly, by comparing with the rank-nullity generating function definition of the
classical Tutte polynomial given in Chap. 9, this generalizes the classical Tutte poly-
nomial. Like the classical Tutte polynomial, R.GI x; y; z; w/ is multiplicative on
disjoint unions and one-point joins of ribbon graphs. More importantly, it retains
the essential properly of obeying a deletion/contraction reduction relation.
To see this, we must first define deletion and contraction in the context of em-
bedded graphs. The ribbon graph resulting from deleting an edge is clear, but
contraction requires some care. Let e be a nonloop edge. First assume the sign of
e is positive, by flipping one endpoint if necessary to remove the half-twist (this
reverses the cyclic order of the half edges at that vertex and toggles their signs).
Then G=e is formed by deleting e and identifying its endpoints into a single vertex
v. The cyclic order of edges at v comes from the original cyclic order at one end-
point, beginning where e had been, and continuing with the cyclic order at the other
endpoint, again beginning where e had been.
Theorem 10.3.17. If G is a ribbon graph, then
Theorems 10.3.17 and 10.3.18 taken together give a linear recursion defini-
tion for R.GI x; y; z; w/. There are a number of technical considerations, similar
to the care that must be taken in contracting edges, but nevertheless many other
properties analogous to those of the classical Tutte polynomial hold. For exam-
ple, R.GI x; y; z; w/ has a spanning tree expansion, a universality property, and
duality relation (in addition to Bollobás and Riordan’s work in [24, 25], see also
b − b
+ a
a + −
b a
Fig. 10.4 A signed bouquet graph, its signed chord diagram, and the boundary components of the
signed chord diagram
270 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
Las Vergnas’ early exploration [97], and recent work by Chmutov [39], Moffatt
[108], and [58, 59]). Furthermore, Chmutov and Pak [40], and Moffatt [107, 108]
have shown that R.GI x; y; z; w/ also extends the relation between the classical
Tutte polynomial and the Kauffman bracket and the Jones polynomial of knot theory
due to Thistlethwaite [130] and Kauffman [91].
In his 1977 thesis, Martin [103] recursively defined polynomials M.G; x/ and
m.GIE x/ that encode, respectively, information about the families of circuits in 4-
regular Eulerian graphs and digraphs. Las Vergnas subsequently found a state model
expression for these polynomials, extended their properties to general Eulerian
graphs and digraphs, and further developed their theory (see [96, 98, 99]). Both
Martin [104] and Las Vergnas [99] found combinatorial interpretations for some
small integer evaluations of the polynomials, while combinatorial interpretations
for all integer values as well as some derivatives were given in [55–57], and by
Bollobás [22].
Transforms of the Martin polynomials, J.GI x/ and j.GI E x/, given in [54], and
then aptly named circuit partition polynomials in [11], facilitate these computations,
and for this reason we give the definitions below in terms of J and j . As do many of
the polynomials surveyed here, the circuit partition polynomials have several defini-
tions, including linear recursion formulations, generating function formulations, and
state model formulations. We give the state model definition, and refer the reader to
[56, 57] for the others.
As with other state model formulations, we must first specify what we mean
by a state of a graph (or digraph) in this context. Here an Eulerian graph must
have vertices all of even degree, but it need not be connected. An Eulerian digraph
must have the indegree equal to the outdegree at each vertex, and again need not be
connected.
Definition 10.3.19. An Eulerian graph state of an Eulerian graph G is the result of
replacing each 2n-valent vertex v of G with n 2-valent vertices joining pairs of half
edges originally adjacent to v. An Eulerian graph state of an Eulerian digraph G E
is defined similarly, except here each incoming half edge must be paired with an
outgoing half edge.
Note that a Eulerian graph state is a disjoint union of cycles, each consistently
oriented in the case of a digraph.
Definition 10.3.20. The circuit partition polynomial. Let G be an Eulerian graph,
let S t.G/ be the set of states of G, and let c.S / be the number of components in a
state S 2 S t.G/. Then the circuit partition polynomial has a state model formula-
tion given by X
J.GI x/ D x c.S/ :
S2St .G/
10 Interrelations and Interpretations 271
The transforms between the circuit partition polynomials and the original Martin
polynomial, as extended to general Eulerian graphs and digraphs by Las Vergnas,
are:
J.GI x/ D xM .GI x C 2/ ; for G an Eulerian graph, and (10.1)
E x/ D xm GI
j.GI E x C 1 for G
E an Eulerian digraph: (10.2)
where the sum is over all subsets A E.G/ such that G restricted to both A and
Ac D E.G/ A is Eulerian. Also,
X
E x C y/ D
j.GI E x j AEc I y ;
j AI
The connection between the circuit partition polynomial of a digraph and the
!
Tutte polynomial of a planar graph G is through the oriented medial graph Gm
described in the previous chapter. Martin [103] proved the following, which we
extend to the circuit partition polynomial via (10.2).
!
Theorem 10.3.22. Let G be a connected planar graph, and let Gm be its oriented
medial graph. Then relationships among the Martin polynomial, circuit partition
polynomial, and Tutte polynomial are:
! !
j.Gm I x/ D xm.Gm I x C 1/ D xt.GI x C 1; x C 1/:
Fig. 10.5 An edge e in a planar graph G, with the corresponding vertex v in the oriented medial
!
graph Gm (dotted edges). Deleting e corresponds to one possible configuration at v in an Eulerian
!
graph state of Gm , while contracting e corresponds to the other
give the basis for many of the combinatorial interpretation of the Tutte polyno-
mial along the line y D x described in the previous chapter. For more details, see
Martin [103, 104], Las Vergnas [96, 98, 99], Bollobás [22], and also [54–57].
Evolving from the relation between the Tutte and Martin polynomials is the
theory of isotropic systems, which unifies essential properties of 4-regular graphs
and pairs of dual binary matroids. A series of papers throughout the 1980s and
1990s, including work by Bouchet [26–31], as well as Bouchet and Ghier [37], and
Jackson [87], significantly extends the relationship between the Tutte polynomial
of a planar graph and the Martin polynomial of its medial graph via the theory of
isotropic systems.
In [11], Arratia, Bollobás, and Sorkin defined a one-variable graph polynomial mo-
tivated by questions arising from DNA sequencing by hybridization addressed by
Arratia, Bollobás, Coppersmith, and Sorkin in [10], an application we will return
to in Sect. 10.5. In [12], Arratia, Bollobás, and Sorkin defined a two-variable inter-
lace polynomial, and showed that the original polynomial of [11] is a specialization
of it, renaming the original one-variable polynomial as the vertex-nullity interlace
polynomial due to its relationship with the two-variable generalization.
Remarkably, despite very different terminologies, motivations, and approaches,
the original vertex-nullity interlace polynomial of a graph may be realized as the
Tutte–Martin polynomial of an associated isotropic system (see Bouchet [36]). For
exploration of this relationship, see the works mentioned in Sect. 10.3.4, as well as
Aigner [3], Aigner and Mielke [4], Aigner and van der Holst [5], Allys [7], and also
Bouchet’s series on multimatroids [32–35].
Both the vertex-nullity interlace polynomial of a graph and the two-variable
interlace polynomial may be defined recursively via a pivot operation. This pivot
is defined as follows. Let vw be an edge of a graph G, and let Av , Aw , and Avw be
10 Interrelations and Interpretations 273
v w v w v
Av Aw Av Aw Av Aw
G Gvw Gvw-w
Fig. 10.6 Pivoting on the edge vw. Av , Aw , and Avw are the sets of vertices of G adjacent to v only,
w only, and to both v and w, respectively. These sets are constant in all the diagrams. Vertices of G
adjacent to neither v nor w are omitted. Heavy lines indicate that all edges are present, and dotted
lines represent nonedges. Note interchange of edges and nonedges among Av , Aw , and Avw
the sets of vertices in V .G/ n fv; wg adjacent to v only, w only, and to both v and
w, respectively. The pivot operation “toggles” the edges among Av , Aw and Avw , by
deleting existing edges and inserting edges between previously nonadjacent vertices.
The result of this operation is denoted G vw . More formally, G vw has the same vertex
set as G, and edge set equal to the symmetric difference E.G/ S , where S is the
complete tripartite graph with vertex classes Av , Aw and Avw . See Fig. 10.6.
Also, G a is the local complementation of G, defined as follows. Let N.a/ be
the neighbors of a, that is, the set fw 2 V W a and w are joined by an edgeg. The
graph G a is equal to G except that we “toggle” the edges among the neighbors of
a, switching edges to nonedges and vice versa.
Definition 10.3.23. Let G be a graph of order n, which may have loops, but no
multiple loops or multiple edges. The two-variable interlace polynomial may be
given recursively by q.En / D y n for En , the edgeless graph on n 0 vertices, with
where r. GjS / and n. GjS / D jS jr. GjS / are, respectively, the F2 -rank and nullity
of the adjacency matrix of GjS , the subgraph of G restricted to S .
274 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
This polynomial was shown to be well defined by Arratia, Bollobás, and Sorkin
for all simple graphs in [11], and then was shown in [12] to be a specialization of
the two-variable interlace polynomial as follows:
X
qN .GI y/ D q.GI 2; y/ D .y 1/n. GjW / :
W V .G/
The interlace polynomial has generated further interest and other applica-
tions in Balister et al. [14, 15], Glantz and Pelillo [72], and Ellis-Monaghan and
Sarmiento [62].
10 Interrelations and Interpretations 275
Multivariable extensions have proved valuable theoretical tools for many of the
polynomials we have seen since they capture information not encoded by the orig-
inal polynomial. More critically, powerful algebraic tools not applicable to the
original polynomial may be available to the multivariable version, providing new
means of extracting combinatorial information from the polynomial. Although the
multivariable indexing may make the defining notation somewhat bulky, these gen-
eralizations are natural extensions of classical versions, computed in exactly the
same ways, only now also keeping track of some additional parameters in the com-
putation processes.
Definition 10.4.2. Let G D .V; E/ be a graph, let W V ! P D f1; 2; : : :g, and let
b./ be the set of monochromatic edges in the coloring given by . Then the sym-
metric function generalization of the bad coloring polynomial over indeterminates
x1 ; x2 ; : : : and t is
X
XG .x; t/ D .1 C t/jb./j x ;
WV !P
If e is a loop, then W.G; !/ .x; y/ D yW.Gne; !/ .x; y/. Finally, if .G; !/ is En , the
edgeless graph on n 0 vertices, with weights a1 ; : : : ; an , then W.En ; !/ .x; y/ D
xa1 xan .
That the resulting multivariate polynomial W is independent of the order in which
the edges are deleted and contracted is proved in [109]. This can easily be done
by induction on the number of edges once it is proved that the order in which you
contract or delete edges in .G; !/ does not affect the weighted graph that you obtain.
The U-polynomial is obtained from the W-polynomial by setting all weights
equal to 1 and a proof that this definition is equivalent to Definition 10.4.3 can
be found in [109]. Actually in [109] it is proved that W has a representation of the
form X
W.G; !/ .x; y/ D xc1 xck .y 1/jAjr.A/ ;
AE
G .x; y/ have natural extensions. For example, the extension of the XG .x; t/
replaces the t variable by countably infinitely many variables t1 ; t2 ; : : :, thus enu-
merating not just the total number of monochromatic edges but the number of
monochromatic edges of each color. It is defined as follows:
1
!
X Y
XG .x; t/ D .1 C ti /jbi ./j x ;
WV !P i D1
where the sum is over all colorings of G and bi ./ is the set of monochromatic
edges for which both end points have color i . By setting ti D t for all i 1 we
regain XG .x; t/.
For the other extensions the reader is referred to Merino and Noble [106], where
it is also proved that all of these extensions are equivalent.
The basic idea of a parametrized Tutte polynomial is to allow each edge of a graph
to have four parameters (four ring values specific to that edge), which apply as the
Tutte polynomial is computed via a deletion/contraction recursion. Which parameter
is applied in a linear recursion reduction depends on whether the edge is deleted or
contracted as an ordinary edge, or whether it is contracted as an isthmus or deleted as
a loop. The difficulty lies in ensuring that a well-defined function, that is, one inde-
pendent of the order of deletion/contraction, results. This requires a set of relations,
coming from three very small graphs, to be satisfied. Interestingly, additional con-
straints are necessary for there to be a corank-nullity expansion or even for the func-
tion to be multiplicative or a graph invariant, that is, equal on isomorphic graphs.
The motivation for allowing edge-specific values for the deletion/contraction re-
cursion comes from a number of applications where it is natural. This includes
graphs with signed edges coming from knot theory, graphs with edge-specific failure
probabilities in network reliability, and graphs whose edges represent various inter-
action energies within a molecular lattice in statistical mechanics. Although there
is compelling motivation for allowing various edge parameters, the technical details
of a general theory are challenging. The two major works in this area are Zaslavsky
[142] and Bollobás and Riordan [23]. However, these two works take different
approaches, which were subsequently reconciled with a mild generalization in [63],
and for this reason we adopt the formalism of [63]. Bollobás and Riordan [23]
also give a succinct historical overview of the development of these multivariable
extensions.
10 Interrelations and Interpretations 279
The following theorem gives the central result. The identity in Item 1
comes from requiring to be equal the two ways of carrying out deletion/
contraction reductions on ˚a graph on two vertices with two parallel edges e1
and e2 having parameters xei ; yei ; Xei ; Yei . Similarly, the identities in Items 2
and 3 come from considering the -graph and K3 . Here again En is the edgeless
graph on n vertices.
Theorem 10.4.11 (The generalized Zaslavsky–Bollobás–Riordan theorem
for graphs). Let R be a commutative ring, let be a minor-closed class of
graphs whose edge-sets are contained in an R-parametrized class U , and let a1 ,
a2 , . . . 2 R. Then there is a parametrized Tutte polynomial T on with T .En / D an
for all n with En 2 if and only if the following identities are satisfied.
1. Whenever e1 and e2 appear together in a circuit of a k-component graph G 2 ,
then ak .xe1 Ye2 C ye1 Xe2 / D ak .xe2 Ye1 C ye2 Xe1 /.
2. Whenever e1 , e2 and e3 appear together in a circuit of a k-component graph
G 2 , then ak Xe3 .xe1 Ye2 C ye1 xe2 / D ak Xe3 .Ye1 xe2 C xe1 ye2 /.
3. Whenever e1 , e2 and e3 are parallel to one another in a k-component graph
G 2 , then ak Ye3 .xe1 Ye2 C ye1 xe2 / D ak Ye3 .Ye1 xe2 C xe1 ye2 /.
A most general parametrized Tutte polynomial, which possibly could be called
the parametrized Tutte polynomial, might begin with the polynomial ring on
independent variables fxe ; ye ; Xe ; Ye : e 2 U g [ fai W i 1g. However, the re-
sulting function is not technically a polynomial, in that it must take its values not in
the polynomial ring, but has as R the polynomial ring modulo the ideal generated
by the identities in Theorem 10.4.11.
The question also arises as to whether “the most general” parametrized Tutte
polynomial should be multiplicative on disjoint unions and the one-point joint of
graphs, as this introduces additional relations among the ai ’s. This is because a
parametrized Tutte polynomial is not necessarily multiplicative. A sufficient condi-
tion is the following.
280 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
A number of state model polynomials, for example the circuit partition polynomials,
Penrose polynomial, the Kauffman bracket for knots and links, and the transition
polynomials of Jaeger [89], which are not specializations of the Tutte polynomial,
are specializations of the multivariable generalized transition polynomial of [61]
which we describe here. This multivariable extension is a Hopf algebra map, which
leads to structural identities that then inform its various specializations. The medial
graph construction that relates the circuit partition polynomial and the classical Tutte
polynomial extends to similarly relate the generalized transition polynomial and the
parametrized Tutte polynomial when it has a rank-nullity formulation.
The graphs here are Eulerian, although not necessarily connected, with loops and
multiple edges allowed. A vertex state, or transition, is a choice of local reconfig-
uration of a graph at a vertex by pairing the half edges incident with that vertex.
A graph state, or transition system, S.G/, is the result of choosing a vertex state
at each vertex of degree greater than 2, and hence is a union of disjoint cycles. We
write St.G/ for the set of graph states of G, and throughout we assume weights have
values in R, a commutative ring with unity.
10 Interrelations and Interpretations 281
A skein relation for graphs is a formal sum of weighted vertex states, together
with an evaluation of the terminal forms (the graph states). See [54,61] for a detailed
discussion of these concepts, which are appropriated from knot theory, in their most
general form, and Yetter [141] for a general theory of invariants given by linear
recursion relations. A skein type (or state model, or transition) polynomial is one
which is computed by repeated applications of skein relations. See Jaeger [89] for a
comprehensive treatment of these in the case of 4-regular graphs.
For brevity, we elide technical details such as free loops and isomorphism classes
of graphs with weight systems which may be found in [61].
at any vertex v of degree greater than 2. Here the Gi ’s are the graphs that result
from locally replacing a vertex v of degree 2n in G by one of its vertex states. The
ˇi ’s are the vertex state weights. Repeated application of this relation reduces G to a
weighted (formal) sum of disjoint unions of cycles (the graph states). These terminal
forms are evaluated by identifying each cycle with the variable x, weighted by the
product of the pair weights over all pairs of half edges in the cycle.
282 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
Definition 10.4.15. The state model definition of the generalized transition polyno-
mial is:
! !
X Y X
N.GI W; x/ D ! .v; S / x k.S/ D ! .S / x k.S/ :
St .G/ St .G/
Note that vertex states commute; that is, if Guv results from choosing a vertex
state at u, and then at v, we have Guv D Gvu . Thus, Definition 10.4.14 gives a well-
defined function, and Definitions 10.4.14 and 10.4.15 are equivalent.
Several of the polynomials we have already seen are specializations of this gen-
eralized transition polynomial. For example, if all the pair weights are 1, then the
circuit partition polynomial for an unoriented Eulerian graph results. If G E is an
Eulerian digraph, and G is the underlying undirected graph with pair weights of 1
for pairs half edges corresponding to one inward and one outward oriented half edge
of GE and 0 otherwise, then the oriented version of the circuit partition polynomial
results.
In the special case that G is 4-regular, the polynomial N .GI W; x/ is essentially
the same as the transition polynomial Q.G; A;
/ of Jaeger [89], where G is a 4-
regular graph and A is a system of vertex state weights (rather than pair weights). If
the vertex state weight in .G; A/ is w, then define W .G/ by letting
p the pair weights
for each of the two pairs of edges determined by the state be w. The two poly-
nomials then just differ by a factor of x, so N .GI W; x/ D xQ.G; A; x/, and here
we retain vertices of degree 2 in the recursion while they are elided in [89]. Thus
N .GI W; x/ gives a generalization of Jaeger’s transition polynomials to all Eulerian
graphs.
Because Q.G; A;
/ assimilates the original Martin polynomial for 4-regular
graphs and digraphs, the Penrose polynomial, and the Kauffman bracket of knot
theory (see [89]), and N .GI W; x/ assimilates Q.G; A;
/, we have that the Penrose
polynomial and Kauffman bracket are also specializations of N .GI W; x/. Specif-
ically, if G is a planar graph with face two-colored medial graph Gm , and we
give a weight system to Gm by assigning a value of 1 to pairs of edges that
either cross at a vertex or bound the same black face and 0 otherwise, then
N .Gm I W; x/ D P .GI x/. Similarly, if L is a link, and GL is the signed, face
two-colored
universeof L, then a weight system can be assigned to GL so that
N GL I W; a2 C a2 D .a2 C a2 /KŒL where KŒL is the Kauffman bracket of
the link.
Because of these specializations, the algebraic properties of the generalized
transition polynomial are available to inform these other polynomials as well.
In particular, N .GI W; x/ is a Hopf algebra map from the freely generated (com-
mutative) hereditary Hopf algebra of Eulerian graphs with weight systems to the
binomial bialgebra RŒx (details may be found in [61]). This leads to two structural
identities, the first from the comultiplication in the Hopf algebra, the second from
the antipode.
10 Interrelations and Interpretations 283
where the sum is over all ordered partitions of G into two edge-disjoint Eulerian
subgraphs A1 and A2 , and
This type of Hopf algebraic structure has already been used to considerably
extend the known combinatorial interpretations for evaluations of the Martin,
Penrose, and Tutte polynomials implicitly by Bollobás [22], and explicitly by Ellis-
Monaghan and Sarmiento [54, 56, 57, 60, 120]. The first identity has been used to
find combinatorial interpretations for the Martin polynomials for all integers, where
this was previously only known for 2, 1, 0, 1 in the oriented case, and 2, 0, 2
in the unoriented case. This then led to combinatorial interpretations for the Tutte
polynomial (and its derivatives) of a planar graph for all integers along the line
x D y, where previously 1, 3 were the only known nontrivial values. These results
for the Tutte polynomial were mentioned in Chap. 9 and for the circuit partition
polynomial in Sect. 10.3.4. The second identity has been used to determine combi-
natorial interpretations for the Penrose polynomial for all negative integers, where
this was previously only known for positive integers.
We begin with string reconstruction, a problem that may be modeled by the inter-
lace and circuit partition polynomials (and hence indirectly in special cases by the
Tutte polynomial). String reconstruction is the process of reassembling a long string
284 J.A. Ellis-Monaghan and C. Merino
of symbols from a set of its subsequences together with some (possibly incom-
plete, redundant, or corrupt) sequencing information. Although we focus on DNA
sequencing, which was the original motivation for the development of the inter-
lace polynomial, the methods here apply to any string reconstruction problem. For
example, fragmenting and reassembling messages is a common network protocol,
and reconstruction techniques might be applied when the network protocol has been
disrupted, yet the original message must be reassembled from the fragments.
DNA sequences are typically too long to read at once with current labora-
tory techniques, so researchers probe for shorter fragments (reads) of the strand.
They then are faced with the difficulty of recovering the original long sequence
from the resulting set of subsequences. DNA sequencing by hybridization is a
method of reconstructing the nucleotide sequence from a set of short substrings
(see Waterman [136] for an overview). The problem of determining the number of
possible reconstructions may be modeled using Eulerian digraphs, with a correct se-
quencing of the original strand corresponding to exactly one of the possible Eulerian
circuits in the graph. The probability of correctly sequencing the original strand is
thus the reciprocal of the total number of Euler circuits in the graph.
The most basic (two-way repeats only) combinatorial model for DNA sequenc-
ing by hybridization uses an Eulerian digraph with two incoming and two outgoing
edges at each vertex (see Pevzner [114] and Arratia et al. [9]). The raw data
consist of all subsequences of the DNA strand of a fixed length L, called the
L-spectrum of the sequence. As L increases, the statistical probability that the
beginning and end of the DNA strand are the same approaches zero, as does
the likelihood of three or more repeats of the same pattern of length L or more
in the strand (see Dyer et al. [48]). Thus, this model assumes that the only con-
sideration in reconstructing the original sequence is the appearance of interlaced
two-way repeats, that is, alternating patterns of length L or greater, for example,
: : : ACTG : : : CTCT : : : ACTG : : : CTCT : : : .
From the multiset (duplicates are allowed) of subsequences of length L, create
a single vertex of the de Bruijn graph for each subsequence of length L-1 that ap-
pears in one of the subsequences. For example, if L D 4 and ACTG appears as a
subsequence, create two vertices, one labeled ACT and one labeled CTG. Edges are
directed from head to tail of a subsequence; e.g., there would be a directed edge
labeled ACTG from the vertex labeled ACT to the vertex labeled CTG. If there is
another subsequence ACTT, we do not create another vertex ACT, but rather draw
an edge labeled ACTT from the vertex ACT to a new vertex labeled CTT. If, in the
multiset of subsequences, ACTG appears twice, then we draw two edges from ACT
to CTG.
The beginning and end of the strand are identified to be represented by the
same vertex, and, since by assumption no subsequence appears more than twice,
the result is an Eulerian digraph of maximum degree 4. Tracing the original DNA
sequence in this graph corresponds to an Eulerian circuit that starts at the vertex
representing the beginning and end of the strand. All other possible sequences that
could be (mis)reconstructed from the multiset of subsequences correspond to other
Eulerian circuits in this graph. Thus (up to minor reductions for long repeats and
10 Interrelations and Interpretations 285
forced subsequences), finding the number of DNA sequences possible from a given
multiset of subsequences corresponds to enumerating the Eulerian circuits in this
directed graph.
The generalized transition polynomial models this problem directly: when the
pair weights are identically 1, it reduces to the circuit partition polynomial. This is
a generating function for families of circuits in a graph, so the coefficient of x is
the number of Eulerian circuits. The interlace polynomial informs the problem as
follows. Consider an Eulerian circuit through the de Bruijn graph, which gives a se-
quence of the vertices visited in order. Now construct the interlace graph by placing
a vertex for each symbol and an edge between symbols that are interlaced (occur in
alternation) in the sequence. The interlace polynomial of the interlace graph is then
a translation of the circuit partition polynomial of the original de Bruijn graph, as in
Theorem 10.3.26, where again the coefficient of x is the number of Eulerian circuits
(see Arratia et al. [10, 11, 13]).
One of the original motivating goals of Arratia et al. [10] was classifying Eulerian
digraphs with a given number of Eulerian circuits. The BEST theorem, a formula
for the number of the circuits of an Eulerian graph in terms of its Kirchhoff matrix
(see Fleischner [70] for good exposition) gives only a tautological classification: the
Eulerian digraphs with m Eulerian circuits are those where the BEST theorem for-
mula gives m circuits. Critically, all of the above graph polynomials encode much
more information than is available from the BEST theorem, and all of them are em-
bedded in broader algebraic structures that provide tools for extracting information
from them. Thus, they better serve the goal of seeking structural characterizations
of graph classes with specified Eulerian circuit properties.
Here we have an important physics model that remarkably was found to be exactly
equivalent to the Tutte polynomial.
Complex systems are networks in which very simple interactions at the mi-
croscale level determine the macroscale behavior of the system. The Potts model
of statistical mechanics models complex systems whose behaviors depend on near-
est neighbor energy interactions. This model plays an important role in the theory
of phase transitions and critical phenomena, and has applications as widely varied
as magnetism, adsorption of gases on substrates, foam behaviors, and social demo-
graphics, with important biological examples including disease transmission, cell
migration, tissue engulfment, diffusion across a membrane, and cell sorting.
Central to the Potts model is the Hamiltonian,
X
h.!/ D J ı.i ; j /;
fi;j g2E.G/
1
Here, the sum is over all possible states $ of G, and ˇ D t , where D
23
1:38 10 J/K is the Boltzmann constant. The parameter t is an important
variable in the model, although it may not represent physical temperature, but
some other measure of volatility relevant to the particular application (for exam-
ple, ease of disease
P transmission/reinfection). The denominator of this expression,
P .GI q; ˇ/ D exp .ˇh .$//, called the Potts model partition function, is the
most critical, and difficult, part of the model.
Remarkably, the Potts model partition function is equivalent to the Tutte
polynomial:
qCv
P .GI q; ˇ/ D q k.G/ vjv.G/jk.G/ T GI ;v C 1 ;
v
where ve D exp .ˇJe / 1. Again see Fortuin and Kasteleyn [71], and more recently
Sokal [122,123]. As we have seen in Sect. 10.4.2, the Tutte polynomial has also been
extended to parametrized Tutte functions that incorporate edge weights. The gen-
eralized partition function given above satisfies the relations of Theorem 10.4.11,
however, and thus is a special case of a parametrized Tutte function.
This relationship between the Potts model partition function and the Tutte poly-
nomial has led to a remarkable synergy between the fields, particularly, for example,
in the areas of computational complexity and the zeros of the Tutte and chromatic
polynomials. For overviews, see Welsh and Merino [140], and Beaudin et al. [17].
10 Interrelations and Interpretations 287
10.6 Conclusion
There are a great many other graph polynomials equally interesting to those sur-
veyed here, including, for example, the F-polynomials of Farrell, the Hosaya or
Wiener polynomial, the clique/independence and adjoint polynomials, etc. In partic-
ular, Farrell [66] has a circuit cover polynomial (different from the circuit partition
polynomial of Sect. 10.3.4) with noteworthy interrelations with the characteristic
polynomial. There are rich connections between graph theory and knot theory via
the Tutte polynomial, including a relation to the HOMFLY polynomial given by
Jaeger [88], with applications in biology such as Emmert-Streib [64]. Also, Chung
and Graham developed a “Tutte-like” polynomial for directed graphs in [43]. The
resultant cover polynomial is extended to a symmetric function generalization, like
those in Sect. 10.4.1, by Chow [42]. Similarly, Courcelle [44] and Traldi [131] have
also very recently developed multivariable extensions of the interlace polynomial.
Some surveys of graph polynomials with complementary coverage to this one in-
clude Pathasarthy [111], Jaeger [89], Farrell [68], Fiol [69], Godsil [74], Aigner [2],
Noy [110], and Levit and Mandrescu [100].
Acknowledgments We thank all the friends and colleagues who offered many helpful comments
and suggestions during the writing of this chapter.
The first author was supported by the National Security Agency and by the Vermont Genetics
Network through Grant Number P20 RR16462 from the INBRE Program of the National Center
for Research Resources (NCRR), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The second author was supported by Conacyt of Mexico, Grant 83977.
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Chapter 11
Reconstruction Problems for Graphs,
Krawtchouk Polynomials, and Diophantine
Equations
Thomas Stoll
11.1 Introduction
A famous conjecture in graph theory states that graphs are determined (up to
isomorphism) by their subgraphs. This conjecture is known as the (Kelly-Ulam-)
Reconstruction Conjecture and the literature on solving the conjecture for special
graphs is vast (see [2] for a survey). Also, negative results are known, for exam-
ple, digraphs and hypergraphs are in general not reconstructible. On the other hand,
there is much freedom in formulating reconstructions problems, namely, one may
remove edges, vertices, or specific sets of vertices for the subgraphs under question.
The aim of the present chapter is to give a short overview on how these reconstruc-
tion problems relate to the investigation of integral zeroes of so-called Krawtchouk
T. Stoll ()
Faculty of Mathematics, School of Computer Science,
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada
e-mail: [email protected]
Given a finite, simple graph G with jV .G/j D n 3. For U V .G/, the switching
GU of G at U is the graph obtained from G by replacing all edges between U and
V .G/nU by the nonedges. The multiset of unlabeled graphs Ds .G/ D fGU W jU j D
sg is called the s-switching deck of G. The vertex-switching reconstruction problem
asks whether G is uniquely defined up to isomorphism by Ds .G/. Stanley [17]
pointed out that the vertex-switching reconstruction problem has a negative answer
in general, as illustrated by the following simple example. Let G be the totally dis-
connected graph 4K1 on four vertices, respectively, the cycle of length four, C4 .
Then, in both cases, D1 .G/ consists of the star K1;3 only (see Fig. 11.1, where we
switched at the left-upper vertex of the graph).
On the other hand, it is natural to ask which conditions have to be imposed on the
underlying graphs in order to solve the reconstruction problem. Many special graphs
have been investigated and several bounds on the degree of reconstructible graphs
have been shown (cf. [4–7, 12, 13]). A major result in this area has been obtained by
Krasikov and Roditty [13, Remark 2]. They proved an analogue of Kelly’s lemma
to reconstruct the number of subgraphs in a graph. To state the result, some more
notation is needed. Given graphs G and H , let Xs .G ! H / denote the number
of sets U V .G/, jU j D s, such that GU is isomorphic to H . Furthermore, let
Ans denote the matrix with rows and columns indexed by the unlabeled graphs on n
vertices, with the .G; H / entry being Xs .G ! H /. Denote by
4K1 C4
D1(4K1)
∼
= D1(C4)
k
! !
X x nx
Pkn .x/ D .1/j (11.1)
j kj
j D0
the binary Krawtchouk polynomial of degree k (for more details see Sect. 11.2).
Theorem 1 ([13]). The s-switching deck Ds .G/ of G determines the number
of induced subgraphs of G isomorphic to a given m-vertex graph provided no
eigenvalue of Am
1 is a root y of
!
X
min.m;s/
nm
Rsm .y/ D Pkn ..m y/=2/:
sk
kDmax.0;sCmn/
Ellingham [4] used an idea about m-cubes to simplify the result, thus directly
relating the reconstruction to the existence of integral roots of Krawtchouk polyno-
mials. Recall that G has n vertices.
Theorem 2 ([4]). The s-switching deck Ds .G/ of G determines the number of
induced subgraphs of G isomorphic to a given m-vertex graph provided Psn .x/
has no even root in Œ0; m.
Several other reconstruction problems relate to integer roots of Krawtchouk
polynomials [11]. Mention, for example, the reorientation reconstruction problem,
which refers to a reconstruction problem for directed graphs. We are given a directed
graph with E. / D m. For any A E denote by A the graph obtained by flip-
ping the orientation of all arcs in A. Similarly as before, define the s-reorientation
deck Ds . / D fA W jAj D sg. The reorientation reconstruction problem asks
whether is uniquely defined up to isomorphism by Ds . /. The following con-
nection holds [11]:
Theorem 3 ([10]). If Psm .x/ has no integer root then can be reconstructed.
A similar connection holds for the sign reconstruction problem.
Krasikov’s result for the stationary points of Krawtchouk polynomials (Sect. 11.6)
to decompose these polynomials in Sect. 11.7. In the final section, Sect. 11.8, we
treat the remaining possibilities for decomposing the polynomials with the standard
pairs. The exposition ends with a short summary and perspectives for future work.
Our main result is the following (for the exact notion we refer to Sect. 11.3).
Theorem 4. Let g.x/ 2 QŒx with deg g 3 and assume that n; k 2 ZC with
where
17 19
.n/ D max 7; n :
40 2
Suppose that the Diophantine equation
with Krawtchouk polynomials Pkn .x/ has infinitely many rational solutions .x; y/
with a bounded denominator. Then we are in one of the following cases.
(i) g.x/ D Pkn .g.x//
Q for some polynomial gQ 2 QŒx.
(ii) k D 2k 0 ; k 0 2 and g.x/ D .g.x//,
Q where gQ is a polynomial over Q, whose
square-free part has at most two zeroes, such that gQ takes infinitely many square
values in Z.
According to the Askey-scheme [14] (see also [22, pp. 35/36]), the (general)
Krawtchouk polynomials Pk.p;n/ .x/ form a family of polynomials which are orthog-
onal with respect to the discrete measure defined by .i / D ni p i .1 p/ni ,
11 Reconstruction Problems 297
i D 0; : : : ; n with 0 < p < 1. The special case p D 1=2 yields the standard
binary Krawtchouk polynomials, which – for the sake of brevity – we denote by
Pkn .x/ D Pk.1=2;n/ .x/. From (11.1) it is easy to derive that
k
! !
X x nj
Pkn .x/ D .2/ j
; (11.4)
j kj
j D0
follow at once,
.2/k3 n 2
ck3 D .n 3n C 2k 4/;
6.k 3/Š
.2/k2
ck4 D .20k 2 108k 60k n C 60k n2 C 150n
360.k 4/Š
90n3 C 15n4 75n2 C 112/;
.2/k2 n
ck5 D .20k 2 108k 60k n C 20k n2 C 150n
360.k 5/Š
C 5n2 C 112 C 3n4 30n3 /; etc.
which is especially important for the method presented in this chapter. Another use-
ful recurrence relation is [10, relation (7)],
As for a detailed study of the zeroes of Pkn .x/ (such as interlacing properties,
bounds, etc.), we refer to [10, 11]. Here we briefly recall some well-known facts,
which are crucial for our discussion. One easily notes that
( n=2
.1/k=2 ; n even;
Pkn .n=2/ D k=2 (11.9)
0; n odd.
0 < r1;n .k/ < r2;n .k/ < < rk;n .k/ < n: (11.10)
Since
Pkn .x/ D .1/k Pkn .n x/; (11.11)
they lie symmetric around the point x D n=2. Moreover, for k < n=2 the distance
between consecutive zeroes decreases towards n=2. Also, recall that for 1 k <
n=2 we have
ri C1;n .k/ ri;n.k/ > 2; (11.12)
and for k < n we have ri C1;n .k/ ri;n.k/ > 1. Levenshtein [15] proved the fol-
lowing explicit formula for the smallest root,
k2
!
X p
r1;n .k/ D n=2 max xi xi C1 .i C 1/.n i / ; (11.13)
i D0
Pk1
where the maximum is taken over all .x1 ; : : : ; xn / with i D0 xi2 D 1. It is not
difficult to see that
r1;n .k/ > 1: (11.14)
It is well known that the zeroes of Krawtchouk polynomials for small k can be
approximated by the corresponding roots of the Hermite polynomials. If .n k/ !
1 then the zeroes of Pkn .x/ indeed approach
p
n nk1
C hi .x/; (11.15)
2 2
where h1 .k/ < < hk .k/ are the roots of the Hermite polynomial Hk .x/. Finally,
we also mention a result due to Krasikov [8] which gives a bound of Pkn .x/ at integer
p
values provided k n=2. Let q D 2 k.n k/; then it holds that
xŠ.n x/Š
.Pkn .x//2 .n; k; x/; x D 0; 1; : : : ; bn=2c; (11.16)
b k2 cŠ2 b nk
2 cŠ
2
11 Reconstruction Problems 299
where .n; k; x/ is
q 2 C 2n 4
; n; k evenI ; n even; k oddI
4.n x/ nx
2k C 1 2n 2k C 1
; n odd; k evenI ; n; k odd:
nx nx
11.3.1 Introduction
in rational integers x. Much interest has been focused on classifying the zeroes
for certain values of k and n (see [11]). For instance, the zeroes are completely
classified for k 7, for k D .n t/=2 with t 6 and t D 8 when the root is odd.
It is conjectured that for any choice of the pair .k; n/ the number of integral zeroes
does not exceed 4. On the other hand, there are also results of a typical Diophantine
nature. For example, for every k 4, the polynomial Pkn .x/ can have nontrivial
integer roots only for finitely many values n.
An interesting generalization is to allow an arbitrary rational polynomial g.y/ on
the right-hand side of (11.17),
which makes up the hub of the present chapter. How many integral solutions .x; y/
does (11.18) have? Is it possible to find an infinite set of solutions which can be
constructed via a suitable integer-valued parametrization?
The study of Diophantine equations of the shape f .x/ D g.y/ has a long history.
In order to settle the problem of finiteness of integral solutions .x; y/ for a specific
equation (i.e., without parameters involved), one can resort to Siegel’s theorem on
integral points on algebraic curves [16]. The procedure is as follows: First, one
computes the genus of the algebraic curve under question, and in the case of zero
genus one calculates the number of points at infinity to conclude. If the polynomials
f and g themselves depend on several parameters (e.g., on k and n in (11.18)), such
a direct calculation is not possible. In 2000, Bilu and Tichy [1], while extending
300 T. Stoll
work of Davenport, Ehrenfeucht, Fried, Lewis, MacRae, Ritt, Schinzel, Siegel, and
others, proved an algorithmic criterion which makes it possible to apply Siegel’s
theorem also in the multiparametric case.
In order to formulate the criterion we need the definition of the five so-called stan-
dard pairs (over Q). In what follows, let ; ı 2 Q n f0g, q; s; t 2 Z>0 , r 2 Z0 and
v.x/ 2 QŒx a nonzero polynomial (which may be constant). We also make use of
the Dickson polynomials which can be defined by
bs=2c
!
X s si
Ds .x; / D ds;i x s2i with ds;i D . /i : (11.19)
si i
i D0
We say that the equation f .x/ D g.y/ has infinitely many rational solutions with
a bounded denominator, if there is 2 ZC such that f .x/ D g.y/ has infinitely
many rational solutions .x; y/ with x; y 2 Z. If an equation has only finitely
many rational solutions with a bounded denominator then, in particular, it has only
finitely many solutions in integers.
The list of standard pairs (over Q), which is referred to in Theorem 5, includes
five different pairs of polynomials .f1 ; g1 /.
A standard pair of the first kind is of the type
.x q ; x r v.x/q / (11.20)
(or switched).
A standard pair of the third kind is
(or switched).
We are now ready to state the criterion of Bilu and Tichy [1].
Theorem 5 ([1]). Let f .x/; g.x/ 2 QŒx be nonconstant polynomials. Then the
following two assertions are equivalent.
(i) The equation f .x/ D g.y/ has infinitely many rational solutions with a
bounded denominator.
(ii) We can express f ı
1 D ı f1 and g ı
2 D ı g1 where
1 ;
2 2 QŒx are
linear, .x/ 2 QŒx, and .f1 ; g1 / is a standard pair over Q.
Observe that if we were able to get a contradiction for decompositions of f and g
as demanded in (i) of Theorem 5, then finiteness of the number of integral solutions
.x; y/ of the original Diophantine equation f .x/ D g.y/ is guaranteed.
The proof of Theorem 5 relies on the celebrated ineffective theorem of
Siegel [16] from 1929 on the finiteness of the number of integer solutions of
the equation F .x; y/ D 0, where F .x; y/ is absolutely irreducible. In fact, this
number is finite except when the projective completion of the curve has genus 0
and at most 2 points at infinity. Thus, in principle, one splits f .x/ g.y/ into
irreducible factors in QŒx; y, and for each factor that is irreducible over Q N one
determines the genus and the number of points of infinity. A number of people have
studied the irreducibility of f .x/ g.y/, for instance, Ehrenfeucht, Fried, Lewis,
MacRae, Runge, and Schinzel. The main contribution of Bilu and Tichy was to drop
a condition on the gcd of f and g, so as to obtain the full general result.
Tichy and Stoll [21] used the special form of the leading coefficient ck in (11.5)
and Theorem 5 to prove
In order to apply Theorem 5 in the most general form for the binary Krawtchouk
polynomials one has to prove a general decomposition theorem for Pkn .x/ and
to exclude possible decompositions involving the standard pairs. Although this
is rather straightforward for the classical continuous orthogonal polynomials
(Laguerre, Hermite, Jacobi) [20], it has not even been proved for a single family
of discrete classical orthogonal polynomials (Krawtchouk, Meixner, Meixner-
Pollaczek, Hahn, Wilson, Charlier, etc.). At least, due to the similarity to Hermite
polynomials (11.15), one may strongly expect an analogous result for Krawtchouk
polynomials. We use here a method due to Krasikov [9] to get a first result in this
direction. We do not aim to optimize our argument; indeed, in the end, we use
concrete numerical data in place of the general parameters k and n. However, with
more technical effort it is possible to enlarge the parameter sets in our main theorem
and to get a statement for polynomials Pkn .x/ with k D k.n/ as well.
The classical Laguerre inequality states that for any polynomial f 2 RŒx with
only real zeroes there holds f 02 ff 00 0. A higher-degree generalization has
been obtained by Jensen and used by Patrick (see [9] for the references), namely,
m
X f .mj / .x/f .mCj / .x/
Lm .f / D .1/mCj 0: (11.26)
.m j /Š.m C j /Š
j Dm
In 2003, Krasikov [9] showed a surprising difference analogue of (11.26). Let x1 <
x2 < < xn be the zeroes of f .x/ and denote by M.f / the mesh defined by
M.f / D min2i n .xi xi 1 /.
q
6
Theorem 7 ([9]). Let M.f / 4 mC2 , then
m
X f .x j /f .x C j /
Vm .f / D .1/j 0: (11.27)
.m j /Š.m C j /Š
j Dm
As we need these numerical data in our investigations, we recall the method and the
calculations from [9] (we also fix a misprint in (11.29)).
By the difference relation (11.7) it is possible to write V2 .Pkn / only in terms of
Pk .x/ and Pkn .x 1/. Moreover, by (11.12) the mesh condition of Theorem 7 is
n
with m D n 2k. Note that by (11.10) and (11.14) the denominator in (11.28)
is positive. Having at hand (11.28), it is possible to derive bounds on Pkn .x/ and
Pkn .x 1/ inside the oscillatory region. This is obtained by looking at the ellipse
described by V2 . Define
where
Recall that 4.x/ < 0 in the oscillatory region [8], provided that
n p
2k< 2 33=4 n: (11.30)
2
V2 .Pkn .x C 1//
z1 .x/ z2 .x/: (11.31)
V2 .Pkn .x//
As Krasikov points out, one can use V2 .Pkn .n=2// as an initial value in (11.31) to
obtain upper bounds for Pkn .n=2 C i /, i 1, consecutively. For our purpose, we
need explicit upper and lower bounds for the maximum of Pkn .x/ between con-
secutive zeroes, i.e., for real x in the interval Œxi 1 ; xi . This is motivated by the
connection of monotonicity of stationary points to decomposability of polynomials,
which is the subject of the next section.
11.5.1 Definitions
1
More precisely, such a decomposition is called a nontrivial decomposition.
11 Reconstruction Problems 305
equivalent (and thus regarded as basically the same), if there is a linear polynomial
such that 2 D 1 ı
and h2 D
1 ı h1 . A polynomial f is called decomposable
(over R) if it has at least one nontrivial decomposition with real components.
Orthogonal polynomials – besides having simple real zeroes – have simple sta-
tionary points. A main theme, for instance in approximation theory, is to prove a
monotonicity result for the extremal points of the polynomials under question.
Denote by
ı.f I / D deg gcd.f ; f 0 /; 2 R;
which counts the number of stationary points of f .x/ with equal ordinate value. An
important connection to polynomial decomposition theory is given by the following
fact [3].
Theorem 8 ([20]). Let f .x/ 2 RŒx with only real zeroes satisfy
2
In fact, it is well known that the standard (nonmonic) Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind
Tk .x/ have all stationary points of equal ordinate value. Moreover, they are decomposable for any
nonprime k by the relation Tm .Tn .x// D Tn .Tm .x// D Tmn .x/.
306 T. Stoll
The present section is devoted to a detailed study of relation (11.31) which delivers
the needed information to bound ı.Pkn I / for all 2 R. To start with, iterat-
ing (11.31) yields
n
n bxc 1
n o n Y2 n no n
1 .x/ WD V2 Pkn x C z1 x C Ci (11.33)
2 2 2 2
i D0
V2 .Pkn .x//
n
n bxc 1
n o n Y2 n no n
V2 Pkn x C z2 x C C i DW
2 .x/:
2 2 2 2
i D0
Herein, fxg D x bxc denotes the fractional part of x. It may be possible to re-
lax (11.33) in order to improve on our results, but only at the cost of extensive
computational work. In fact, although z1 , z2 are monotone increasing functions in
the oscillatory region, this behaviour changes near the extreme zeroes and one has
to use more tricky arguments (see [7]). Moreover, it is a rather (computationally)
complex task to prove that V2 .Pkn .x// takes its minimal, resp. maximal, value on
Œn=2; n=2C1 at the left, resp. right, point of the interval (one may use (11.8), (11.9),
and (11.28)).
Now, consider (11.28) and the ellipse with
The upper bound for maxxi <x<xi C1 Pkn .x/ follows by calculating the major axis
of (11.34). This gives (we omit the details)
A.x/ C C.x/ 1 p
.x/ D A.x/2 2A.x/C.x/ C C.x/2 C B.x/2
2 2
and s
2 .x/
Pkn .x/ DW u.x/; n=2 x xn : (11.35)
.x/
On the other hand, considering the minor axis yields that for all i D 1; : : : ; n there
exists x 2 Œxi 1 ; xi such that
s
1 .x/
Pkn .x/ WD l.x/: (11.36)
C.x/
11 Reconstruction Problems 307
1e+21
1e+20
1e+19
1e+18
1e+17
1e+16
1e+15
1e+14
1e+13
1e+12
1e+11
1e+10
1e+09
50 60 70 80 90 100
x
We illustrate these two bounds in Fig. 11.2 for the case n D 100, k D 21.
Obviously, comparing the upper and lower bound it is possible to get a bound for
the number of stationary points of equal ordinate value.
then ı.Pkn I / 2s. For every n 100 we have calculated the values for k subject
to (11.30) which satisfy (11.37) with s 3. The data are illustrated in Fig. 11.3.3
From the plot we see that the bounds are most helpful in the vicinity of the bound
in (11.30), which is the upper envelope of the represented points.
According to Lemma 1, for the values .n; k/ given in Fig. 11.3 (which we call
admissible in the sequel) we have that Pnk .x/ D .h.x// with ; h 2 RŒx im-
plies deg h 6. In the next section we deal with these possible decompositions
by a recent method proposed by the author [19]. Observe that the set referred to in
Theorem 4, i.e.,
3
One may considerably improve these estimates for k odd, however, we aim for a more uniform
result.
308 T. Stoll
40
35
30
25
k
20
15
10
20 40 60 80 100
n
Fig. 11.3 Values of .n; k/ with Pnk .x/ having at most six stationary points of equal value
with
17 19
.n/ D max 7; n ;
40 2
is a subset of the admissible pairs .n; k/.
Given a polynomial f .x/ 2 RŒx, suppose that there is a decomposition of the form
f Dıh (11.38)
with deg h D s being a small number (in our case 6). One way to disprove
that there cannot exist such a decomposition consists in comparing coefficients on
both sides of the decomposition equation (11.38). Since the uppermost coefficients
of f (cf. 11.5) are given, one may try to come to a contradiction while equating
with the parametric coefficients on the right-hand side of (11.38). An algorithmic,
well-organized way of performing this task has recently been given by the author
[18, 19]. We recall the main ingredients. First, a polynomial hO of degree s is
11 Reconstruction Problems 309
computed which is the only (normed) candidate of degree s which could make up a
right decomposition factor for f (see [19, Algorithm 1]). Using hO we have at hand
a convenient algorithmic criterion for impossibility of polynomial decomposition.
From a practical point of view, Lemma 2 fits the problem best, when the degree
of hO is small. In fact, given f .x/, one expands f .x/ regarding h.x/
O up to suffi-
ciently large order (indicated by l) such that the remainder polynomial R.x/ has
the wanted properties. Regarding the Krawtchouk polynomials with parameter con-
strictions given in Fig. 11.3, we have to come to a contradiction when considering
right decomposition factors with deg h 6. In the sequel, we give an outline of
these calculations. For more details on the computational aspects (addressing both
the Gröbner bases and the implementation issues) we refer the interested reader
to the article [19].
The main result which is proved in the remaining part of this section is the following.
Theorem 9. Suppose Pkn .x/ D .h.x// with .x/; h.x/ 2 RŒx and 2 deg h 6.
Then deg h D 2 and the decomposition is equivalent to
O 2 nx/
Pkn .x/ D .x (11.40)
O
for some unique polynomial .x/ 2 QŒx.
n
To start with the proof, let deg h D 2. By (11.11) we see that P2k .x/ D
n
P2k .n x/ from which easily follows that there are unique polynomials 1 .x/;
2 .x/ 2 QŒx with
n
P2k .x/ D 1 .x n=2/2 D 2 x 2 nx ;
which is (11.40).
The only possible candidate of degree 3 (we use the first algorithm given
in [19]) is
O 3 9 2 9 9 3 3 1
h.x/ D x 3 nx 2 C k k n k C n2 C n C x:
2 4 8 4 4 8 2
310 T. Stoll
Taylor expansion with respect to this polynomial (use the second algorithm of [19])
leads to
n
P3k O k 1 nk.18k 2 18k 9nk C 4 C 2n2 C 3n/ h.x/
.x/ D h.x/ O k1
16
9
k.3k 1/.k 1/.48k 2 56k 30k n C 16 C 20n C 5n2 / x 3k4
540
C O.x 3k5 /:
1 1p
nDk C 60k 2 C 108k 39:
2 6
The expression under the square root symbol is 0 if and only if
1 13
k < 2;
2 10
a contradiction. Thus, there cannot exist a decomposition of a Krawtchouk polyno-
mial Pkn .x/ with right component of degree three.
The calculations for deg h D 4 are much more involved. First suppose that k 3.
We start with the expansion
n
P4k O k C ˇ1 h.x/
.x/ D h.x/ O k1 C r1 x 4k6 C r2 x 4k7
O k2 C r3 x 4k9 C r4 x 4k10 C O.x 4k11 /;
C ˇ2 h.x/
With the aid of the Gröbner-package in MAPLE we get the complete solution set
ffk D 1=4; n D 2g; fk D 1=4; n D 3g; fk D 1; n D 5g; fk D 1=4; n D 6g
fk D 1=2; n D 3g; fk D 1=4; n D ng; fk D 5=4; n D 2g; fk D 1=2; n D 4g;
fk D 1=2; n D ng; fk D 0; n D n; g; fk D 1=4; n D 2=3g; fk D 1; n D ng;
fk D 1=2; n D 2=3g; fk D 1; n D 2=3g; fk D 1=2; n D 8g; fk D 1; n D 6g;
fk D 1=4; n D 8g; fk D 1=2; n D 2g; fk D 1=2; n D 2g; fk D 1=2; n D 6g;
fk D 1=2; n D 3g; fk D 1=2; n D 6g; fk D 3=4; n D 2=3g; fk D 1; n D 8g;
fk D 1; n D 6g; fk D 13=36; n D 50=27g; fk D 1=2; n D 5g; fk D 1=2; n D 4g;
fk D 105057=2998036Z22 C 1848969=2998036Z2 C 1696531=2998036; n D 2g;
fk D 3=2; n D Z3 =3g; fk D 2; n D Z1 g; g:
No member in the solution set satisfies the integrality constraints for k and n. One
easily comes to a contradiction also for k D 2 by inspecting the single equation
r1 D 0.
Next, assume deg h D 5. We here get the expansion
n
P5k O k C ˇ1 h.x/
.x/ D h.x/ O k1 C r1 x 5k6 C r2 x 5k7 C r3 x 5k8 C O.x 5k9 /;
where
1
ˇ1 D nk.5000k 4 3750nk 3 C 15000k 3 C 4125n2 k 2 1500nk 2
2304
11000k 2 900n3 k 1800n2 k C 1950nk C 3000k
C 180n3 C 195n2 300n 272 C 72n4 / D 0:
312 T. Stoll
Obviously r1 D 0. The equation r2 D 0 does not yield any new information on the
parameters k and n with respect to the first equation. We therefore also need r3 D 0.
More explicitly,
4
Again, we used MAPLE-V11 to perform the computations.
11 Reconstruction Problems 313
Observe that in principle the first and second equations are sufficient to conclude.
However, the Gröbner calculations become much more efficient (and faster) if one
includes an additional polynomial equation.
11.8.1 Introduction
Regarding Theorem 5, we have to treat decompositions of Pkn .x/ involving the stan-
dard pairs given by (11.20)–(11.24). Recall that by Theorem 9 the only nontrivial
O 2 nx/ with k 2 2ZC ,
decomposition of Pkn .x/ is equivalent to Pkn .x/ D .x
provided we assume the parameter restrictions for n and k given in Theorem 4.5 To
begin with, suppose that the Diophantine equation
has infinitely many rational solutions .x; y/ with a bounded denominator. Then by
Theorem 5,
Pkn D ı f1 ı
1 and g D ı g1 ı
2 ;
5
Therein, we assume k 7. It is possible to consider the smaller values of k also, however, at the
cost of some more case distinctions.
314 T. Stoll
where
1 ;
2 are some linear polynomials, 2 QŒx, and .f1 ; g1 / is a standard pair
as given by the list in Sect. 11.3. By Theorem 9, we have one of the three cases:
(i) deg D k,
O 2 nx/,
(ii) deg D k 0 with k D 2k 0 and Pkn .x/ D .x
(iii) deg D 1.
O 2 nx/
11.8.3 Case deg D k with k D 2k0 and Pkn D .x
O
Let Pkn D ı f1 ı
1 and
be the unique linear polynomial such that ı
D .
Then Pk D . ı
/ ı .
ı f1 ı
1 / D O ı l1 and Theorem 9 yields l1 D x nx.
n 1 2
g D ı g1 ı
2 D . ı
/ ı .
1 ı g1 ı
2 / D O ı l2 ;
where l2 D
1 ı g1 ı
2 . If the equation .x n=2/2 D l2 .y/ C n2 =4 has infinitely
many solutions with a bounded denominator, then by Siegel’s theorem l2 has at most
two zeroes of odd multiplicity. This yields Case (ii).
In view of (11.19) here we have to cope with the six variables k, n, 1 , ˛, ˇ, and t .
It is again a straightforward (but involved) computation to come to a contradiction.
In fact, for k 6 we may write down six coefficient equations from (11.41) and
conclude. Here we omit the details.
Finally, consider the standard pair of the first kind given by (11.20), namely
.x q ; x r v.x/q /. The polynomial .Pkn .x//0 has zeroes of multiplicity one. Hence,
for k 7, there cannot be a representation with Pkn .˛x C ˇ/ D 1 x q C 0 . On the
other hand, suppose that
In the present chapter we have outlined an analytic method to study the Diophantine
equation
Pkn .x/ D g.y/ (11.43)
in integral variables x; y, where Pkn .x/ denotes a binary Krawtchouk polynomial of
degree k 7 and g 2 QŒx is an arbitrary polynomial of degree 3. Within cer-
tain parameter ranges (informally speaking, k growing like n=2) we have shown
that the Diophantine equation (11.43) only has finitely many integral solutions
x; y (Theorem 4). This Diophantine equation is motivated by the close relation-
ship between integrality of zeroes of Krawtchouk polynomials and the resolution of
reconstruction problems in graphs (Sect. 11.3).
Our machinery ranges from a recent indecomposability criterion due to the author
(Lemma 2) to the discrete Laguerre inequality (Theorem 7) applied to Krawtchouk
polynomials, as obtained and outlined by Krasikov. The method used in this chapter
describes a new approach in the theory of polynomial decomposition, and well fits
316 T. Stoll
References
1. Bilu Y, Tichy RF (2000) The Diophantine equation f .x/ D g.y/. Acta Arith 95:261–288
2. Bondy JA (1991) A graph reconstruction manual. In: Keedwell AD (ed) Surveys in com-
binatorics. LMS-Lecture Note Series, vol 166. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
pp 221–252
3. Dujella A, Tichy RF (2001) Diophantine equations for second-order recursive sequences of
polynomials. Q J Math 52:161–169
4. Ellingham MN (1996) Vertex-switching reconstruction and folded cubes. J Combin Theory B
66:361–364
5. Ellingham MN, Royle GF (1992) Vertex-switching reconstruction of subgraph numbers and
triangle-free graphs. J Combin Theory B 54:167–177
6. Krasikov I (1994) Applications of balance equations to vertex switching reconstruction.
J Graph Theory 18:217–225.
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160:273–278
8. Krasikov I (2001) Nonnegative quadratic forms and bounds on orthogonal polynomials.
J Approx Theory 111:31–49
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1:189–197
10. Krasikov I, Litsyn S (1996) On integral zeros of Krawtchouk polynomials. J Combin Theory
A 74:71–99
11. Krasikov I, Litsyn S (2001) Survey of binary Krawtchouk polynomials, Codes and association
schemes. (Piscataway, NJ, 1999), DIMACS Ser Discrete Math Theor Comput Sci 56:199–211.
American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI
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Theory B 54:189–195
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60:40–55
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mials and its q-Analogue. Report 98-17, Delft, Netherlands
15. Levenshtein V (1995) Krawtchouk polynomials and universal bounds for codes and designs in
Hamming spaces. IEEE Trans Inf Theory 41:1303–1321
11 Reconstruction Problems 317
16. Siegel CL (1929) Über einige Anwendungen Diophantischer Approximationen. Abh Preuss
Akad Wiss Math Phys Kl 1:209–266
17. Stanley RP (1985) Reconstruction from vertex-switching. J Combin Theory B 38:132–138
18. Stoll T (2008) Complete decomposition of Dickson-type recursive polynomials and related
Diophantine equations. J Number Theory 128:1157–1181
19. Stoll T (2008) Decomposition of perturbed Chebyshev polynomials. J Comput Appl Math
214:356–370
20. Stoll T, Tichy RF (2003) Diophantine equations for continuous classical orthogonal poly-
nomials. Indagat Math 14:263–274
21. Stoll T, Tichy RF (2005) Diophantine equations involving general Meixner and Krawtchouk
polynomials. Quaest Math 28:105–115
22. Szegő G (1975) Orthogonal polynomials, vol. 23, 4th edn. American Mathematical Society
Colloquium Publications, Providence, RI
Chapter 12
Subgraphs as a Measure of Similarity
Josef Lauri
Abstract How similar can two graphs be? The ultimate positive answer to this
question is, of course, when the two graphs are isomorphic. However, how much
internal structure can two nonisomorphic graphs share? We show what the answer
can look like if the measure of similarity between the two graphs is taken to be the
number of isomorphic subgraphs which they share. We see how this notion is re-
lated to the internal symmetries of a graph and that therefore, for most graphs, their
internal structure forces them to be very dissimilar to other graphs. We also indicate
some attempts to find nonisomorphic graphs which are very similar in terms of the
common subgraphs which they share. We also point out some issues of computa-
tional complexity and some possible applications associated with this measure of
graph similarity.
12.1 Introduction
J. Lauri ()
Department of Mathematics, University of Malta, Tal-Qroqq, Malta
e-mail: [email protected]
is known. An easily computable parameter which determines when two graphs are
isomorphic would solve the Graph Isomorphism (GI) problem, one of graph the-
ory’s diseases [24]. Easily computable parameters such as the degree sequence and
the spectrum do not always distinguish between nonisomorphic graphs. But devising
measures which are efficiently computable although not always able to distinguish
between nonisomorphic graphs is still an important realm of investigation, espe-
cially in applications. A recent example of work in this field (sometimes called
inexact graph matching [8]) is [9], where the authors derive a hierarchy of similar-
ity measures related to the degree sequence parameter and which can be computed
efficiently. In this paper the authors give experimental results obtained by applying
their similarity measures to more than 400 directed graphs representing web-based
hypertext structures.
In this chapter we focus on measuring the similarity of two graphs in terms of
their subgraphs. Complexity considerations and practical use are only discussed
briefly in the last section. The first paper to study this way of measuring similarity or
distance between graphs was probably [25]. In this paper, motivated by a question
of Vizing, Zelinka defines the distance ı.G; H / between two graphs on n vertices
as the minimum k such that G and H are both induced subgraphs of a graph on
n C k vertices and he shows that ı is a metric on the set of graphs with n vertices.
He also proves the simple result that G and H are induced subgraphs of a graph on
at most n C k vertices if and only if they have a common induced subgraph on at
least nk vertices. We consider a similarity measure which takes into consideration
all induced subgraphs and which is also related to another well-known graph theory
disease.
In the following all graphs are simple and undirected. Let G be a graph and v,
e a vertex and an edge, respectively, of G. Then G v denotes the graph obtained
by deleting from G the vertex v and all the edges incident to v; this is called a
vertex-deleted subgraph of G. More generally, if X is a set of vertices of G then
G X denotes the graph obtained by deleting from G all vertices in X and all
edges incident to at least one vertex in X . The resulting graph G X is said to be
induced by the vertices V .G/ X .
Similarly, G e denotes the graph obtained by deleting the edge e; it is called
an edge-deleted subgraph of G. We are mostly concerned with vertex-deleted sub-
graphs, but we often indicate how the results and questions we present relate to the
edge-deletion case.
The measure of similarity between two graphs which we discuss is the number of
vertex-deleted subgraphs that they possess in common. We define the subgraph sim-
ilarity sim.G; H / between two graphs G and H with the same number of vertices
n as follows. Let D.G/, called the deck of G, be the list of vertex-deleted sub-
graphs of G, where isomorphic subgraphs appear with the appropriate multiplicity.
Similarly let D.H / be the deck of H . Then sim.G; H / is equal to the number of
vertex-deleted subgraphs in D.G/ which are also in D.H /, where a subgraph that
appears more than once in D.G/ is counted as many times as it appears in D.H /.
(Therefore Zelinka’s result quoted above for k D 1 states that G and H are both in
12 Subgraphs as a Measure of Similarity 321
the deck of some graph if and only if sim.G; H / 1.) To make these definitions
clear note that the two graphs G and H in Fig. 12.1 have sim.G; H / D 5.
All of this is, of course, related to the reconstruction conjecture (RC) which can
now be stated as
Reconstruction Conjecture
This means that, given any 8rn.G/ vertex-deleted subgraphs from D.G/, these sub-
graphs determine G uniquely because no other nonisomorphic graph can have all of
them in its deck. This interpretation, which tacitly assumes that RC is true, explains
the name given to this parameter and its notation. This parameter is also often called
the adversary reconstruction number of G [4].
322 J. Lauri
It turns out that most graphs are so dissimilar that their universal reconstruction
number is three; that is, any three vertex-deleted subgraphs of most graphs will
determine the graph uniquely. We shall make this statement more precise and
give the proof in full because it illustrates very well how the concept of subgraph
similarity which we are using depends heavily on the internal structure of graphs.
The proof is based on [2] (Chap. 10).
It is well-known that almost every graph has a trivial automorphism group. How-
ever, a stronger result is possible which will tell us a lot about sim.G; H /, but
we need first to explain what we mean when we say that almost every graph has
some property. So, let P be a graph-theoretic property such as ‘planar’ or ‘vertex-
transitive’. Let rn denote the proportion of labelled graphs on n vertices that have
property P. If limn!1 rn D 1, then we say that almost every (a.e.) graph has
property P. To show that a.e. graph has our desired property we use the simplest
12 Subgraphs as a Measure of Similarity 323
probability space which is set up when studying random graphs. Let G.n; 12 / be the
set of all labelled graphs on the set of vertices f1; 2; : : : ; ng where, for each pair i; j ,
1
P.ij is an edge/ D P.ij is not an edge/ D
2
n
independently. Therefore each graph G in G.n; 12 / has probability . 12 /.2/ , which is,
n
of course, equal to the probability of choosing G randomly from amongst all 2.2/
labelled graphs on n vertices when all are equally likely to be chosen. So, in order to
show that a.e. graph has a particular property P one has to show that the probability
that G 2 G.n; 12 / has property P tends to 1 as n tends to infinity.
The property we are interested in is the following. Let k be fixed. We say that
a graph G has property Ak if all induced subgraphs of G on n k vertices are
mutually nonisomorphic. In other words, G has property Ak means that, if X; Y are
two distinct k-subsets of V .G/, then G X 6' G Y . It is easy to see that if G has
property AkC1 , then it also has property Ak and that if it has property A1 , then it is
asymmetric. Therefore having property Ak is stronger than just being asymmetric.
We show that, for any fixed k, a.e. graph has property Ak .
Lemma 1. Let W V , jW j D t, jV j D n, and let W W ! V be an injective
function that is not the identity. Let g D g./ be the number of elements w 2 W
such that .w/ 6D w. Then there is a set I of pairs of (distinct) elements of W ,
containing at least 2g.t 2/=6 pairs, such that I \ .I / D ;.
Proof. Consider those pairs v; w 2 W such that at least one
is moved. (All pairs are
taken to contain distinct elements.) There are g.t g/C g2 such pairs. For all but at
most g=2 of these pairs, fv; wg 6D f.v/; .w/g (the exceptions are when .v/ D w
and .w/ D v). Let E be the set of all such pairs. Then
!
g g g t
jE j g.t g/ C Dg t 1 g 1 :
2 2 2 2
Define a graph H with vertex-set the pairs in E and such that each pair fv; wg
is adjacent to the pair f.v/; .w/g. In H , all degrees are at most 2. Degrees equal
to 1 could arise because f.v/; .w/g could contain an element not in W , and so
the pair would not be in E . Degrees equal to 2 could arise because fv; wg could be
adjacent to both f.v/; .w/g and f1 .v/; 1 .w/g.
Therefore the components of H are isolated vertices, paths, or cycles. Let I be
a set of independent (that is, not adjacent) vertices in H . Therefore, for any pair
fv; wg 2 I , f.v/; .w/g is not in I .
Now, all isolated vertices in H are independent, at least half of the vertices on
a path are independent, and at least one third of the vertices on a cycle are indepen-
dent, the extreme case here being a triangle. Therefore
2g.t 2/
jI j jE j=3 ;
6
as required. t
u
324 J. Lauri
has probability 1=2. These events, as they range over all pairs fv; wg 2 I , are
mutually independent, because they involve distinct pairs. But S requires all these
events simultaneously. Therefore, by independence,
jI j 2g.t 2/=6
1 1
P .S / ;
2 2
as required. t
u
The result of this corollary is the crux of the matter. There are too many indepen-
dent correct ‘hits’ required for to be an isomorphism, and the probability therefore
becomes small as n increases.
Theorem 2 ([6, 14, 21]). Let k be a fixed nonnegative integer and let G 2 G.n; 12 /.
Let pn denote the probability that
Then, limn!1 pn D 0.
Hence, a.e. graph has property Ak .
n
Proof. Pick a particular W V with jW j D nk. This can be done in nk ways,
and !
n n.n 1/ .n k C 1/
D < nk :
nk kŠ
Let t D n k. Let W W ! V be injective and not the identity, and let g D g./
be the number of vertices of W that are moved by . Let S be the event defined in
the previous corollary.
12 Subgraphs as a Measure of Similarity 325
Now, for a given value of g between 1 and t, how many functions are there such
that g./ D g? Such a function is determined by the set fw W .w/ 6D wg and by the
values it takes on this set. Therefore, there are less than n2g such . Therefore, for a
given fixed W , the probability of a nontrivial isomorphism is given by
X t
X X
P .S / D P .S /
6Did gD1 Wg./Dg
t
X 2g.t 2/=6
1
n2g
gD1
2
t h
X ig
D n2 2.2t /=3
gD1
t h
X ig
< 41=3 n2 2t =3 :
gD1
Xn g
1
<
gD1
nkC1
nn.kC1/ 1
D :
nn.kC1/ .nkC1 1/
nn.kC1/ 1
pn < nk ;
nn.kC1/ .nkC1 1/
and this tends to 0 as n tends to infinity. t
u
326 J. Lauri
Now the following theorem explains the relationship between property Ak and
the subgraph similarity between graphs which we have been discussing.
Theorem 3 ([6, 21, 22]). Let G have property A3 . Then G can be uniquely deter-
mined from any three vertex-deleted subgraphs in its deck. That is, sim.G; H / 2
for any graph H not isomorphic to G and 8rn.G/ D 3.
From Theorem 2 and this lemma the following surprising result is immediate.
Theorem 4. Almost every graph G has sim.G; H / 2 for any graph H 6' G and
therefore 8rn.G/ D 3.
Theorem 5. Almost every graph G has the property that any two edge-deleted sub-
graphs from its edge-deck determine it uniquely, that is, sime .G; H / 1 for any
graph H 6' G, and 8rne .G/ D 2.
The data in Table 12.1, obtained by McMullen and Radziszowski [18], give a very
good idea of how strong Theorem 4 really is. Out of more than 12,000,000 graphs
on ten vertices, only 12 have 9rn greater than the minimum possible value of 3. This
Table 12.1 Number of graphs with given order and given 9rn
Order
9rn 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
3 4 8 34 150 1044 12;334 274;666 12;005; 156
4 3 4 8 6
5 2 2 2 4
6 2
7 2
12 Subgraphs as a Measure of Similarity 327
situation sets the scene for the search of graphs with large values of 9rn and 8rn,
and sometimes even a value of four can be considered large and graphs with this
value could be difficult to find. In the next section we look at some results which
have been obtained in this vein.
We look at the problem of finding graphs with large subgraph similarity from two
angles, that of the existential reconstruction number 9rn and the universal recon-
struction number 8rn.
The first graphs for which 9rn were studied were disconnected graphs. Myrvold [23]
and Molina [20] showed the following.
So here it seems that we have a rich supply of graphs with large 9rn. The example
which Myrvold gave of disconnected graphs with 9rn D c C 2 was the graph G
consisting of disjoint copies of the complete graph Kc . The graph G in Fig. 12.1 is
the special case K4 [ K4 . However, Asciak and Lauri [5] showed that in fact these
are the only examples of disconnected graphs with 9rn D c C 2 and that there are
no disconnected graphs with 9rn D c C 1. The computer searches of McMullen and
Radziszowski [18] amongst all graphs on at most ten vertices unearthed only two
examples of disconnected graphs with 9rn > 3. These are the graph made up of two
disjoint copies of the cycle on four vertices and the graph made up of two disjoint
copies of the path on four vertices. Both have 9rn D 4 and no other disconnected
graphs with 9rn > 3 are known. The big gap between 9rn D 4 and 9rn D c is
waiting to be explored.
The situation with regular graphs is somewhat similar. Myrvold [22] has shown
that r-regular graphs have 9rn at most r C 3 but Asciak [3] has shown that again the
disconnected graph consisting of disjoint copies of KrC1 is the only r-regular graph
with 9rn D r C 3. Here too, knowledge about the gap between 9rn D 4 and 9rn D
r C 2 is very scant. The computer searches of McMullen and Radziszowski led
them to this construction. The graph RCCn;j is obtained as follows (RCC stands for
redundantly connected cycles). Take n 2 disjoint copies of cycles each of length
j 3. Let vc;i ; i 2 f0; 1; : : : ; j 1g denote the i -th vertex of the c-th cycle. For each
c 6D d join the vertices vc;i and vd;i C1, where addition is modulo j . The resulting
graph RCCn;j is regular and McMullen and Radziszowski prove the following.
328 J. Lauri
The definition of 8rn is more closely related to that of sim.G; H /, and it seems
more difficult to tackle. It certainly seems easier to find disconnected graphs with
large 8rn than ones with large 9rn. For example, Hemaspaandra et al. [11] observe
that since
sim.Kt C1 [ Kt 1 ; 2Kt / D t C 1
then 8rn.Kt C1 [ Kt 1 / and 8rn.2Kt / are both at least t C 2 and therefore greater
than the corresponding 9rn numbers which are both three. However, the proof in
[11] that these two 8rn numbers are actually t C 2 is not simple, even for such
straightforward graphs; determining 8rn seems to be quite difficult in general. Also,
it is not clear that these and the other two examples given in [11] are not exceptional
cases similar to the usual suspects: the graphs pKn with large 9rn. Therefore the
question of finding disconnected graphs with large 8rn might be as open as it is for
finding disconnected or regular graphs with large 9rn.
Until recently, most of the results obtained about 8rn and sim.G; H / were found
in [10, 22]. An early result was the following.
Theorem 8 ([22]). Let G and H be two graphs on n vertices and with sim.G; H /
D n 1. Then G and H have the same degree sequence.
Significant advances in this direction have recently been reported by Bowler et al.
in [7]. For example, they show the following.
From this result and other work in [22] the following holds.
Theorem 10. Let G and H be two graphs on n vertices (n 19) and such that
jnk
sim.G; H / C 1:
2
Then if G is a tree H must also be a tree.
Theorem 11. Let G be a tree and H a unicyclic graph with an isolated vertex, both
on n vertices. Then
n
sime .G; H / C 1:
2
Bowler et al. make a conjecture that if G is a tree and H is a unicyclic graph plus
an isolated vertex, both on n vertices, then in fact
n
sime .G; H / :
2
The structures of the trees and the unicyclic graphs which attain large subgraph
similarity between them are very particular. The trees are caterpillars, that is, trees
the deletion of whose endvertices gives a path, and the unicyclic graphs are what
Myrvold and Francalanza call sunshine graphs, that is, unicyclic graphs the deletion
of whose endvertices gives a cycle.
The main question which these researchers would like to answer here is certainly
the following: What is the largest possible value of sim.G; H / when G and H are
two nonisomorphic trees on n vertices?
This construction from [7] gives a family of pairs of nonisomorphic trees with
large subgraph similarity. Let
Let G be the tree obtained from G by adding a new central vertex and three new
edges joining the new vertex to the three cutvertices of G . Similarly, construct H
from H . These two trees are nonisomorphic, have n D 3p C 5 vertices, and
2
sim.G; H / D 2p D .n 5/:
3
This family of tree pairs has the highest known subgraph similarity between non-
isomorphic trees. A similar construction in [7] gives examples of pairs G; H of
nonisomorphic trees on n vertices with the same degree sequence and
2 p
sim.G; H / D .n C 1 2 3n 6/:
3
The best result known to date regarding the highest possible value of sim.G; H / for
general graphs is again found in [7]. First we require a definition. A 2UC graph pair
is a pair of nonisomorphic graphs, G and H , on n vertices, at least one of which is
disconnected, such that in G or in H there are at least two components which cannot
be matched with the components of the other graph by isomorphism. A particular
example is when G is connected and H is disconnected. (2UC stands for Two Un-
matched Components.) The motivation behind this definition is that if A and B are
two nonisomorphic connected graphs with the same deck (hence counterexamples
to the RC) and on n 1 vertices, then sim.A [ K1 ; B [ K1 / D n 1. Bowler et al.
prove the following theorem.
For n 22 and n 1.mod 3/, they also give the following infinite family of
pairs of 2UC graphs attaining this bound:
They also show that this pair is unique for the given values of the parameter n. Note
that although G and H are disconnected, their complements are connected and also
have the same subgraph similarity.
More examples are given in [7] including uniqueness of some families of pairs
attaining the upper bound in Theorem 12. Their work also gives an example of
pairs G; H of 2UC graphs with n D 3p 2 2; .p 3/, having the same degree
sequence, and
2 p
sim.G; H / D .n C 5 2 3n C 6/:
3
12 Subgraphs as a Measure of Similarity 331
This number is smaller than the upper bound in Theorem 12. Therefore it seems
natural to ask what is the maximum possible value of sim.G; H / when G; H are
two nonisomorphic 2UC graphs on n vertices with the same degree sequence.
Motivated by Theorem 12, Bowler et al. make the following conjecture which,
of course, is a considerable strengthening of the RC.
The RC is not an algorithm question. The issue is not whether there is an efficient
way of obtaining G from its deck but it is a question of uniqueness: is there more
than one graph with the given deck? However, a few variants of the RC have been
adapted into questions of algorithmic complexity. Subgraph similarity and recon-
struction numbers, being so closely related to the GI problem and the subgraph
isomorphism problem which is known to be NP-complete [13] are perhaps the most
natural variants of the reconstruction problem to be treated algorithmically.
In [11], the authors define these four decision problems:
12.5 Conclusion
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25. Zelinka B (1975) On a certain distance between isomorphism classes of graphs. Časopis pro
p̆est Mathematiky 100:371–373
Chapter 13
A Chromatic Metric on Graphs
Gerhard Benadé
13.1 Introduction
Ever since the four-color conjecture was formulated over a century ago, the study
of graph coloring played an active and vital part in this graph theory. The ideas
and techniques developed there, and the problems and questions generated by the
research provided a stimulus to much of nonchromatic graph theory. An abundance
of parameters associated with various ways of partitioning the vertex set of a graph
has been studied over the years.
In 1977, Harary [16] gave a very broad definition of a vertex coloring which
subsumed most of the sometimes quite disparate concepts defined previously. If P
is any class of graphs, satisfying only the condition that it must contain the one-
vertex graph, then a P -coloring of a graph is a partition of the vertex set of the
graph for which the subgraph induced by each partition class is an element of P .
The corresponding parameter is the P -chromatic number, defined as the smallest
number of partition classes in any P -coloring of a graph.
G. Benadé ()
School of Computer Science, Statistics and Mathematics, North-West University,
Potchefstroom, South Africa
e-mail: [email protected]
This definition opened up the theory of generalized graph coloring, which has
experienced a high level of activity in subsequent years. In this field, one endeav-
ors to uncover the essential structure underlying chromatic theory. This has proved
to be a quite difficult task; the very generality of the setting implies a concomi-
tant dearth of available knowledge.
S For example, some very easily stated questions,
such as determining the .P Q/-chromatic number of a given graph, are still un-
solved (and perhaps unsolvable!). Nevertheless, some remarkable results have been
proved, for instance, Folkman’s theorem [13], asserting that, for every positive in-
teger k and for some classes P of graphs, there exists a graph Gk such that the
P -chromatic number of Gk is k, and the theorem of Bollobás and Thomason [5]
about the existence of uniquely P -colorable graphs for some general classes P of
graphs.
A concept that seems to strike a good balance between generality and tractabil-
ity is the notion of F -free coloring. This special case of a P -coloring is defined
as follows. For any graph F which is not the one-vertex graph, an F -free coloring
of some graph is a partition of the vertex set of that graph in such a way that F
does not occur as an induced subgraph in the subgraph induced by any of the par-
tition classes – in other words, the partition classes induce F -free subgraphs. The
parameter corresponding to the P -chromatic number defined above is defined in
the same way and is called the F -free chromatic number. Many well-known vertex
partitioning parameters are in fact F -free chromatic numbers, the most well-known
certainly being the usual chromatic number , which corresponds to F D K2 , the
complete graph on two vertices. Notable exceptions are the cochromatic number
and the vertex arboricity; they are accommodated only under the general definition
of the P -chromatic number.
Using the notion of an F -free coloring, we introduce a relation on the class of
graphs that ultimately leads to a metric. Two graphs F and G are called related,
denoted by F G, if, for every positive integer k, there exists a graph for which
both the F -free and the G-free chromatic numbers are equal to k. They are called
n-distantly related, for some integer n, if there exist graphs R0 , R1 ; : : : ; Rn such
that F Š R0 R1 Rn Š G, and they are called distantly related if
there is some integer n for which they are n-distantly related. Making essential use
of Folkman’s theorem, it is proved that any two graphs are distantly related. This
means that the metric, defined for two graphs F and G as the minimum number
n for which F and G are n-distantly related, assumes some finite value for any
pair of graphs. It is a rather remarkable fact that, indeed, this value does not exceed
three.
In Sect. 13.2, we introduce the notion of relatedness for general classes of graphs,
then confine our attention to graph relatedness in Sect. 13.3. In Sect. 13.4, various
conjectures giving sufficient conditions for relatedness to hold between two graphs
are discussed. Relatedness between specific graphs types are given in Sect. 13.5. In
Sect. 13.6, a transitive relation is defined, leading to the definition of the chromatic
metric in Sect. 13.7.
13 A Chromatic Metric on Graphs 337
Although the main results on relatedness are about relatedness of graphs rather than
of classes, the concept can equally naturally be defined for classes and some inter-
esting general results may be deduced. Recall that the meaning of class is restricted
to exclude the class of all graphs and to always include the empty graph and the
one-vertex graph.
Definition 1. Two classes P and Q are called n-chromatically related for some
positive integer n, denoted by P n Q, if there exists a graph Mn such that
.Mn W P / D .Mn W Q/ D n:
Often, the word “chromatically” in the above definition is dropped when it can
unambiguously be inferred from the context, and we simply refer to n-related, re-
lated, and alien classes.
Two classes are thus called related if, for each possible value of the chromatic
numbers defined by them, a graph exists for which these two chromatic numbers
both have this value. The chromatic numbers defined by two alien classes, on the
other hand, may well coincide for some values in the spectrum of possible values,
but there will be at least one integer n for which, when applied to any graph, they
will not both be n.
Example 1. The concepts of n-relatedness and relatedness are different, at least for
classes of graphs. An example is furnished by the classes Ql , consisting of all
graphs with order less than l, for some l 3. It follows that .G W Ql / D d v.G/
l1 e.
Now, for some integer l 3, Ql n QlC1 if and only if n < l.
Note that Ql l QlC1 if and only if there is a graph G of order p such that
p
d l1 e D n D d pl e, that is, n 1 < pl and l1p
n. Such a p exists if and only if
nl l < p nl n; that is, n < l.
This means that, for all integers l 3, the classes Ql and QlC1 are not n-related
for all n l and hence that they are alien.
Example 2. The relations n and are not equivalence relations, since, although
they are symmetric and reflexive, they are not transitive. Again, the classes Ql sup-
ply an example. Suppose we take a class of graphs P such that, for any pair of
positive integers n and k with k n, there is a graph G of order k and with
P -chromatic number n. (An example of such a class is the class of null graphs.)
Then Ql P and QlC1 P : For each integer n, a P n-chromatic graph of order
n.l 1/ will have Ql -chromatic number equal to n too, whereas a P n-chromatic
graph of order nl will have QlC1 -chromatic number n too. Thus Ql and QlC1 are
both related to P , but by the previous example they are alien.
338 G. Benadé
Example 3. Another example showing that the relation is not transitive is the
following. It is later proved that the classes K2 and P3 are related, and also P3
and K3 , but that K2 and K3 are alien.
A few elementary properties of these relations are now listed. In the first of these,
1-relatedness is established between any two classes. Thus, showing that two classes
are n-chromatically related for n 2 is sufficient to prove that they are chromati-
cally related.
Proof. Since it was assumed that K1 is an element of any class, the one-vertex graph
K1 can be both P 1-colored and Q 1-colored for any two classes P and Q. t
u
Remark 2. Let P and Q be classes. Then, if for some positive integer n, P and Q
are n-chromatically related, so are P and Q. Also, if P and Q are related, then so
are P and Q.
Proof. Recall that the complement of a class P consists of the class of the comple-
ments of the graphs in P . Let P n Q for some n. Let Mn be a graph establishing
this; in other words, .Mn W P / D .Mn W Q/ D n. Then, using Remark 3.2.7 of
[1], it follows that .Mn W P / D .Mn W Q/ D n and hence the graph Mn estab-
lishes n-relatedness between P and Q. Should P and Q be n-related for all n 2,
this proves that their complements will also be, hence P Q implies P Q. u t
The next result is a corollary to Theorem 2.3.3 of [1], and shows that there are in
fact many pairs of chromatically alien classes.
Remark 3. Let P and Q be classes of graphs and let Q 2 denote the class of all
graphs having Q-chromatic number at most 2. Then Q2 P implies that P 6 Q.
Proof. Recall the condition in the above-mentioned theorem, holding for two clas-
ses P and Q and an integer k: Every graph I , with .I W Q/ k, is in P . This
condition, with k D 2, is equivalent with Q 2 P , thus the theorem may be ap-
plied and hence the following inequality holds between the two chromatic numbers,
defined by P and Q, of any graph H :
.H W Q/
.H W P / :
2
Note that Q Q2 for any class of graphs Q. This result thus asserts that two
classes of graphs are alien whenever their sizes differ too much. This provides an
intuitive way to think about the relations “is alien to” and “is related to” in set-
theoretic terms.
The converse of this result does not hold. It is possible for two classes P and
Q that the condition Q 2 P fails, but that they still are alien. This happens, for
13 A Chromatic Metric on Graphs 339
instance, in the case of the two classes Ql and QlC1 discussed above. They are
alien, but there are Ql 2-chromatic graphs that do not occur in QlC1 ; any graph
with order at least l C 1 and at most 2l 2 falls into this category. Thus .Ql /2
6 QlC1 .
Proof. Let P and Q be n-related for some n 2, and let Mn be a graph such that
.Mn W P / D .Mn W Q/ D n. Then, by Remark 2.3.2 of [1], n D .Mn W P /
.Mn W R/ .Mn W Q/ D n. This implies that all three of these classes are
mutually n-related. This proof holds for any integer n 2, thus the corresponding
statement for chromatic relatedness is also true. t
u
Remark 5. Let P and Q be classes of graphs and let m and n be positive integers.
If P Q, then P n Q implies that P m Q for all m n.
.Mn1 W Q/ .Mn1 W P / D n 1:
Definition 2. Two graphs F and G are called n-chromatically related for some
positive integer n, denoted by F n G, if F n G, and they are called
340 G. Benadé
Thus, F and G are n-chromatically related if there exists a graph Mn such that
.Mn W F / D .Mn W G/ D n; and they are chromatically related if F n G
for all integers n 1. Also, for two chromatically alien graphs F and G there exists
an integer n 2 such that for no graph H , the F -free chromatic number of H and
the G-free chromatic number of H are both equal to n.
As before, when referring to these concepts further on, the word “chromatically”
might sometimes be omitted if the meaning is sufficiently clear from the context.
Note also that whenever a graph appears in any of these relations, it has been used
to define a chromatic number and thus the convention requiring such graphs to have
at least two vertices applies.
The following few remarks reinterpret the previous section’s results for graphs.
Remark 7. Let F and G be graphs. If, for some positive integer n, the graphs F
and G are n-chromatically related, then so are F and G. Likewise, if F and G are
chromatically related, F and G are also chromatically related.
The next result gives a necessary condition for n-relatedness to hold between two
graphs using the chromatic number of the one in terms of the other, and plays an
important role in the sequel.
Proof. Suppose that .G W F / 3. Then it follows from Corollary 3.2.9 of [1]
that the G-free chromatic number of any graph H and the F -free chromatic number
of H cannot both be equal to n, contradicting F n G. Since this assumption is
symmetric with respect to the positions of F and G (due to the fact that the relation
n is reflexive), the other inequality immediately follows. t
u
Now, for any pair F and G of graphs, it holds that .F W G/ 2 or
.G W F / 2. The added requirement that F and G are related now forces
both these chromatic numbers down to at most two. Intuitively speaking, this means
that related graphs lie closely together in the sense that the chromatic number of
one in terms of the other and vice versa cannot be too large. These matters are
elaborated upon later.
The following result is derived from the above remark by taking G equal to K2 .
In this case, relatedness of a graph F with K2 is shown to have direct implications
for the structure of F .
It is later shown that the complete bipartite graphs are all related to K2 . Although
this could not be proved for general bipartite graphs, no example of a bipartite graph
alien to K2 has yet been found, and we strongly suspect that relatedness with K2
characterizes the property of being bipartite. Implications of this conjecture are ex-
amined in Sect. 13.4.
The following corollary to Remark 4 is a useful “pinching” result: If a graph is
wedged (in terms of the induced subgraph relation) between two others, and the
outer graphs are related, then all three are mutually related.
This proves that .H W G/ n. To prove equality, a G-free coloring for H
in n colors is given: color each Hn G-freely in n colors. An n-coloring of H is
obtained by taking the union of the j t h color classes, for each j D 1; 2; : : : ; n. This
coloring is G-free, for suppose a copy of G occurs in some color class. Since G G G,
a copy of G also occurs in this color class. However, this is impossible. Due to the
connectedness of G, if it occurs somewhere, it has to be completely contained in
one of the copies of Hn , whereas the fact that the coloring for each Hn is G-free
prevents the monochromatic occurrence of G in Hn . Hence
In the following results, conditions are given for n-chromatic relatedness between
graphs to imply m-chromatic relatedness for integers m and n with m n or m n.
The first is deduced from the general result, Remark 5, holding for classes of graphs.
Proof. Since F G G if and only if F G, the remark can be applied to prove
the result. t
u
Recall that the concepts n-relatedness and relatedness were different for classes
of graphs. There exist classes of graphs that are n-related, but not m-related for some
integer m ¤ n. However, an analogous example could not be found for graphs, so
that it is possible that, at least for graphs, these concepts coincide. In this event, the
conclusion of the above result would of course follow without any condition having
to be met. A full discussion of this possibility is deferred to Sect. 13.4.
A result that deduces m-relatedness in the other direction can be proved using
other conditions on the graphs. Recall that a graph with the girth-endvertex property
has girth at least five and no two endvertices have a common neighbor.
GnF D F ŒK1 ; Gn ; : : : ; Gn :
Corollary 6. For any two connected graphs F and G with the girth-endvertex prop-
erty and satisfying F 6 G G and G6 G F , F is chromatically related to G.
The following relatedness can, for example, be deduced from this result. All
cycles on at least five vertices, all paths on at least four vertices, and all trees satis-
fying the condition that no two endvertices have a common neighbour, are pairwise
related to each other.
In Remark 8, a necessary condition for two graphs F and G to be n-related for some
n 2 was deduced: If F n G for some integer n 2, then .F W G/ 2 and
.G W F / 2. Let us consider in detail what it means for two graphs F and G
to satisfy .F W G/ 2 and .G W F / 2. Only the following four options are
open:
.F W G/ D 1 and .G W F / D 1, which means that G6 G F and F · G.
Although this may surely hold for structurally quite different graphs, additional
conditions on F and G may ensure that F and G are related.
.F W G/ D 1 and .G W F / D 2. Then G6 G F and F G G, but F does not
occur in G as an induced subgraph to any great extent, since a partition of V .G/
in two color classes is sufficient to avoid monochromatic copies of F .
.F W G/ D 2 and .G W F / D 1. This is the same as the previous case, with
the roles of F and G interchanged: Now G G F and F 6 G G.
.F W G/ D 2 and .G W F / D 2. In this case, both G G F and F G G, which
means that F Š G.
Only from the last case does the converse of the implication in the above men-
tioned corollary follow easily – two isomorphic graphs are of course always related.
Corollary 6 provides a partial converse in the first of the above cases. If F 6 G G and
G6 G F , and, additionally, F and G both satisfy the girth-endvertex property, then
they are related.
The question whether the condition on the graphs F and G that .F W G/ 2
and .G W F / 2 is also a sufficient condition for relatedness to hold between
F and G, has a bearing on two other open questions:
Firstly, as a special case of the result quoted above, relatedness of a graph with
K2 implies that it is bipartite. No examples have been found to prove that the con-
verse does not hold, and it is conjectured that being bipartite is indeed equivalent to
relatedness with K2 .
Secondly, requiring that two graphs F and G be related is a seemingly much
more severe condition than requiring only n-relatedness to hold between them for
some n 2; however, no pair of alien graphs has as yet been found for which
n-relatedness holds for some n 2. Again, one is led to conjecture that these two
concepts may be equivalent.
The following interrelationships can be established between these three state-
ments. For ease of reference, we quote them as
13 A Chromatic Metric on Graphs 345
Proof. Let .F W G/ 2 and .G W F / 2. Then the graph F [ G establishes
2-relatedness between F and G. Since F is connected,
Proof. Let G be bipartite. Then .G/ D .G W K2 / 2. Also, .K2 W G/ D 1
for any bipartite graph G except K2 ; in that case, the value is 2. Thus Conjecture 2
implies that G K2 . t
u
Relatedness of the complete graphs will be basic to the main results of this chapter.
These graphs exhibit a clustering behavior, the graphs in each cluster being mutually
related and the size of the cluster depending on the order of the smallest graph
contained in it.
The following inequality, valid for all integers n 2,
.G W Kn /
.G W K2n1 /
2
shows that two complete graphs are alien if the difference in their orders is large
enough. From this result, nothing can be inferred about the relatedness or non-
relatedness of the graphs in between. If it were known that two complete graphs
are related, then Remark 9 could be used to show that all complete graphs with
orders lying between these two are also related to them and each other. It is now
shown, using a result of Broere and Frick (Corollary 5 of [6]) that all complete
graphs whose orders remain inside these limits are indeed chromatically related.
346 G. Benadé
if and only if n 2r 2.
This shows that the above inequality is the best possible. A useful reformula-
tion of this result is the following characterization of relatedness between complete
graphs.
Taking complements, the corresponding result for the null graphs is immediately
apparent.
Proof. For each integer l 2, define the graph Gl D Kp.n/ , the complete p-partite
graph with n vertices in each partition class, where we define
p D .m 1/.l 1/ C 1
n .l 1/a
a D maxfn1 ; n2 ; : : : ; nm g:
In this manner, l.m 1/ partition classes can be colored with l colors without in-
ducing a monocolored Km . Since l.m 1/ D lm l lm m l C 2 D
.m 1/.l 1/ C 1 D p (recall that m 2), this is a coloring of all the vertices of
Gl . Also, .Gl W Kn1 ;n2 ;:::;nm / l.
Suppose that a Kn1 ;n2 ;:::;nm -free coloring in l 1 colors is given for Gl . Denote
the p partition classes of Gl by W1 ; W2 ; : : : ; Wp , and the l 1 color classes in this
coloring by V1 ; V2 ; : : : ; Vl1 . Then the coloring induces a partition of each partition
class Wi in l 1 parts. Of these parts, at least one will contain at least a vertices,
since jWi j D n .l 1/a for every i . Thus, the first .m 1/.l 1/ partition
classes Wi each contains at least a vertices all having the same color. However, no
more than m 1 such sets of a vertices can occur in a given color class, else a
monochromatic copy of Ka;a;:::;a will be induced, and hence also a monochromatic
copy of Kn1 ;n2 ;:::;nm . (This follows from the definition of a.)
Now there are exactly .m 1/.l 1/ such sets of a vertices each and l 1 colors;
therefore each color class has to contain exactly m 1 of these sets. The partition
class Wp , however, also contains a monochromatic set of a vertices, occurring say
in the color class Vi . In this color class now a monochromatic copy of Ka;a;:::;a is
induced, which contradicts the assumption that the partition V1 ; V2 ; : : : ; Vl1 is a
Kn1 ;n2 ;:::;nm -free coloring of Gl .
This proves that .Gl W Kn1 ;n2 ;:::;nm / l. Since Km G Kn1 ;n2 ;:::;nm , we have
and equality holds throughout. Hence, Km l Kn1 ;n2 ;:::;nm holds for all integers
l 2 and this establishes relatedness between Km and Kn1 ;n2 ;:::;nm . t
u
By taking complements throughout, the results proved for complete graphs were
translated to the corresponding results about null graphs. The following rather sur-
prising theorem connects these two classes of graphs by establishing relatedness
between any complete graph and the null graph with the same order.
l
a Kn -free coloring of Gm;n in l colors exists. Color the copies of K.l1/.n1/ Kn -
freely in l 1 colors and the two null graphs in the l t h color. This proves that
l
.Gm;n W Kn / D l.
l . This is the graph G l , obtained by interchanging
Now consider the graph Gm;n n;m
l
the numbers m and n in the above definition of Gm;n . By the same arguments as
l
above, .Gn;m W Km / D l. By taking complements in this equation, one obtains
l l l
that .Gn;m W Nm / D .Gm;n W Nm / D l. Thus Gm;n is a graph for which the
Kn -free and the Nm -free chromatic numbers are both l, proving that Kn and Nm
are related.
To conclude the section, we prove the main result relating any connected non-
complete graph to some complete graph.
Theorem 9. G Kn for every connected noncomplete graph G and every integer
n > !.G/.
Proof. For any m 2, we know from Folkman’s theorem that there is a graph
Gm with .Gm W G/ D m and !.Gm / D !.G/. Let Hm D Gm [ Kr , where
r D .m 1/.n 1/ C 1. Since .Kr W G/ D 1 and G is connected, it follows
from Remark 3.4.2 of [1] that
Also,
Here, the second equality follows from n > !.G/ D !.Gm /, the third from
Remark 3.3.2 of [1], and the fourth from the choice of r. Thus we have m-chromatic
relatedness between G and Kn for all m 2, proving chromatic relatedness. t
u
Corollary 11. G Nn for every nontrivial graph G for which the complement G
is connected and for every integer n > ˇ.G/.
Proof. Let G be nontrivial and let G be connected, with n > ˇ.G/. Then G is
noncomplete and !.G/ D ˇ.G/ < n. The theorem then yields G Kn and thus
G Nn . t
u
In this theorem, relatedness of a graph with Kn is deduced whenever the clique
number of the graph is less than n. This condition is not necessary, however, since
there do exist (noncomplete) graphs that are related to complete graphs with order
both equal to and less than their clique numbers.
13 A Chromatic Metric on Graphs 349
Theorem 10. Let G be a graph with G Kn for some integer n 2. Then !.G/
2n 2.
Proof. Let .Hl W G/ D .Hl W Kn / D l for some graph Hl , for each inte-
ger l 2. Suppose that !.G/ > 2n 2. Then, as K!.G/ G G, it follows that
.Hl W G/ .Hl W K!.G/ /. Furthermore, since !.G/ > 2n 2 n, we also
deduce that Kn GK!.G/ . Thus .Hl W K!.G/ / .Hl W Kn /. From this it follows
for each l that .Hl W Kn / D .Hl W K!.G/ / for each l, and hence Kn K!.G/ .
Now, applying Theorem 6, the existence of an integer r 2 is inferred for which
r n; !.G/ 2r 2. This is a contradiction. Thus !.G/ 2n 2. t
u
The relations considered up till now are not transitive. In the following definition the
transitive closure of the chromatic relatedness–relation is taken to obtain a relation
which is transitive and therefore an equivalence relation on the class of graphs.
P D R0 R1 : : : Rk D Q:
It is not immediately evident that such a chain of relatednesses linking any two
classes exists. However, if attention is restricted to classes of the form F for some
350 G. Benadé
graph F , then it is proved that, for an arbitrary pair of classes, even a finite number
of classes can be found that constitutes a link in this manner. Although the following
general remarks may also be formulated for classes, henceforth the theory is devel-
oped for this special case only. Applying the above definition to classes of the form
F , the term distant relatedness is defined for graphs.
P Š R0 R1 : : : Rk Š Q:
If F and G are 0-related, they are isomorphic; if they are 1-related, they are
related; being 2-related and not 1-related implies that they are alien.
As remarked above, the main goal of this section is to prove that any two graphs
on at least two vertices are distantly related. Keeping in mind that the relation is
an equivalence relation, another way of formulating this is to say that such graphs all
lie in the same equivalence class of ; this means that there is only one equivalence
class, being the class G n fK1 ; ;g. (Recall that none of the definitions of relatedness
makes sense for the graphs K1 and ;.) To prove this assertion, distant relatedness
between any two complete graphs is first established. Then, using Theorem 9, dis-
tant relatedness is established between connected graphs and complete graphs. By
taking complements, the corresponding result holds for disconnected graphs and
null graphs. Finally, the link given by Theorem 8 between the complete graphs and
the null graphs completes the chain of relatednesses.
Remark 11. If two graphs F and G are k-distantly related for some integer k, then
they are l-distantly related for all integers l k, since the chain of relatednesses
between F and G may be lengthened to an arbitrary length by inserting isomorphic
copies of some graph in the chain.
We now start on the program outlined above by proving that distant relatedness
holds between any two complete graphs.
This does not include the case where one of the complete graphs is K2 , as K2 is in
a “cluster” of its own: Theorem 6 links it to no other complete graph by relatedness;
in fact, this theorem asserts that it is alien to all the larger complete graphs. However,
13 A Chromatic Metric on Graphs 351
Then p j C nj D p2 for all j > p2 , thus we obtain the value p2 for the P3 -free
chromatic number of Kn1 ;n2 ;:::;np for every even p 4. By choosing m D p2 for
all even p 4, we get
Considering Theorem 9 and its corollary together with the above results, thus far
any two connected graphs have been proved distantly related through the complete
graphs and any two disconnected graphs are distantly related using the null graphs.
The link between the complete graphs and the null graphs, establishing distant rela-
tionship between any two graphs, is given by Theorem 8. This proves the final result
of this section.
Theorem 12. Let F and G be any two graphs with order at least two. Then F
and G are distantly related.
By Theorem 12, a finite chain of relatednesses exists between any two graphs. It now
makes sense to try to determine the length of a shortest such chain, which could be
called a chromatic distance between the two graphs. This motivates the following
definition.
Definition 5. Let F and G be graphs of order at least two. The chromatic distance
between F and G, denoted by dc .F; G/, is the smallest number k for which F and
G are k-distantly related.
By Theorem 12, this is a well-defined function on the class of all pairs of graphs
of order two or more, taking integer values k for k 0. If, for two graphs F and G,
the chromatic distance between them is 0, they are isomorphic; if it is 1, F and G
are related; and for values of dc .F; G/ larger than 1 F and G are alien.
Since applying this distance function to any two graphs presupposes that they can
be used to define chromatic numbers, the convention agreed upon earlier still holds
and, in particular, any graph occurring as an argument of dc will be assumed to
have at least two vertices.
Remark 13. The chromatic distance is a metric on the class of all graphs of order at
least two.
Proof. Let F; G and H be graphs. Then dc .F; G/ D 0 if and only if F and G are
isomorphic; dc .F; G/ D dc .G; F / (the function dc is symmetric); and the triangle
inequality holds: dc .G; H / dc .G; F / C dc .F; H /. t
u
On the strength of this remark, the chromatic distance function is also called the
chromatic metric.
Remark 14. Let F and G be graphs, with dc .F; G/ D n for some integer n. Then
dc .F ; G/ D n.
13 A Chromatic Metric on Graphs 353
is related to Kn and also to K!.F /C1 , which is again related to F . In this case,
also, dc .Kn ; F / 2, since Kn F implies that !.F / 2n 2 (Theorem 10).
(4) By taking complements in the previous statement, the corresponding result for
nontrivial graphs with connected complements is obtained.
(5) If F and G are connected and noncomplete, then each is related to some com-
plete graph with order more than its clique number. Hence a complete graph on
any number of vertices more than the maximum of the clique numbers of F and
G is chromatically related to both graphs, and the distance between them is two
if they are not related. Taking complements yields the corresponding statement
for nontrivial graphs with connected complements.
(6) For the last case, consider a connected noncomplete graph F and a nontrivial
graph G of which the complement is connected. Then it is possible to find an
integer n such that F Kn and G Nn : simply choose n to be more than the
maximum of the two numbers !.F / and ˇ.G/. Since n 2, it follows from
Theorem 8 that Kn Nn , thus the chain F Kn Nn G of relatednesses
exists between F and G. This proves the upper bound of three for the distance
between F and G. t
u
Recall that, for all graphs F and G, at least one of the two numbers .F W G/
and .G W F / will be at most 2. It was conjectured that if both are at most 2,
then F and G are related; that is, dc .F; G/ D 1. It might thus seem possible that
a sufficiently large value for one of these two numbers might result in the distance
between F and G also increasing. This theorem now shows that the distance can
increase to at most 3, and indeed there are graphs for which the chromatic number
of one in terms of the other can be made arbitrarily large, whilst the chromatic
distance between them is 2:
For a suitable choice of positive integers m and n, the chromatic number
m
.Km W Kn / D d n1 e can be made arbitrarily large, whereas dc .Km ; Kn / 2.
Furthermore, although this metric certainly does assume the value 2, so far it is
not known whether there exist graphs F and G for which dc .F; G/ D 3. By this
theorem, such graphs, if they do exist, are in one of the following three categories:
F is connected and noncomplete and G D Kn for some integer n with !.F / >
2n 2.
F is connected and F is nontrivial and G D Nn for some integer n with ˇ.F / >
2n 2.
F and G are connected.
However, we suspect that such a pair of graphs does not exist and therefore sur-
mise that the following is true.
Conjecture 4. For all graphs F and G of order at least two, dc .F; G/ 2.
Translating this statement to relatednesses, we have that, for any pair of graphs F
and G, there exists a graph H such that F H G. This implies the following:
For any two graphs F and G there exists a graph H such that all four of the
chromatic numbers .F W H /, .H W F /, .H W G/; and .G W H / are at
most 2.
13 A Chromatic Metric on Graphs 355
The converse is not known to hold – that it does, would follow from Conjecture 2
– so this may be a weaker condition on a pair of graphs F and G than requiring
that dc .F; G/ 2. However, proving the conjecture via this weaker version and
Conjecture 2 might turn out to be a more tractable option. Furthermore, as in a
direct proof of the conjecture, here also only graphs from the above three categories
need to be considered. It now transpires that this weaker condition is indeed true for
all graphs F and G, thus making the conjecture a direct corollary to Conjecture 2.
Lemma 4. For any two graphs F and G there exists a graph H such that
.F W H / 2, .H W F / 2, .H W G/ 2, and .G W H / 2.
Proof. For all graphs F and G not in one of the three categories mentioned above,
it follows from Theorem 13 that dc .F; G/ 2 and hence that there exists a graph
H such that F H G. This implies that these four chromatic numbers are at
most two.
Now consider graphs from these three categories (where the third category is
dealt with in three cases):
Let F be a noncomplete and connected graph and let G D Kn for some
integer n 2 with 2n 2 < !.F /. Let H D Nk , where k D v.F /.
Then H 6 G F , F 6 G H , G6 G H , and H 6 G G and therefore all four of the chromatic
numbers .F W H /, .H W F /, .H W G/, and .G W H / are 1.
Let F be nontrivial and F connected, and let G D Nn for some integer n 2
with 2n 2 < ˇ.F /. Taking complements in the previous situation, it is seen
that H D Kk , for k D v.F /, is a graph with the desired properties.
Let F be noncomplete and let F and G be connected. Let H D Kk with k >
v.F /; v.G/. Then again, H 6 G F , F 6 G H , H 6 G G, and G6 G H .
Let F be complete, G nontrivial, and G connected. Suppose that F D Kn for
some integer n 2. If H D Nk , where k > v.F /; v.G/, the relevant chromatic
numbers are again all equal to 1.
Let F be complete and G trivial. This is item (5) of the previous theorem;
accordingly, dc .F; G/ D 1 and the requirement of the lemma is satisfied.
Thus, in all the cases there exists a graph satisfying the conditions of the lemma,
and the proof is complete. t
u
13.8 Conclusion
The preceding sections culminate in the definition of the chromatic metric, defined
on all graphs as the length of a shortest chain of relatednesses between two graphs.
It is a remarkable fact that the maximum distance between any two graphs is at
most 3. Our results are tied together by the following chain of conjectures. We sus-
pect that two graphs are related if and only if the chromatic number of each in terms
356 G. Benadé
of the other is at most two. This would imply two other conjectures: that the bipar-
tite graphs are characterized by relatedness to K2 , and that the maximum distance
between any two graphs, as measured with the metric defined above, is actually 2.
These conjectures still await resolution. It would furthermore be worthwhile to
investigate a refining of these concepts, leading to metrics that allow a wider range
of values. Deducing information about the structure of a graph depending on its
distance to known graphs, as exemplified above, would provide a useful tool in the
structural analysis of graphs.
References
1. Benadé JG (1990) Some aspects of generalised graph colourings. Ph.D thesis, Department of
Mathematics, Rand Afrikaans University
2. Benadé G, Broere I (1988) Generalized colourings: existence of uniquely colourable graphs.
Verslagreeks van die Departement Wiskunde, RAU, no. 6/88
3. Benadé G, Broere I (1990) A construction of uniquely C4 -free colourable graphs. Quaest Math
13:259–264
4. Benadé G, Broere I (1992) Chromatic relatedness of graphs. Ars Combinatoria 34:326–330
5. Bollobás B, Thomason AG (1977) Uniquely partitionable graphs. J Lond Math Soc 16:
403–410
6. Broere I, Frick M (1988) A characterization of the sequence of generalized chromatic numbers
of a graph. In: Proceedings of the 6th international conference on the theory and applications
of graphs, Kalamazoo
7. Broere I, Frick M (1990) On the order of uniquely colourable graphs. Discrete Math 82(3):
225–232
8. Brown JI (1987) A theory of generalized graph colouring. Ph.D. thesis, Department of Mathe-
matics, University of Toronto
9. Brown JI, Corneil DG (1987) On generalized graph colourings. J Graph Theory 11:87–99
10. Burger M (1984) The cochromatic number of a graph. Ph.D. thesis, Department of Mathemat-
ics, Rand Afrikaans University
11. Chartrand G, Geller DP (1968) On uniquely colorable planar graphs. J Combin Theory 6:
265–271
12. Chartrand G, Lesniak L (1986) Graphs and digraphs, 2nd edn. Wadsworth, Belmont
13. Folkman J (1970) Graphs with monochromatic complete subgraphs in every edge colouring.
SIAM J Appl Math 18:19–24
14. Frick M (1987) Generalised colourings of graphs. Ph.D thesis, Department of Mathematics,
Rand Afrikaans University
15. Greenwell D, Lovász L (1974) Applications of product colouring. Acta Math Acad Sci H
25:335–340
16. Harary F (1985) Conditional colorablility of graphs. In: Harary F, Maybee J (eds) Graphs and
applications. Proc 1st Col Symp Graph theory. Wiley, New York, pp 127–136
17. Lesniak-Foster L, Straight HJ (1977) The cochromatic number of a graph. Ars Combinatoria
3:39–45
18. Mynhardt CM, Broere I (1985) Generalized colorings of graphs. In: Alavi Y et al (eds) Graph
theory and its applications to algorithms and computer science. Wiley, New York, pp 583–594
Chapter 14
Some Applications of Eigenvalues of Graphs
Sebastian M. Cioabă
Abstract The main goal of spectral graph theory is to relate important structural
properties of a graph to its eigenvalues. In this chapter, we survey some old and new
applications of spectral methods in graph partitioning, ranking, epidemic spreading
in networks and clustering.
14.1 Introduction
This is an n-by-n matrix whose rows and columns are indexed after the vertices
of G. For each u; v 2 V .G/, A.u; v/ equals the number of edges between u and v.
The Laplacian matrix L D L.G/.
It is also known as the combinatorial Laplacian of G and it equals D A, where
D is the diagonal matrix containing the degrees of the vertices of G and A is the
adjacency matrix of G.
The normalized Laplacian matrix L D L.G/.
1 1 1 1
This equals D 2 LD 2 D In D 2 AD 2 .
Given a real and symmetric matrix M of order n, we denote its eigenvalues by
1 .M / 2 .M / n .M /.
If G is an undirected graph, then all the previous matrices are symmetric and
consequently, their eigenvalues are real numbers.
We use the following notation throughout this paper. The eigenvalues of the ad-
jacency matrix A.G/ are indexed in nonincreasing order:
The eigenvalues of the combinatorial Laplacian matrix L.G/ are listed in nonde-
creasing order:
1 .G/ 2 .G/ n .G/ (14.2)
1 1
L.G/ D L.G/ D In A.G/: (14.4)
d d
This implies that the eigenvalues of these matrices satisfy the following equation:
xt M x
j .M / D min max
u1 ;:::;uj 1 2Rn n
x2R ;x¤0 xt x
x?u1 ;:::;uj 1
xt M x
D max min :
v1 ;:::;vnj 2Rn n
x2R ;x¤0 xt x
x?v1 ;:::;vnj
The eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix were studied in 1957 in a paper [23] by
Collatz and Sinogowitz. In [23], the authors determined the eigenvalues of the fol-
lowing graphs:
The complete graph Kn : spectrum n 1 and 1 with multiplicity n 1.
The path Pn : spectrum
j
2 cos ; j 2 f1; : : : ; ng: (14.6)
nC1
2j
2 cos ; j 2 f1; : : : ; ng: (14.7)
n
Collatz and Sinogowitz also showed that the largest eigenvalue of the adjacency
matrix of a graph G with n vertices satisfies the following inequalities:
2 cos 1 .G/ n 1: (14.8)
nC1
Equality holds in the first inequality if and only if G D Pn and equality holds in the
second inequality if and only if G D Kn .
A walk of length r in G is a sequence of vertices u0 ; u1 ; : : : ; ur such that ui is
adjacent to ui C1 for each 0 i r 1. The previous walk is closed if u0 D ur .
The following lemma can be easily proved by induction.
Lemma 1. The .u; v/-th entry of Ar equals the number of walks of length r which
start at u and end at v.
360 S.M. Cioabă
Let Wr .G/ denote the number of closed walks of length r in G. An easy con-
sequence of the previous result is the following lemma which is the basis of many
important results involving eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix. This is often used
when studying the eigenvalues of random graphs.
Lemma 2. For any integer r 1,
X
n
Wr .G/ D trAr D ri : (14.9)
iD1
A simple connection between the structure of a graph and its eigenvalues is given
by the following result.
Lemma 3. A graph G is bipartite if and only if the spectrum of its adjacency matrix
is symmetric with respect to 0.
Proof. The proof follows using the previous result. t
u
For regular graphs, we have more information regarding the extreme eigenvalues.
This result implies that if is small compared to d , then the edge distribution
of G is close to the edge distribution of the random graph with the same edge den-
sity as G. The graphs with small are called expanders and are very important in
many areas of mathematics and computer science (see the excellent survey of Hoory
et al. [44] on expander graphs and their applications).
d maxi ¤0 jd i j p
jjE.S; T /j jS jjT jj jS j.n jS j/jT j.n jT j/: (14.12)
n n
362 S.M. Cioabă
The normalized Laplacian was introduced by Chung [18]. We list now some sim-
ple properties of the eigenvalues of the normalized Laplacian of a graph. These
properties are very similar to those of the Laplacian of G. The eigenvalues of the
normalized Laplacian seem to relate better to parameters related to random walks
on graphs (cf. [19]).
Lemma 6. Let G be a graph. Then
(i) The normalized Laplacian matrix of G is a positive semidefinite matrix.
(ii) The smallest eigenvalue 1 .G/ of the Laplacian of G equals 0 and its multi-
plicity equals the number of components of G.
(iii) The graph G is connected if and only if 2 .G/ > 0.
In [19], Chung proved a matrix-tree theorem for the normalized Laplacian.
Theorem 5. If G is a connected graph, the number of its spanning trees equals
Q
i 2V .G/ di Y
P i
i 2V .G/ di
i ¤1
where D maxi ¤0 j1 i j.
X 1X
k
e.Vi ; Vj / nl l .G/: (14.13)
2
1i <j k lD2
Proof. The proof uses the Hoffman–Wielandt inequality [43] which states that is
A and B are two real and symmetric matrices of the same order m, then
X
n
tr.ABt / i .A/i .B/ (14.14)
iD1
Taking A to be the Laplacian of G and B the direct sum of all one matrices of order
n1 ; n2 ; : : : ; nk yields the required result. t
u
Actually Donath and Hoffman proved some stronger results in [29]. They showed
that the previous result is true when one replaces the Laplacian by any matrix of the
form F A where F is a diagonal matrix whose entries sum up to twice the number
of edges of G.
If the sizes ni are not equal, then Donath and Hoffman prove the following
improvement of the previous theorem.
Theorem 8. Let G D .V; E/ be a graph and V D V1 [ V2 [ [ Vk be a partition
of G into k parts such that jVi j D ni and n1 n2 nk . Let y2 yk
be the roots of
!
X X X
ni x k1 2 ni nj x k2 C 3 ni nj nl x k3 D 0
i i <j i <j <l
Then
X X
k
e.Vi ; Vj / yi i .G/
1i <j k i D2
364 S.M. Cioabă
where the minimum is taken over all balanced k-partitions of G. The 2-section width
is also called the bisection width. The calculation of the bisection width of a graph
G is NP-hard [34], even when it is restricted to the class of d -regular graphs [16].
The result of Donath and Hoffman implies that for any graph G on n vertices,
Pk
n l .G/
swk .G/ lD2
(14.15)
2k
n2 .G/
sw2 .G/ (14.16)
4
Motivated by questions in parallel computation, Elsässer et al. [31] studied bal-
anced k-partitions of graphs. The authors gave a new proof of inequality (14.15)
and characterized the equality case. Note that Theorem 1 of [31] is a particular case
of Corollary 4.3.18 from [45].
Theorem 9. Let G be a connected graph on n vertices and let V1 ; : : : ; Vk be a
balanced k-partition of G of size swk .G/. Let x1 ; : : : ; xk be eigenvectors corre-
sponding to the first k smallest eigenvalues of L.G/. If
P
n klD2 l .G/
swk .G/ D
2k
then
(i) For any i 2 f1; : : : ; kg, if s; t 2 Vi , then xj .s/ D xj .t/ for any j 2 f1; : : : ; kg.
(ii) For any i ¤ j 2 f1; : : : ; kg and any two vertices s; t 2 Vi , the number of
neighbours of s in Vj equals the number of neighbours of t in Vj .
The authors of [31] also provide examples of simple graphs for which the bound
from Theorem 7 is far from optimal. We describe some of their examples below.
Given two graphs G and H , the Cartesian product GH has vertex set V .G/
V .H / and its edges are defined as follows:
.a1 ; b1 / .a2 ; b2 /
The r r torus graph is the Cartesian product Cr Cr of two cycles of length r.
This graph is a 4-regular graph and thus, the eigenvalues of its Laplacian are related
to the eigenvalues of its adjacency matrix as pointed out by
(14.5).
Using (14.5) and
p p
(14.7), a n n-torus has 2 D 3 D 4 D 2 2 cos 2
p
n
. Thus, the right side
3 2
In [8], the authors show that there are graphs for which the bounds from the
previous theorem are tight up to a constant factor. If G is a graph of maximum
degree d , then G 2 LS.g; sw2 .G//, where g.i / D .d 1/i . This is because
max.jV0i j; jV1i j/ sw2 .G/.d 1/i 1 . In this case, the previous theorem implies
that sw2 .G/ n4 2 d d2 .1 o.1// as sw2n.G/ ! 1.
p
Recall that a connected d -regular graph is called Ramanujan if ji j 2 d 1
for each i ¤ ˙ d . In [8], the authors use the previous theorem to improve the bi-
section width of Ramanujan graphs. The Donath–Hoffman bound implies a lower
bound of 0:0042n for the bisection width of a 3-regular Ramanujan graph and
of 0:133n for the bisection width of a 4-regular Ramanujan graph. They improve
the previous bound to 0:082n and 0:176n, respectively. In the opposite direction,
Monien and Preis [56] gave upper bounds on the bisection width of 16 C n for
3-regular graphs and of .0:4 C /n for 4-regular graphs, for any > 0, when n
is larger than some function of the chosen . For more recent results regarding the
bisection width of random regular graphs, see [28].
Using some eigenvalue interlacing results of Haemers [40], Bollobás and
Nikiforov [10] proved the following result which also implies inequality 14.15.
X
k1 X X
k
1 1
nl .G/ e.Vi ; Vj / C l .G/: (14.17)
jVi j jVj j
lD0 1i <j k lD2
Fiedler [32, 33] used the eigenvalues of the Laplacian in connection with the
connectivity of a graph. From the Courant–Fisher theorem we know that
P
ij 2E.G/ .xi xj /2
2 .G/ D min P (14.18)
n
x2R ;x¤0
x?1 i 2V .G/ xi2
In [32], Fiedler called 2 .G/ the algebraic connectivity of the graph G because
of its connections with the usual vertex- and edge-connectivity of G. Recall that
the vertex connectivity k.G/ of a connected graph G is the minimum number of
vertices whose deletion disconnects G. By convention k.Kn / D n 1. The edge
14 Some Applications of Eigenvalues of Graphs 367
Proof. The proof follows after showing that deleting any vertex from a connected
graph decreases the algebraic connectivity by at most 1. More precisely, if i is vertex
of a connected graph G on n vertices and H D G n fi g, then
2 .G/ 2 .H / C 1
362 .G/
k.G/ d
d
Here, .G/ D max ji .G/j where the maximum is taken over all eigenvalues
i .G/ ¤ ˙d .
The first inequality of the previous theorem was recently improved by the author
(see [22] for more details). In [51], Krivelevich and Sudakov show that the error
term in the second inequality is tight up to a constant factor.
A graph G of order n is called strongly regular with parameters .n; d; a; b/ if it
is d -regular, any two adjacent vertices have exactly a common neighbours, and any
368 S.M. Cioabă
two nonadjacent vertices have exactly b common neighbours. From the definition,
it follows that if A is the adjacency matrix of an .n; d; a; b/ strongly regular graph,
then
A2 D dI C aA C b.J I A/
where J is the all one matrix. This implies that the eigenvalues of an .n; d; a; b/
strongly regular graph are
p
ab˙ .a b/2 C 4.d b/
d;
2
Strongly regular graphs are well studied and have many connections to finite geom-
etry and algebra.
Brouwer and Mesner [15] showed that the vertex-connectivity of a strongly
regular graph equals its degree. Brouwer and Haemers [12] showed that the edge-
connectivity of a distance-regular graph equals its degree.
These results were recently improved by Brouwer and Koolen [14] who showed
that the vertex-connectivity of a distance-regular graph equals its degree d and that
the only disconnecting subsets of size d are the vertex neighborhoods.
In [32], Fiedler obtained other inequalities relating the connectivity of a graph to
the eigenvalue of the Laplacian.
Theorem 16 ([32]). Let G be a connected graph with n vertices and maximum
degree
.G/. Let ! D n . Then
and
2 .G/ 2k 0 .G/.cos ! cos 2!/ 2
.G/ cos !.1 cos !/
In another seminal paper [33], Fiedler studied the eigenvectors of the Laplacian
of a graph.
Theorem 17 ([33]). Let G be a connected graph, and let u2 be an eigenvector
corresponding to the eigenvalue 2 .G/. For any ˇ 2 R, let VC .ˇ/ D fi 2 V .G/ W
u2 .i / ˇg and V .ˇ/ D fj 2 V .G/ W u2 .j / ˇg. Then for any ˇ 0, the
subgraph induced by VC .ˇ/ is connected and the subgraph induced by V .ˇ/ is
connected as well.
The entries of an eigenvector u2 corresponding to 2 .G/ can be used to con-
struct graph-partitioning algorithms. The basic idea of spectral partitioning is to
find a splitting value ˇ and partition the graph into V .ˇ/ D fi W u2 .i / ˇg and
V .G/ n V .ˇ/ D fj W u2 .j / > ˇg. Choosing the value of ˇ depends on the specific
application. Some popular choices are the following.
Bisection width: ˇ is the median of u2 .1/; : : : ; u2 .n/.
Edge expansion: ˇ is the value that minimizes ˚.S /, where S D V .ˇ/.
Vertex expansion: ˇ is the value that minimizes .S /, where S D V .ˇ/.
14 Some Applications of Eigenvalues of Graphs 369
Since the mid-1980s, many researchers (see [1, 6, 54, 60] for example) have stud-
ied the connections between the expansion of a graph and its Laplacian eigenvalues.
The following result is due to Mohar [54].
Theorem 18 ([54]). If G is a connected graph, then
2 .G/ p
˚.G/ .2
.G/ 2 .G//2 .G/: (14.19)
2
In [18], Chung proved a similar result involving the eigenvalues of the normalized
P that if S is a subset of
Laplacian and the expansion properties of a graph. Recall
vertices of a graph G, vol.S/ is defined to be vol.S/ D i2S di . The Cheeger ratio
jE.S;S /j
of S is defined to be hS D min.volS;volS/ . This is very similar to the definition of
˚.S /. Also, note that hS D hS . The Cheeger constant of G is
hG D min hS : (14.20)
SV .G/
where the minimum is taken over all nonzero functions f W S ! R satisfying the
Dirichlet boundary condition.
Chung [21] proves the following local Cheeger inequality.
370 S.M. Cioabă
It follows that P
ij 2E.G/ jjvi vj jj2
2 .G/ D min P ; (14.22)
i 2V .G/ jjvi jj2
where
P the minimum is taken over all vectors v1 ; : : : ; vn 2 Rn such that
E
i 2V .G/ vi D 0.
Spielman and Teng now use the following kissing disk theorem of Koebe,
Andreev, and Thurston (see [58, 59] for more details).
Theorem 22 (Koebe–Andreev–Thurston). If G is a planar graph with vertex set
f1; : : : ; ng, then there exist a set of disks fD1 ; : : : ; Dn g in the plane such that .i; j /
is an edge of G if and only if Di touches Dj .
A cap is the intersection of a half-space with a sphere and its boundary is a circle.
Using a stereographic projection to map the kissing disk embedding of the graph G
to a kissing cap embedding of G, Spielman and Teng show that we can represent
the planar graph G by kissing caps on the unit sphere such that the centroid of the
centers of the caps is the center of the sphere.
Let vi be the center of the cap corresponding to vertex i . One can assume that
P
E
i 2V .G/ vi D 0. Denote by ri the radius of the cap corresponding to vertex i . If cap
i touches cap j , then jjvi vj jj < ri C rj by the triangle inequality. This implies
that
X X X
jjvi vj jj2 < .ri C rj /2 2.ri2 C rj2 /
ij 2E.G/ ij 2E.G/ ij 2E.G/
X
2
.G/ ri2 :
i 2V .G/
14 Some Applications of Eigenvalues of Graphs 371
Since the caps do not overlap, it follows that the area of the unit sphere is larger than
the sum of the areas of the caps which implies that
X
4 ri2 :
i 2V .G/
The following theorem of Mihail [53] (see [54] for related results and see [18–20]
for similar results for the normalized Laplacian) shows that one can use eigenvectors
corresponding to 2 (or approximations of such eigenvectors) to find subsets S with
small ˚.S /.
˚G D min ˚.S /:
SV .G/
vt L.G/v
˚G2 2
.G/ :
vt v
q
t
Also, there exists ˇ 2 R such that ˚.S / 2
.G/ v L.G/v
vt v
, where S D V .ˇ/.
Combining the previous two results, one can deduce that the edge-expansion con-
stant of a planar graph G on n vertices is at most 4.G/
p
n
. Also, there is a polynomial
time algorithm for finding a subset S such that ˚.S / 4.G/
p
n
. By a classical result
of Lipton and Tarjan [52], it follows that the previous result is tight up to a constant
factor.
The genus of a graph G is the smallest g such that G can be embedded in a
surface of genus g without any edge crossings. Planar graphs are graphs of genus 0.
Kelner [47] extended the previous results of Spielman and Teng to graphs of
genus g.
Theorem 24. Let G be a graph with n vertices, genus g, and bounded degree. Then
g
2 .G/ O (14.23)
n
These results are tight up to a constant factor as shown by the examples found by
Gilbert et al. [35]. The authors described a class of bounded degree graphs with no
p
bisection of size less than O. gn/.
Clustering is the partitioning of data into groups of similar items. A clustering
algorithm performs well if items that are similar are assigned to the same cluster
and items that are not similar are assigned in different clusters. This situation can
be modeled by a weighted graph in which the weight of an edge wij measures the
similarity between the vertices i and j .
Kannan et al. [46] suggested the following measure of the quality of a clustering
of a graph. Given a connected weighted graph G D .V; E/, a partition V D V1 [
[ Vk is called an .a; /-clustering if
˚GŒVi a (the subgraph induced by each cluster has weighted edge expansion
at least a).
P
1i <j k jE.Vi ; Vj /j jE.G/j (the weight of the intercluster edges is at
most a times the weight of the edges in G).
The following optimization problem is studied in [46]: given a, find an .a; /-
clustering that minimizes . In [46], the authors use a recursive algorithm based on
the spectral partitioning method described above to find an approximate algorithm
for the previous problem. They show that if G has an .a; /-clustering, then using
2 p
the spectral partitioning method, one can find an 72 loga2 .n=/ ; 20 log.n=/ -
clustering.
The idea of using eigenvectors for ranking goes back to Kendall [48] and
Wei [66]. Brin and Page [11] introduced the notion of PageRank in their seminal
paper on Web search. The Web pages are classified according to their importance
scores given by PageRank which are computed from the graph structure of the Web.
The PageRank importance of a Web page is determined by the PageRank impor-
tance of the Web pages linking to it.
The Web is regarded as a graph with nodes being Web pages and edges being
hyperlinks. The basic idea of PageRank is that links from important vertices should
weigh more than links from less important vertices.
Consider a connected graph G with adjacency matrix A and let D denote the
diagonal matrix containing the degrees of the vertices of G. Define W D D 1 A.
Thus, (
1
; if i j
W .i; j / D di
0; otherwise:
The matrix W can be regarded as the transition probability matrix of a random walk
of G. The stationary
on the vertices distribution of this random walk is the row
d1 dn
vector D vol.G/ ; : : : ; vol.G/ .
The PageRank vector pr.a; s/ of a graph G is the unique solution of the equation
It is well known that graphs can be used as abstract models of various networks
that appear in computer science, biology, and sociology among others. The problem
of virus propagation has been studied in these areas and various models have been
proposed.
The susceptible–infective–susceptible (SIS) model assumes that each node of a
network (graph) can be in one of two states: healthy but susceptible (S) to infection,
or infected (I). An infected node can spread infection along the network to suscepti-
ble nodes. An infected node can be cured locally and it becomes susceptible again.
A directed edge from node i to node j means that i can infect j . A rate of infection
ˇ is associated with each edge and a virus curing rate, ı, is associated with each
infected node.
The epidemic threshold of a graph G is the value such that if ˇı < , then the
viral outbreak dies out over time and if ˇı < , then the infection survives.
Recently, Wang et al. [65] found connections between the eigenvalues of a graph
and the epidemic threshold in the SIS model.
Consider a connected network (graph) G D .V; E/. The model considered in
[65] assumes discrete time. During each time interval, an infected node i tries to
infect its neighbours with probability ˇ. At the same time, the node i can be cured
with probability ı.
Recall that 1 .G/ denotes the largest eigenvalue of the adjacency matrix of G.
The main result of [65] is the following theorem whose proof we sketch below.
374 S.M. Cioabă
1
Theorem 26. The epidemic threshold of a graph G equals 1 .G/ .
Proof. Let pi;t denote the probability that i is infected at time t and qi;t denote the
probability that i will not be infected by its neighbours at time t.
A node i is healthy at time t if
i was healthy at time t 1 and did not receive infections from its neighbours at t.
i was infected before t, cured at t, and did not receive infections from its neigh-
bours at t.
i was infected before t, received and ignored infections from its neighbours at
time t, and was cured at time t.
Assume that the probability that a curing event at node i takes place after infection
from neighbours is 50%. This means that
1
1 pi;t D .1 pi;t 1 /qi;t C ıpi;t 1qi;t C ıpi;t 1.1 qi;t /:
2
Let Pt denote the column vector .p1;t ; : : : ; pn;t /. From the previous equation, one
can obtain that
Pt D ..1 ı/In C ˇA.G// Pt 1 : (14.24)
For the infection to die off, the vector Pt should tend to zero as t gets large. This
will happen when for each i , the i -th eigenvalue of ..1 ı/In C ˇA.G//t tends to
0 as t gets large. It follows that 1 ı C ˇ1 .G/ < 1 which means that D 11.G/ .u
t
Using the previous argument, it is shown in [65] that when ˇı is below the epidemic
threshold, the number of infected nodes decays exponentially over time.
The result from [65] motivated further research. In [64], the authors studied the
problem of minimizing the spectral radius of a connected graph of order n and
diameter D. In [64], the authors solved this problem when D 2 f1; 2; n 3;
n 2; n 1g, but many questions remain open (see [63, 64] for more details).
Another model for epidemic spreading in networks is the susceptible-infective-
removed (SIR) model. Consider again a graph G with n vertices. Each vertex can be
in one of three possible states, susceptible (S), infective (I), or removed (R). Again,
we assume discrete time. We assume that the initial set of infective vertices at time
0 is nonempty, and the rest of the vertices are susceptible at time 0.
Let Xi .t/ denote the indicator that the vertex i is infected at time t and Yi .t/ the
indicator that i is removed at time t. Each vertex that is infected tries to infect each of
its neighbours; each infection attempt is successful with probability ˇ independent
of other infection attempts. Each infected node is removed at the end of the time slot.
It follows
Q that the probability that a vertex i becomes infected at the end of time t is
1 j i .1ˇXi .t//. The evolution stops when there are no more infective vertices
in the graph. One would like to know how many vertices are removed at this time.
This model was studied by Draief et al. [30] who proved the following theorem.
14 Some Applications of Eigenvalues of Graphs 375
Theorem 27. Assume that ˇ1 .G/ < 1. Then, the total number of vertices re-
moved jY .1/j satisfies the inequality
p
njX.0/j
EŒjY .1/j ; (14.25)
1 ˇ1 .G/
.G/ 1 C 1 .G/:
1
.G/ 1 C :
n
nn
˛.G/ :
d n
Godsil and Newman [37] have obtained similar results for graphs containing loops
and used these results to find bounds for the independence number of the Erdös–
Rényi graphs.
We note here the results of Alon et al. [5] which provide inequalities in the
opposite direction.
Theorem 30. Let G be a connected d -regular graph and let D max.j2 j; jn j/.
Then for any subset S of vertices of G, the subgraph GŒS induced by S contains
an independent set of size
n jS j.d /
˛.GŒS / ln C1 :
2.d / n. C 1/
376 S.M. Cioabă
6.d /
.G/ :
ln dC1 C1
p
For d -regular graphs with D O. d /, the previous result implies
.G/ D
O.d= ln d /. As described in [5, 51], there are many graphs with this property.
As mentioned earlier, the MAX-CUT problem is an example of a graph par-
titioning problem. Alon [2] used the following result to find tight bounds for the
maximum cut of several families of graphs such as triangle-free graphs. Given a
graph G, let f .G/ denote the maximum number of edges in a bipartite subgraph of
G.
Theorem 31. If G is a d -regular graph of order n, then
n.d n /
f .G/ :
4
Alon [2] showed that if G is a triangle-free graph with e edges, then it contains
4
a bipartite subgraph with at least 2e C ce 5 edges and this result is tight up to the
constant c. This result was extended by Alon et al. in [3] who showed that graphs
r
with girth at least r 4 contain a bipartite subgraph with at least 2e C c 0 e rC1 edges
and this result is tight up to a constant factor for r D 4; 5.
Butler and Chung [17] extended previous results of Krivelevich and Sudakov [51]
and found an eigenvalue condition that implies the existence of a Hamiltonian cycle
in a graph.
Theorem 32. Let G be a connected graph with average degree d . If there exists a
positive constant C such that
14.8 Conclusions
As our knowledge and technology advance, the complexity of the social, com-
munication, and biological networks surrounding us is increasing rapidly. Many
important combinatorial parameters of large networks are often hard to calculate or
14 Some Applications of Eigenvalues of Graphs 377
approximate. Eigenvalues provide an effective and efficient tool for studying prop-
erties of large graphs which arise in practice. In this chapter, we presented some
applications of eigenvalues of graphs. Spectral graph theory is a very dynamic area
that will continue to grow. We believe that more applications and tighter connections
between graph eigenvalues and other graph invariants will be found in the future.
Acknowledgments This work is supported by a start-up grant from the Department of Mathe-
matical Sciences at the University of Delaware. The author is grateful to the referees for their
comments.
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Chapter 15
Minimum Spanning Markovian Trees:
Introducing Context-Sensitivity
into the Generation of Spanning Trees
Alexander Mehler
15.1 Introduction
A. Mehler ()
Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, Senckenberganlage 31,
60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]
in this chapter, their bipartite extension relates to the notion of a hidden minimum
spanning Markovian tree – we leave the latter extension to future work and therefore
concentrate on MSMTs.
In this chapter we generalize the class of dependency trees and of cohesion trees
by means of minimum spanning Markovian trees. In this way, we no longer demand
that the underlying graph be a completely connected weighted graph (as has been
done by Mehler [14, 15]). We loosen this precondition and demand instead that the
underlying graph be connected. Further, we show that Markovian trees of the sort in-
troduced here are based on three types of parameters: (1) the operative notion of path
sensitivity, (2) their measure of vertex relatedness, and (3) the choice of their root.
The basic idea of MSMTs runs as follows. If in the course of spanning an MSMT
T D .V; E; r/ we have to decide where to insert a newly encountered vertex v, then
we select that vertex w as the end of the unique path P starting with the root r that
minimizes the costs of edge traversals among all candidate paths to which w might
be attached according to the topology of the graph to be spanned. Starting with its
end vertex v, suffixes of such paths P are evaluated whose length corresponds to
the Markov order of the MSMT to be generated. Thus, if the order of an MSMT is
larger than one it is always more sensitive to paths than any corresponding MST or
DT. This approach departs from dependency trees [22] and similarity trees [12] in
two respects:
1. We start with more general connected graphs.
2. We view paths as context-building units by recursively accounting for the prede-
cessor’s vertices in a Markovian manner to be specified in this chapter.
Although our basic motivation behind introducing MSMTs as a novel class of
graphs is to find alternative kernels of generalized trees, we disregard the impact
of our findings on the typing of the edges of such trees – for a first account of such
a semantics that analyzes the impact of MSTs and SPTs on the edge types of gen-
eralized trees see Mehler [18]. In contrast to this, we concentrate on the class of
MSMTs itself and leave a proof–theoretical analysis of its impact on generalized
trees to future work.
The chapter is organized as follows. Section 15.2.1 generalizes the notion of a
dependency tree in terms of so-called minimum spanning Markovian trees. Fur-
ther, Sect. 15.2.2 generalizes the notion of a cohesion tree by means of damping
Markovian transitions in MSMTs along the paths starting with the corresponding
root. Finally, Sect. 15.3 concludes, ending with a discussion of the prospects for
future work.
In order to pave the way for our graph model we start with graph-theoretical prelim-
inaries used throughout this chapter.1
1
See Mehler [18].
384 A. Mehler
a D V [ E
on the set of vertices and edges. Without loss of generality we assume that W E !
RC n f0g is an edge weighting function that represents costs of traversing edges
in E. Think of , e.g., as a function of the loss of coherence induced by following
hyperlinks. Now let P.G/ be the set of all simple paths in G and
ŒPvi0 vim p D .vi0 ; ej1 ; vi1 ; : : : ; vimp1 ; ejmp ; vimp / 2 P.G/;
xjrC1 2 VE.P 0 /. Further, by PG .v; w/ we denote the set of all simple paths in G
ending at v and w. Finally, for vimi D vj1 we define the concatenation
of P and P 0 .
We need to define order relations on the sets of vertices, edges, and paths in
order to account for the redundancy that is omnipresent in semiotic systems. In
graph-theoretical terms, this redundancy is manifested by multiple edges so that the
shortest path between two vertices, for example, is not necessarily unique in a graph
corresponding to a semiotic system. Think of a graph with exactly two vertices
and n 1 multiple edges ending at these vertices each of the same weight. In
this case we have n different MSTs so that we have to decide which one to use if
uniqueness is required. This is exactly the task of the order relations specified by
Definition 1. Next, we introduce further preliminaries that repeat some other well-
known concepts of graph theory:
W P.G/ ! .0; 1/
such that for each P D .vi0 ; ej1 ; vi1 ; : : : ; vim1 ; ejm ; vim / 2 P.G/ we set
m
X
.P / D .ejk /
kD1
Remark 1. In order to prevent negative cycles [24, p. 85] we henceforth assume that
is a function from E to RC n f0g. Further, throughout this chapter we only deal
386 A. Mehler
with finite graphs. Finally, in order to keep the formalization simple we concentrate
on undirected graphs and therefore disregard their directed orientations.
Remark 2. Throughout this chapter we always assume the existence of the order
relation 6a as introduced by Definition 1 without explicitly noting this in the sub-
sequent definitions of graphs. The reason for this omission is to keep the formalism
simple.
We start with developing our formal apparatus for the class of connected labeled
weighted undirected graphs.
Definition 3 (Spanning Pattern). Let G D .V; E; LV ; LE ; / be an undirected
graph according to Definition 1. Let further x 2 V be a distinguished vertex of G
and
˝x D fx g [ fPxy j y 2 V n fxgg
be a set – called a spanning pattern on G – such that for each y 2 V nfxg: Pxy is a
well-ordering on the set of neighbors NG .y/ of y in G that is conditioned (according
to Line 14 of Algorithm 15.1) by the subset Pxy P.G/ of paths ending at x and
y, respectively. Further, x is a well-ordering on V with infimum
x D inf V
x
v x w ,
O
.x; O
v/ < .x; w/ _ ..x;
O v/ D .x;
O w/ ^ LV .v/ < LV .w// _ v D w
More important is the following corollary. It includes a statement about the path
context of a vertex to be inserted at some iteration of the for loop (see Line 11) of
Algorithm 15.1. Obviously, this corollary follows from the fact that all graphs Gi C1
generated by this algorithm are trees.
effects of this sort are not mapped by x but by Pxw . To which degree this
context effect takes place is specified by the Markovian order of the MSMT to
be introduced as a special sort of spanning pattern-based subgraph.
In a nutshell: the spanning pattern ˝x models a sort of context-sensitivity as
exemplified by priming relations and addresses certain aspects of structure forma-
tion based thereon.
A class of spanning trees that can be derived by instantiating the spanning pat-
tern of Definition 3 is given by Minimum Spanning Markovian Trees (MSMT).
The idea behind this notion is to generalize the concept of (minimum spanning)
Dependency Trees (DT) [14]. This concept has been defined in order to include
context-sensitivity into the generation of spanning trees that goes beyond minimiz-
ing the weights of edges selected to generate Minimum Spanning Trees (MST) [24].
MSMTs are context-sensitive as they condition this selection to the paths generated
by the greedy Algorithm 15.1. MSMTs are formally introduced by the Definitions
5–7.
Pxy D Pvi0 vit C1 D .vi0 ; ej1 ; vi1 ; : : : ; vit ; ejt C1 ; vit C1 / 2 P.G/;
vi0 D x, vit C1 D y, ejk D fvik1 ; vik g 2 E, k 2 f1; : : : ; t C 1g, the degree of end
vertex connectivity cm .Pxy / of y to Pxy of order m is defined as:
t C1
X
cm .Pxy / D .ejk /
kDmax.1;.t C1/mC1/
390 A. Mehler
in order to denote this unique path. Now, let m 2 Nnf0g. Then, for each y 2 V nfxg
and each v; w 2 NG .y/ we define the relation
Œm
Pxy .NG .y//
2
15 Minimum Spanning Markovian Trees 391
such that
8
ˆ
ˆ v; w 2 NG0 .y/ ^
ˆ
ˆ
ˆ
ˆ C.Xt C1 D y j Xt D vivt ; : : : ; Xt mC1 D vivt mC1 / <
ˆ
ˆ
ˆ
ˆ C.Xt C1 D y j Xt D viwt ; : : : ; Xt mC1 D viwt mC1 /
ˆ
ˆ
ˆ
ˆ _ v; w 2 NG0 .y/ ^
ˆ
ˆ
<
C.Xt C1 D y j Xt D vivt ; : : : ; Xt mC1 D vivt mC1 / D
v Œm
Pxy w,
ˆ
ˆ C.Xt C1 D y j Xt D viwt ; : : : ; Xt mC1 D viwt mC1 / ^
ˆ
ˆ
ˆ
ˆ LV .v/ <V LV .w/
ˆ
ˆ
ˆ
ˆ
ˆ
ˆ _ v 2 NG0 .y/ ^ w 62 NG0 .y/
ˆ
ˆ
ˆ _ v; w 62 NG0 .y/ ^ LV .v/ <V LV .w/
:̂
_vDw
Œm
Pxy is called Markovian neighborhood ordering of order m of NG .y/ constrained
by Pxy .
Proof. We notice that for any v; w 2 NG .y/ the conditions enumerated by the
disjunction in Definition 6 are exhaustive and mutually exclusive so that Œm
Pxy is a
Œm
total relation on NG .y/. Further, we easily verify that Pxy is reflexive – if v D w,
antisymmetric – if, e.g., v; w 2 NG0 .y/, then always either C.Xt C1 D y j Xt D
vivt ; : : : ; Xt mC1 D vivt mC1 / < C.Xt C1 D y j Xt D viwt ; : : : ; Xt mC1 D
viwt mC1 / or LV .v/ <V LV .w/ – and transitive (since D, <, and <V are
transitive). t
u
Note that the set Pxy in Definition 6 is defined by analogy to its counterpart with
the same name in Definition 3. This correspondence is the starting point of bridging
the notion of a Markovian neighborhood in a graph with that of a spanning tree.
G ˝xŒm D span G; x; ˝xŒm
Remark 8. Note that the expression G.˝xŒm / D span.G; x; ˝xŒm / means that
G.˝xŒm / is generated by Algorithm 15.1 where the input parameter ˝x is instanti-
ated by ˝xŒm , that is, ˝x ˝xŒm .
392 A. Mehler
Now, we prepare a theorem that shows in which sense the attribute minimum is
appropriately added to the name of an MSMT.
where Pxv .T / is the unique simple path in T ending at root x and vertex v.
Firstly, the vertex x from whose perspective the tree is trailed and which deter-
mines the order of vertices being processed according to their geodesic distance
O x/ to x,
.v;
Œm
Secondly, the degree m of Markovian connectivity that affects cx .T / by speci-
fying the length of the suffix of Pxv that is taken into consideration.
In this way, Definition 8 reflects both perspectives: (1) the one induced by the root
of the MSMT to be spanned and (2) the one induced by the path to which vertices
are attached when instantiating the input parameter ˝x of Algorithm 15.1 by ˝xŒm .
Obviously, this concept of costs departs from its classical counterpart in terms of
minimum spanning trees as it introduces the sort of context sensitivity induced by
both perspectives.
The way in which MSMTs actually minimize costs is now specified by proving
the following theorem.
T D .V; E 00 ; L00V ; L00E ; x; 00 / be a spanning tree of G rooted in the same vertex x
and assume that
cxŒm .T / < cxŒm G ˝xŒm
such that x D vi1 x x vijV j (as we deal with sums we can always arrange
vertices in this order). Suppose now that j , 1 < j jV j, is the smallest index such
that
cm .Pxvij .T // < cm Pxvij G ˝xŒm
Then, according to the precondition of Theorem 4 we state, firstly, that for each
u 2 Vin .Pxvij .T // W u x vij . Secondly, we observe that there have to be two
vertices v 6D w such that v x vij , w x vij , fv; vij g 2 E 00 , fw; vij g 2 E 0 ,
fv; vij g 2 E; and fw; vij g 2 E. That is, we are in a situation that looks as follows
where dashed lines denote paths:2
k v
‹
x_ _ _u vi j
*
? ‹
S
w
Remark 10. Note that we did not define the trailing cost cxŒm .T / of a spanning tree
T D .V; E 0 ; L0V ; L0E ; x; 0 / of G D .V; E; LV ; LE ; / as
X
cxŒm .T / D 0 .x; v/ C cm .Pxv .T //
v2V
2 Œm
Note that Pxvij .T / and Pxvij .G.˝x // may have a common subpath ending at x and u.
394 A. Mehler
_ W P
n g H
v @
~
:
j v 5
e ‹ 2
1
x _ _ _u
‹
vij vij Cp
*
? f ‹
T
w
Fig. 15.1 A scenario in which vertex vij has three candidates to which it might be attached: vertex
v, w, and vij Cp
That is we assume that minimum spanning Markovian trees do not minimize this
sum. Why? Look at Fig. 15.1 which extends the diagram of the preceding proof.
Suppose that although
Œm
w <Pxv v
ij
a situation that might easily occur. In this case we can generate a spanning tree by
selecting the edge e D fv; vij g while skipping the edge f D fw; vij g under the
condition that
where Px::wvij D GP .x; w/ ı .w; f; vij / and Px::vvij D GP .x; v/ ı .v; e; vij /.
For m 1 such a situation may easily occur. In this case, the corresponding MSMT
Pselect the edge e and skip the edge f – in contrast to what is expected if the
would
sum v O 0 .x; v/ has to be minimized too. That is, MSMTs are Markovian in a real
sense as they look back to a degree specified by their order P
without simultaneously
optimizing a look ahead as implied by minimizing the sum v2V O 0 .x; v/.
vij Cp <Œm
Pxv v ^ vij Cp <Œm
Pxv w
ij ij
15 Minimum Spanning Markovian Trees 395
Although attaching vij to vij Cp may induce lower trailing costs, we face the risk of
generating a disconnected graph when selecting fvij ; vij Cp g instead of fw; vij g – in
contrast to the aim of finding a spanning tree.
These remarks may help to explain what exactly MSMTs minimize. The answer
is: the degree of Markovian connectivity of paths subject to the processing order of
the vertices as a function of their geodesic distance to the root of the MSMT. As
mentioned above this notion is reminiscent of the construction–integration theory
of discourse comprehension [10].
jV j.jV j1/
Corollary 5. Let G D .V; E; LV ; LE ; /, jEj D 2 , be a completely con-
nected weighted graph. Let further
n o
˝xŒ1 D fx g [ Œ1
Pxy j y 2 V n fxg
This corollary simply follows from the fact that dependency trees as formalized
by Mehler [14] are just MSMTs of minimal order 1 based on completely connected
graphs. Thus, MSMTs are generalizations of the class of simpler dependency trees
and similarity trees in these two respects. MSMTs are more general than dependency
trees as they cover Markovian neighborhoods of vertices beyond their immediate
neighborhood. This introduces a sort of Markovian memory of edge traversals or
a corresponding sort of transitivity whose scope is determined by the order of the
MSMT. To put it more strikingly: Where you are going (in the sense of which vertex
is used to continue a given path) depends on where you are from (in the sense of
which vertices precede that vertex in the path). Markovian spanning trees model
exactly this kind of dependency of a vertex on its antecedent path where the higher
the Markovian order of the MSMT, the longer the antecedent path on which this
vertex is dependent. Finally, we present an estimation of the time complexity of
generating instances of this class of spanning trees.
Proof. We refer to Algorithm 15.1 and suppose that we deal with sparse graphs as
given by complex semiotic networks [17]. Thus, we assume that jEj
jV j2 . Then,
we have to firstly compute the order relation x . This can be done by a breadth-first
search that is on the order of O.jV j C jEj/. Having specified the order of vertices to
be processed we have to repeat the for loop (see Line 11) jV j 2 times. In this case
we assume that every vertex in y 2 V is assigned a vector v with m dimensions
396 A. Mehler
This complexity can be reduced by arranging the values vŒm 1 in a way that
enables efficient searches in the order of a complexity smaller than jV2 j . Another
way of seeing how this complexity is reduced is by assuming that we deal with
sparse graphs in which the average number of neighbors of vertices grows with jV j
in a logarithmic manner. In this case the complexity of computing an MSMT of
order m is reduced to
Mehler [14] has introduced an extension of dependency trees that maps weakly
transitive distance effects in spanning trees of the sort of Markovian trees. Here,
the attribute weakly transitive denotes the effect of a damped impact of preceding
vertices as a function of their geodesic distance to the end vertex of the path to
be processed. Trees spanned by means of this principle have been called Cohesion
Trees (CT) in order to recall the linguistic notion of cohesive ties [8, 13] that in the
present case are manifested by interlinked vertices of a graph. The idea was to relax
3
Note that we use a C++-like notation in order to denote accesses to vectors.
15 Minimum Spanning Markovian Trees 397
Pxy D Pvi0 vit C1 D .vi0 ; ej1 ; vi1 ; : : : ; vit ; ejt C1 ; vit C1 / 2 P.G/;
vi0 D x, vit C1 D y, ejk D fvik1 ; vik g 2 E, k 2 f1; : : : ; t C 1g, the damped degree
of end vertex connectivity cOm .Pxy / of y to Pxy of order m is defined as:
t C1
X
cOm .Pxy ; y/ D d.t C 1 k C 1/ .ejk /
kDmax.1;.t C1/mC1/
We call d a damping function. Based on this notion we define the damped degree of
Markovian connectivity of order m of y as an end vertex of Pxy D Pvi0 vit C1 as:
CO Xt C1 D vit C1 j Xt D vit ; Xt 1 D vit 1 ; : : : ; X0 D vi0
D CO Xt C1 D vit C1 j Xt D vit ; : : : ; Xt mC1 D vit mC1
D CO Xt C1 D y j Xt D vit ; : : : ; Xt mC1 D vit mC1
cOm .Pxy /
Figure 15.2 exemplifies candidate functions of d . They range from constant func-
tions (Case A) to functions decaying in a logarithmic manner (Case F). Note that
Fig. 15.2 does not show real cases, but simplifies the presentation in order to hint at
prototypical cases:
Fig. 15.2 Six prototypical instances of the damping function d (see Definition 9)
3. Case C varies the latter case by considering damping ratios smaller than 1.
Obviously, it damps vertices in the manner of a step function.
4. Case D shows a function that demonstrates, so to speak, an exponential growth
of the degree by which more distant units are damped. In other words: Case D
valuates the importance of more distant units in a way that decays exponentially.
Thus, the connectivity of a distant vertex (i.e., if k 1; k 2 f1; : : : ; mg) to its
predecessor and successor nodes in a path has a much smaller effect than the
one of a closer vertex (i.e., if k
m) even in the case of identical connectivity
values. In this case, larger distances to closer vertices count more than those to
more distant vertices. Functions of this sort model an effect of a declining impact
as a function of the distance of vertices in a path.
5. Case E demonstrates a reversed S -shaped function for which less distant vertices
are damped to a much lower degree than more distant ones. That is, in this case
we observe a transition from a concave to a convex part of the damping function.
6. Finally, Case F demonstrates a concave function that slowly decays the damping
effect for growing distances.
Which function d should be preferred depends on the application area. In the
present case we might argue that impact decays by analogy to similarity by an ex-
ponential function of distance (see [6]) so that Case D would be preferred. In the
area of Web mining this is confirmed by the so-called link-content conjecture of
Menczer [19] who states that the content of a page is similar to the one of the pages
that link to it. Menczer [19] presents data in support of this conjecture that point at an
exponential decay of this similarity induced by following hyperlinks between pages.
So when modeling trails in the Web by means of MSMTs one should prefer this sort
of exponential damping in order to account for the decay of similarity of mediately
linked documents. From this semiotic perspective the values d.k/; k 2 f1; : : : ; mg,
may also be viewed as degrees of salience (see Table 15.1) that decays as a func-
tion of the distance to the topical vertex. However, other applications may decide
differently. In any case, Definition 9 is general enough to map a wide range of in-
stantiations of the damping function d .
15 Minimum Spanning Markovian Trees 399
Table 15.1 Three classes of spanning trees in relation to MSTs from the
point of view of context-sensitivity
Level Graph model Support of context
0 MST ;
1 MSMT-1 Root, predecessor
2 MSMT-m, m > 1 Root, path of length m
3 DMSMT Root, path of length m, degree of salience
Œm;d
Pxy .NG .y//
2
such that
8
ˆ
ˆ v; w 2 NG0 .y/ ^ cOm .Px::vy / < cOm .Px::wy /
ˆ
ˆ
ˆ
< _ v; w 2 NG0 .y/ ^ cOm .Px::vy / D cOm .Px::wy /^LV .v/ <V LV .w/
v Œm;d
Pxy w , _ v 2 NG0 .y/ ^ w 62 NG0 .y/
ˆ
ˆ
ˆ 0
ˆ _ v; w 62 NG .y/ ^ LV .v/ <V LV .w/
:̂ _ v D w
where Px::vy D GP .x; v/ ı .v; fv; yg; y/ and Px::wy D GP .x; w/ ı .w; fw; yg; y/.
Œm;d
Pxy is called the damped Markovian neighborhood ordering of order m of NG .y/
constrained by Pxy .
Proof. We can prove the latter corollary simply by analogy to Theorem 3. We no-
tice that for any v; w 2 NG .y/ the conditions enumerated by the disjunction in
Definition 10 are exhaustive and mutually exclusive so that Œm;d
Pxy is a total rela-
Œm;d
tion on NG .y/. Further, we verify that Pxy is reflexive, antisymmetric (if, e.g.,
v; w 2 NG0 .y/, then always either cOm .Px::vy / < cOm .Px::wy / or LV .v/ <V LV .w/)
and transitive (since D, <, and <V are transitive). t
u
The final step is to define damped minimum spanning Markovian trees by utiliz-
ing Œm;d
Pxy as the constitutive neighborhood-related well-ordering.
400 A. Mehler
15.3 Conclusion
References
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directed graphs. Tatra Mt Math Publ 36:39–59
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Aspects of automatic text analysis, vol 209. Studies in fuzziness and soft computing. Springer,
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Mathematics, Philadelphia
Chapter 16
Link-Based Network Mining
Abstract Network mining is a growing area of research within the data mining
community that uses metrics and algorithms from graph theory. In this chapter we
present an overview of the different techniques in network mining and suggest future
research possibilities in the direction of graph theory.
16.1 Introduction
Since the early 1990s when it began to coalesce as a discipline, data mining has
grown in scope and depth. Although its foundations are in computer science, statis-
tics and machine learning, data mining has forged its way into such diverse areas as
medicine, biology, chemistry, sociology, and other humanities as well as business
and engineering. In this chapter we discuss how concepts in graph theory have been
absorbed into data mining, allowing it to expand into important new directions.
Data mining is the search for hidden knowledge within large data sets. The data
consist of a collection of objects. In a small data set, it is often possible to extract
meaningful patterns and models by applying traditional statistics and data analysis
methods. However, with large data sets, it is necessary to employ more scalable
and sophisticated techniques from data mining to deal with the high volume, high
dimensionality, noisy, and potentially distributed nature of the data. Some of the
techniques, such as classification, are predictive, while other techniques, such as
J. Scripps ()
School of Computing and Information Systems, 1 Campus Drive, Grand Valley State University,
Allendale, MI 49401, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
clustering and association analysis, are descriptive. These techniques rely heavily on
the attributes of objects. It is the attributes that distinguish one object from another
and provide a basis for making predictions or forming descriptions.
The objects introduced above are considered to be independent of each other.
For classification, the class of one object does not depend on the data from any
other object. This independence assumption allows data mining techniques to make
use of statistical models that depend upon the samples being independent and iden-
tically distributed. In most domains though, the objects are related. Taking into
account the relationships between the objects has led to the emergence of an area
called link-based network mining or link mining [26]. Link mining techniques have
found applications in diverse types of network data, including social networks,
protein interaction networks, food web, telecommunication, and transportation
networks.
Link mining research has focused on various issues, such as understanding how
networks are formed, how their structural properties can be characterized, what are
the underlying hidden patterns, and how to make sound inferences based on models
derived from the data. Recent advances in this area have led to the development
of novel techniques for link prediction, node classification, node ranking, influence
maximization, etc. A key challenge for these techniques is to make use of both the
node attributes and links in a way that will produce better results than using either
the attributes or link information alone.
The remainder of this chapter is organized as follows. In Sect. 16.2, we discuss
the problem of characterizing the properties of a network. Section 16.3 reviews
the link mining techniques that have been proposed in the literature. Finally, in
Sect. 16.4, we present some of the open problems and ongoing research in this area.
16.2.1 Metrics
Metrics from graph theory and social network analysis are useful for many of the
techniques that are described shortly. Table 16.1 lists examples of metrics that are
often used. Some of the metrics are applicable to single nodes, while others are used
to characterize node-pairs or the entire network.
In addition to the metric-based approaches, Sole and Velverde [63] and Dehmer and
Emmert-Streib [16] proposed characterizing networks using information-theoretic
and statistical approaches. Although the metrics shown in Table 16.2 are useful to
compare different network types, it is also helpful to examine some of the invariant
properties of a network. As an example, the following theorem describes the nature
of density within a network.
Theorem 1. For any graph G D .V; E/, and for any fixed integer k, 1 < k
jV j, the average density over all k-induced subgraphs of G is the same as the
density of G.
Proof. Let G D .V; E/ be a graph. We begin by considering the set of all k-induced
subgraphs of G, for an arbitrary value of k. An induced subgraph of G is one con-
taining a subset of the nodes in G, along with every link in G that has both endpoints
in the subset. A k-induced subgraph is one with k nodes. There are jVk j of these,
16 Link-Based Network Mining 407
jV j2
and each link in G will appear in exactly k2 of them. The probability that a
given edge appears in a particular k-induced subgraph equals
jV j2 .jV j2/Š
k2 .k2/Š.jV jk/Š kŠ.jV j 2/Š k.k 1/
jV j D D D : (16.1)
jV jŠ jV jŠ.k 2/Š jV j.jV j 1/
k kŠ.jV jk/Š
jEj jVk.k1/
j.jV j1/ 2jEj
D ; (16.2)
k.k1/ jV j.jV j 1/
2
In addition to the existing network generation models, there are growing interests
in understanding the dynamics of networks as nodes and edges are being added or
removed. For example, Hanneke and Xing [32] presented an extension of the expo-
nential random graph model to represent network evolution over time. Leskovec et
al. [45] developed a new model to account for certain properties that were revealed
in their study of real evolving networks. Their model, which is based on a “forest
fire” spreading process, exhibits characteristics such as shrinking network diameter,
increasing densification, as well as power-law degree distribution.
Link mining has the same goal as data mining – finding hidden knowledge – but in
a different setting. Some of the techniques have morphed from data mining to link
mining, such as clustering to community finding and classification to link-based
classification. Additionally, new techniques have emerged such as influence maxi-
mization and link prediction. Here we describe these techniques in detail.
The technique of community finding, also called group detection [26], positional
analysis [20, 69], or blockmodelling [69], is the process of placing nodes into
groups in such a way that the nodes within a group are “similar” to each other
and “dissimilar” to nodes in other groups. This is equivalent to clustering [64] and
graph partitioning [37]. From the graph theory perspective, the problem of commu-
nity finding is to remove links from the graph so that the remaining graph has the
“desired” components.
408 J. Scripps et al.
Some community finding methods do not try to completely cluster the entire
network. Instead they form communities from a given root set of nodes. This ap-
proach is helpful when only a portion of the network is known or the network is
large and a complete grouping is unnecessary. As examples, consider Web page
search where a set of related pages can be useful or in a large bibliographic database,
where one only wants to know the community of researchers to which an author
belongs. A Markov chain approach by Gibson et al. [27], specific to the World Wide
Web, starts with a core set of pages, adds a fixed number of nearby pages, then forms
the communities from the authoritative pages in the expanded set. Min-cut has also
been adapted [23] to find a community by using the targeted node as the source and
adding a virtual sink connected to all nodes in the graph.
More recently, progress in community finding has focused along several direc-
tions. Semi-supervised learning methods have become popular in the clustering
literature, where side information is available in the form of constraints on pairs
of nodes that should or should not be grouped together. The side information can be
obtained from the similarity between node attributes, partial knowledge of the class
labels, etc. The side information may improve community finding in many ways: to
aid in the cluster initialization, to guide the clustering process toward finding better
partitions, and to learn the appropriate distance metric consistent with the domain
expectations [7,13,25]. Another trend is finding communities in dynamic networks,
where the nodes, links, and attributes change over time. Backstrom et al. [4] studied
how the structural features of communities affect how nodes join and leave com-
munities. A paper by Tantipathananandh et al. [65] proposed a new framework for
tracking community changes in dynamic networks by modeling it as a graph color-
ing problem. Communities are identified by approximately solving a combinatorial
optimization problem using dynamic programming.
Ranking is the process of creating a total ordering of the nodes in a network. The
rank of a node reflects the measurement of some particular structural property of
the network, with respect to the node, which conveys a semantic meaning such as
importance, popularity, authority, etc. As an end in itself, rankings can also be used
to look for well-connected or central nodes in a network.
In link mining, ranking is done using centrality measures [69]. The first, degree
centrality, is simply the degree of the node; in directional graphs it can be indegree
or outdegree. In a social network, the degree quantifies a node’s popularity. In a
bibliographic dataset the indegree is a measure of a paper’s authority, while the
outdegree measures the number of papers that it cites.
Closeness centrality is the average shortest distance between a node and all other
(reachable) nodes in the network:
1 X
closeness.v/ D d.v; u/
jV j 1
u2V nv
410 J. Scripps et al.
where V is the set of nodes and d.v; u/ is the distance from v to u. Lower values of
closeness indicate a more centrally located node. In a social network, a node with a
low closeness rank indicates a person who generally has short communication paths
to others, for instance, a CEO in a corporation. In a terrorist network it could help
to identify a cell leader.
Another centrality measure is betweenness, which is the number of shortest paths
between all pairs of nodes that go through it:
X gst .v/
betweenness.v/ D
gst
s2V;t 2V;s¤t ¤v
where gst is the number of shortest paths from s to t and gst .v/ is the number of
shortest paths from s to t that go through v. Betweenness can be defined in the
same way for edges. In a social network a node with a high betweenness score is
considered important because it is likely that it will be encountered as members
navigate the network. In a road map network, where nodes represent intersections
or small communities, nodes with high betweenness are likely to be points of high
congestion.
A popular ranking method for large directed networks like the World Wide Web
is the eigenvector method [41, 53]. In this method a node’s rank is the sum of the
ranks of its incoming neighbors. Given a network with n nodes and an adjacency
matrix A where Aij is 1 if there is a directed edge from i to j and zero otherwise,
for the node vi , the rank ri is defined as:
n
1X
ri D Aij rj
j D1
where N.vi / is the set of nodes that are connected to vi , n1 is the number of com-
mon neighbors of vi and vj , and n2 is jN.vi /jn1 . The values p and q represent the
probabilities that two linked nodes are in the same community and two non-linked
nodes are in different communities, respectively. Nodes with higher rawComm val-
ues are connected to more communities, making them good ambassador nodes.
Node ranking in dynamic networks remains an important but largely unexplored
area of research. Desikan et al. [17] has recently developed an incremental approach
to adjusting PageRank scores in evolving graphs without recomputing the ranks.
Another promising direction would be to detect interesting trends in a dynamic net-
work, for example, finding nodes with rapidly increasing authority scores. Finally,
the problem could also be extended to ranking communities or groups of nodes.
as possible. For example, in viral marketing, a company may want to offer a small
number of free or discounted products to influential people in the hopes that they
will inspire others to purchase the product.
One might first consider activating only the highest degree nodes to obtain the
optimal solution. However, one can quickly imagine that if the high degree nodes
are all neighbors, the spread of influence will be less than if lower degree nodes,
more spread out, were chosen. For example, in Fig. 16.2, to maximize the number
of nodes activated, the selected node is likely the best choice even though it is not the
highest degree. Another challenge is that the link information may not be reliable;
for example, in an online network, links between users are easy to add but do not
always reflect genuine friendship. Furthermore, given the size of many real-world
networks, simulating the activation process repeatedly to find the optimal solution
is computationally expensive.
Kempe et al. [40] showed that the problem is NP-complete under the specific
diffusion models of independent cascade and linear thresholds. They then pro-
pose a greedy strategy based on submodular functions [48], which guarantees a
solution that is provably within 63% of optimal for these same models. In their ex-
periments, the greedy strategy always performs better than the alternative strategies
of selecting the nodes with the highest degree or lowest closeness scores.
An alternative to the problem was suggested by Scripps et al. [58] where the
network is assumed to have latent communities. The problem then becomes choos-
ing the nodes that will maximize the number of communities with activated nodes.
For example, a viral marketer may be interested in offering free samples to a small
group of individuals who will promote the product to as many demographic groups
(sports fans, poetry lovers, etc.) as possible. The authors propose using the raw-
Comm metric described in Sect. 16.3.2. Their experiments show that rawComm
does better than greedy, degree, or closeness at maximizing the spread to latent
communities.
Domingos and Richardson [19] proposed a cost/benefit approach to the influ-
ence maximization problem. They assume there is a cost for activating nodes and
a revenue associated with activated nodes. The problem then becomes choosing a
subset of nodes to activate that will maximize the expected lift in profit (i.e., rev-
enue minus cost). A solution to the influence maximization problem in the face of
competition was proposed by Bharathi et al. [8]. For example, multiple companies
with similar products may attempt to influence the buying decisions of a targeted
group of customers. Extending influence maximization to dynamic networks, where
16 Link-Based Network Mining 413
nodes may join or leave the network, is another open research problem. Variations
of the problem in dynamic networks include finding the nodes that are most influen-
tial for new nodes or identifying the nodes whose influence spread is increasing or
decreasing.
The link prediction problem can be stated as follows. Given a network, can we
infer the node pairs that are likely to be linked together? Link mining techniques
are applicable to static networks (to infer missing links in an incomplete network)
or dynamic networks (to predict new interactions that will occur in the near future).
Examples of link prediction problems include detecting covert ties between criminal
suspects or identifying future collaboration between researchers.
Link prediction is a challenging problem due to the sparsity of many networks.
Predicting which nonlinked node pairs will become linked has so far yielded very
low accuracies [46]. Rattigan and Jensen [56] have shown that this is due to the
skewed class distribution; as networks grow and evolve, the number of nonlinked
pairs increases quadratically while the number of linked pairs often grows only
linearly. Research in social sciences has suggested the tendency of individuals to
establish friendship ties with others who have similar interests (attributes) [36]. In
addition, individuals may also become friends because they share common friends
(link structure) or belong to similar groups (communities). Integrating these differ-
ent sources of information to improve link prediction is a challenge.
Liben-Nowell and Kleinberg [46] compared a large number of graph metrics as
link predictors. They tested the metrics on bibliographic data sets using only the link
structure and ignoring the node attributes. This work has been expanded to include
both link and attribute data [33, 46] by using binary classifiers. Another approach
is to use probabilistic generative models, where the goal is to learn the joint prob-
ability density of the nodes, links, subgroups, etc., and to predict the missing links
by applying Bayes’s theorem [49,67]. Because of the sparsity of networks, Rattigan
and Jensen [56] proposed a variation to the problem known as anomalous link dis-
covery, where the goal is to find links that are anomalous. Recent works have also
considered the changes in the network over time. Potgieter et al. [54] combined the
metrics from the Liben-Nowell study with temporal metrics such as return, moving
average, and recency. In another work by O’Madadhain et al. [52], a time-evolving
probabilistic classifier is constructed from training data sampled over many time
periods. Hanneke and Xing [32] developed an extension of the exponential random
graph model to account for the evolution of networks over time. A recent study by
Backstrom et al. [4] on the evolution of communities in large social networks sug-
gested that community structures and link formation are closely related. Making use
of latent community structures for link prediction is another possible direction for
future research.
414 J. Scripps et al.
new direction is to learn all the classes associated with a given node, a problem that
is known as multilabel learning. In another direction, although some of the above
approaches have shown improvements by using the class information of neighbors,
the information will be less helpful for some nodes than for others. Scripps et al. [58]
have shown that the role that a node plays in the network can guide the classifier to
use the neighborhood information when it is likely to help. For example, neighbor-
hood information is less predictive for nodes linked to many communities.
16.4 Conclusion
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Chapter 17
Graph Representations and Algorithms
in Computational Biology of RNA
Secondary Structure
17.1 Introduction
T. Gesell ()
Center for Integrative Bioinformatics Vienna, Max F. Perutz Laboratories,
Dr. Bohr-Gasse 9, 1030 Vienna, Austria
and
University of Vienna, Medical University of Vienna and University of Veterinary Medicine,
Vienna, Austria
e-mail: [email protected]
cells [4, 27, 28]. Although it is still unclear whether it is justified to proclaim a mod-
ern “RNA world”, there is no doubt that RNAs have to be considered as important
key players in the cell and that the structural biology of RNAs will be of particular
importance in the next years.
The goal of the chapter is to give an overview of some of the most fundamental
principles and algorithms of RNA secondary structures with a particular focus on
their representation as graphs. There are different ways to encode RNAs as graphs
which allow for attractive algorithms for their analysis.
We start with some background information on biochemical properties of RNAs
(Sect. 17.2). Next, we show how these basic biochemical properties as well as the
commonly used classification of structural elements in RNAs can be formalized
by a definition of RNA secondary structures as outerplanar graphs (Sects. 17.3
and 17.4). The RNA folding problem, i.e., the prediction of the secondary struc-
ture for a given RNA sequence, is the main topic of this chapter. In Sect. 17.5, we
introduce a simple recursive algorithm to the combinatorial problem of counting
secondary structures, which is the basis for the different RNA folding algorithms
reviewed in Sects. 17.6–17.8. In the last two sections, we address the problem of
comparing RNA structures. We show that RNA secondary structures can be en-
coded as trees and present tree editing as a special type of graph-matching problem
to calculate distances between RNA structures. The chapter finishes with a summary
and conclusion.
RNA is a polymer made of individual units called nucleotides [17]. Nucleotides con-
sist of a ribose group, a phosphate group, and one of four different bases adenine
(A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and uracil (U). The succession of the four different
bases of the nucleotides defines the primary structure or sequence of the molecule
(Fig. 17.1). Adjacent nucleotides in the primary sequence are connected by covalent
bonds, i.e., strong chemical bonds that do not open under normal conditions. These
bonds build the “backbone” of the molecule. RNA is generally single stranded but
complementary regions in the molecule can fold back onto themselves and form
double helices similar to the well-known DNA helix. In RNA, we usually find the
so-called Watson–Crick pairs CG and AU as well as GU “wobble pairs”. The intra-
molecular base-pairing results in a pattern of double helical stretches interspersed
with unpaired regions which is called the secondary structure. Unlike the cova-
lent bonds of the backbone this base-pairing is realized by weaker hydrogen bonds
that can be opened and closed under physiological conditions. The arrangement of
secondary structure elements in space finally forms the three-dimensional tertiary
structure.
RNA folding is a hierarchical process. The secondary structure usually forms
before and independently of the tertiary structure and contributes most of the
stabilizing energy. The formation of the tertiary structure usually does not induce
changes in the secondary structure.
17 Graph Representations and Algorithms in Computational Biology 423
AAGUCUGGGCUAAGCCCACUGAUGAGUCUCUGAAAUGAGACGAAACUU C
A
U
A C
A G U G
U C U A C
A U
C GA A
UG C
C C
A C G A
A G
G G
C U
G
U
→ A C →
A
A U
C G
U A
U A
Fig. 17.1 Principles of RNA structure. The primary structure (left) is defined by the succession
of the four different nucleotide types A,C,G,U. Pairing patterns among AU, GC, and GU form
the secondary structure (middle). The secondary structure elements interact with each other in a
complex three-dimensional pattern, the tertiary structure (right). Note that in the tertiary structure
nonstandard base-pairs can occur (dashed) that are usually not considered in algorithms ana-
lyzing the secondary structure. The example shows a so-called hammerhead ribozyme, a short
self-cleaving RNA
Secondary structure graphs following this definition are outerplanar; i.e., they
have an embedding in the plane such that all vertices lie on the boundary of its
exterior region (Fig. 17.2). The edges representing the base-pairs lie inside and do
not cross.
1 63
S
2 62
S
3 61
S
4 60
S
5 59
58
57 51 50
6 56
54 53 52 49
55
M S S H
7 41 42
B 44 45 48
8 43 46 47
S 40
9
10 S 33 34 39
35
11 S 32 36 37 38
13 12 S
S 30 31
17 16 14 I 29
18 15
S 25 28
19 H 24 26 27
20 23
21 22
48 49 50 51
46 47 52
45 53
44 54
43 S H 55
42 56
41 S B 57
40 58
39
59
38 60
37 61
36 62
35 63
34 M
S S S S
S
33 1
S
32 S 2
31 S 3
30 S 4
29 5
28
I 6
27 7
26 8
25 S 9
24 10
23 H 11
22 12
21 13
20 19 14
18 17 16 15
Fig. 17.2 Graph representation and structural elements of RNA secondary structures. H: hairpin
I: interior loop, S: stacked pair, B: bulge loop, M: multi loop. Top: Conventional drawing of the
structures as used by biochemist and molecular biologist. Bottom: Circle representation emphasiz-
ing the graph-like nature of the secondary structure. The circle represents the backbone of the RNA.
Each nucleotide is connected to its immediate neighbours within the backbone. In addition each
nucleotide can form one (and only one) base-pair to another nucleotide (arcs) or stay unpaired.
The definition of RNA secondary structures excludes pseudoknotted structures; i.e., the arcs are
not allowed to cross. The faces of the graph correspond to the different substructure elements
17 Graph Representations and Algorithms in Computational Biology 425
Similar types of graphs have been studied in a nonbiological context. For exam-
ple, they are closely related to Touchard’s linked diagrams [26] and a generalization
of Yan’s “bamboo-shoot graphs” [32].
Definition 3. The base-pair .i; j / and all bases immediately interior to .i; j / is
called a loop closed by .i; j /. The number of base-pairs contained in the loop (in-
cluding the closing base-pair) is called the degree of the loop.
The combinatorial problem of counting the number of secondary structures that can
be formed by a sequence of a given length is of particular interest. Its recursive
solution was first realized by Waterman [29, 30] 30 years ago and it is the basis for
many of the folding algorithms we describe later in this chapter.
Let x be a sequence of n nucleotides xi 2 fA,C,G,Ug, 1 i n. If we assume
a specific sequence not all positions can pair, but only those following the base-
pairing rules for RNA structures (Sect. 17.2). We use the base-pairing matrix ˘
426 S. Washietl and T. Gesell
with the entries ˘ij D 1 if sequence positions i and j can form a base-pair; i.e.,
if .i; j / is in the set of allowed base-pairs B D fGC; CG; AU; UA; GU; UGg, and
˘ij D 0 otherwise. Further, let xij be the subsequence from i to j , and Nij the
number of secondary structures that can be formed by xij .
To calculate Nij , we assume that we already know Ni C1;j , i.e., the number of
structures of a subsequence shorter by one base. A newly added base can either be
unpaired or form a base-pair with some other base k. In the first case, the unpaired
base is followed by any possible structure in subsequence xi C1;j . In the latter case,
the new base-pair divides the sequence in two subsequences xi C1;k1 and xkC1;j .
Since base-pairs do not cross (Definition 1, part (c)), both subsequences can be
treated independently and their numbers can be simply multiplied. These consider-
ations lead to the following recursion:
X
Nij D Ni C1;j C Ni C1;k1 NkC1;j (17.1)
i C1kj
˘i k D1
with Ni i D 1.
RNA secondary structure graphs lead to many other interesting combinatorial
questions (e.g., [10] and references therein) which are, however, not of immediate
relevance for most practical applications in bioinformatics.
The “RNA folding” problem, i.e., the prediction of the secondary structure for a
given primary sequence, is without doubt the most relevant problem for practical
applications. Experimental determination of structures can be laborious and is not
feasible in large scale. Computational predictions are therefore widely used in the
everyday analysis of RNAs.
Thermodynamic methods for RNA folding are the most established and most
frequently used methods today. Put in simple terms, the goal is to find the struc-
ture with the most favourable folding energy. Usually, the free energy of folding
G relative to the unfolded sequence is considered. Paired regions add stabilizing
(by convention negative) energy contributions to G while unpaired regions add
destabilizing (positive) energy terms.
The first attempts to calculate optimal secondary structures for simplified energy
models are due to Nussinov and co-workers [18, 19]. In the simplest case, one can
assign each type of base-pair a negative and fixed energy contribution. Then the
problem reduces to finding the structure with the maximum number of base-pairs.
In a more sophisticated (but still largely unrealistic scenario), one assigns each type
of base-pair .i; j / a specific energy contribution ˇij . The overall energy of a fold is
the sum of all base-pair energies. In this model, we can find the minimal energy Fij
of a sequence xij using a very similar strategy as used for enumerating all structures
in (17.1). Adding one base at a time, either the new base is unpaired or it
17 Graph Representations and Algorithms in Computational Biology 427
function Backtrack(i ,j )
begin
if i > j then return
if Kij D 0 then Backtrack(i C 1,j ) else
output: (i , Ki;j )
Backtrack(i C 1,Kij 1)
Backtrack(Kij C 1,j )
end
end
Algorithm 17.1: Recursive backtracking procedure to retrieve the list of base-
pairs in the optimal structure
forms a pair with some base k. The overall minimum is the minimum of these two
cases. To obtain the minimum of the latter case in which i forms a base-pair, all pos-
sible base-pairs .i; k/ are evaluated. Each base-pair .i; k/ separates the subsequence
in two intervals and due to the independence for the minimum free energy we obtain
the following recursion:
8 9
< ˚ =
Fij D min Fi C1;j ; min Fi C1;k1 C FkC1;j C ˇi k (17.2)
: i C1kj ;
˘i k D1
Although this procedure clearly gives the optimal structure in an algorithmic sense,
structure predictions obtained this way are generally not very accurate. The energy
model based on simple base-pairing rules only poorly reflects the biophysical
428 S. Washietl and T. Gesell
properties of real RNA molecules. Most of the stabilizing energy in RNA secondary
structures comes from stacking interactions of neighbouring base-pairs. A realis-
tic energy model thus needs to consider the loops in a structure (Sect. 17.4). The
so-called loop-based energy model or nearest-neighbour model assigns each loop l
in a structure S a free energy G. The total free energy of the structure is the sum
of all loops:
X
G.S/ D G.l/ (17.3)
l2S
The energy rules used in current state-of-the art prediction programs are quite
complex [15, 31] and it would be out of scope to present them in detail here. Gen-
erally, the energy depends on the type of the loop, the size of the loop, the closing
base-pairs, and the bases immediately interior of the closing base-pair. The energy
values have been determined empirically using melting experiments that measure
the energy which is required to open specific structural elements. Only stacks and
some other small loops are tabulated exhaustively. The energy rules for other types
of loops usually contain extrapolations and other approximations.
In principle, one can find the minimum free energy model using a similar strat-
egy as shown before. However, it is not sufficient to distinguish only two cases in
the recursion. Instead, all possible loop types have to be considered in a system-
atic decomposition procedure. Recursions for this problem have first been proposed
by Zuker and Stiegler [38]. Here we show a version following reference [11] that
decomposes structures in such a way that each substructure is considered exactly
once.
Figure 17.3 shows a graphical outline of the decomposition steps. The procedure
requires four matrices. Fij contains the free energy of the overall optimal structure of
the subsequence xij . The newly added base can be unpaired or it can form a pair. For
the latter case, we introduce the helper matrix Cij , that contains the free energy of the
optimal substructure of xij under the constraint that i and j are paired. This structure
closed by a base-pair can either be a hairpin, an interior loop, or a multiloop. The
hairpin case is trivial because no further decomposition is necessary. The interior
loop case is also simple because it reduces again to the same decomposition step.
The multiloop step is more complicated. The energy of a multiloop depends on the
number of components, i.e., substructures that emanate from the loop. To implicitly
keep track of this number there is need for an additional two helper matrices. Mij
holds the free energy of the optimal structure of xij under the constraint that xij
is part of a multiloop with at least one component. Mij1 holds the free energy of
the optimal structure of xij under the constraint that xij is part of a multi-loop and
has exactly one component closed by pair .i; k/ with i k < j . The idea is to
decompose a multiloop in two arbitrary parts of which the first is a multiloop with
at least one component and the second a multiloop with exactly one component and
starting with a base-pair. These two parts corresponding to M and M 1 can further
be decomposed into substructures that we already know, i.e., unpaired intervals,
17 Graph Representations and Algorithms in Computational Biology 429
N 1 N 1
j i j i
Fij =
i+1 i+1
C
k k-1
C
M1
k l
M u
Cij =
i+1
j-1
i j i j i j
Mij = C M C
u
M
j i j i j-1
j
u
M1ij = M1 C
i i j
j-1
j
Fig. 17.3 Illustration of the recursive structure decomposition steps in Zuker’s folding algorithm.
The property of a sequence with chain length N is built up recursively from the properties of
smaller segments under the assumption that the contributions are additive. The procedure requires
four matrices: Fij , Cij , Mij , and Mij1 (cf. (17.4)). Bold dashed lines indicate base-pairs, dotted lines
indicate unpaired substructures, and solid black lines indicate arbitrary structures. Please refer, to
the text for a detailed description of the procedure
H.i; j / is the energy for a hairpin closed by base-pair .i; j / and I.i; j I k; l/ the
energy for an interior loop closed by the two base-pairs .i; j / and .k; l/. Multiloop
energies are approximated by a simple linear relationship: EML D a C b degree C
c size. Multiloops are generally considered destabilizing. The constant a is used to
penalize opening a multiloop in the first place. The constants b and c penalize the
number of components and the size of unpaired intervals, respectively.
Using these recursions, the minimum free energy and – using an appropriate
backtracking procedure – the optimal structure under the full loop-based energy
model can be found. This approach is currently the most widely used method to
predict RNA secondary structures. The most popular implementations are mfold
[36] and RNAfold from the Vienna RNA package [9].
X
ZD exp.G.S/=RT / (17.6)
S
As shown by McCaskill [16], the partition function can be calculated using sim-
ilar recursions and dynamic programming algorithms as used for calculating the
minimum free energy. For the simple base-pair energy model, the recursion to cal-
culate the partition function can be formulated as follows:
X
Zij D Zi C1;j C Zi C1;k1 ZkC1;j exp.ˇi k =RT / (17.7)
i C1kj
˘i k D1
Please note the analogy to (17.2). We can simply replace the minimum by the
sum, the sums with multiplications, and the energy contribution by its Boltzmann
factor. The value of the partition function by itself is usually not of immedi-
ate interest. In practice, the most interesting information is the probability of a
17 Graph Representations and Algorithms in Computational Biology 431
specific base-pair
P within the equilibrium ensemble, or more precisely the proba-
bility pij D .i;j /2S Prob.S/ of observing a structure S that contains the base-pair
.i; j /. To calculate pij we need to know the partition function over all structures
forming .i; j / and the total partition function Z:
The helper quantity Z bij is the partition function over all structures outside the in-
terval xij . Using similar considerations as for the “forward” recursion one arrives at
X
Z b i;j C1 C
b ij D Z b k;j C1 exp.ˇk;j C1 =RT /ZkC1;i 1
Z
1k<i
˘k;j C1 D1
X
C b i;k exp.ˇk;j C1 =RT /Zj C2;k1
Z (17.9)
j C2kn
˘k;j C1 D1
Trees are graphs with special structural properties which have been commonly used
to represent RNA secondary structures [14]. An undirected graph is called a tree if
the graph in question is cycle free and connected. Further, in an undirected rooted
tree T , there is always a designated vertex r called the root of T for which every
edge is directed away from r. Each vertex in T is uniquely accessible from r. In an
ordered tree an ordering is specified for the children of each node. RNA secondary
structures can be encoded as rooted, ordered, labeled trees (Fig. 17.5).
In the full tree representation [8] each internal node represents a base-pair, while
leaves represent unpaired bases. The root vertex does not correspond to a physical
part of the RNA. Shapiro et al. used a more abstract encoding [21, 22] in which
internal nodes correspond to the different loop types (stack, interior loop, bulge,
multiloop, hairpin). Depending on the type of representation the labels have dif-
ferent meaning. In the following, we assume that the labels are from some finite
alphabet ˙.
432 S. Washietl and T. Gesell
G C
G C
C G
A U
U A
A
A A U
C G
C A G G A
U C C A
C G
U A C A
G G G
G A C
A C U G AU
U U C
C A U
C A
U C
G C
G G U A
C A
G C
Fig. 17.4 Base-pairing probability matrix. The area of the dots in the upper right triangle of
the matrix is proportional to the probability that a specific base-pair forms in the thermodynamic
equilibrium. The lower left triangle shows the pairing pattern in the optimal structure of minimum
free energy. Again, a hammerhead RNA is shown as an example (conventional drawing below).
The structure was calculated using the program RNAfold
GC
GC
R
CG
AU
S
UA
C CG C U G A U G A GC G A A
M
UA UA
GC CG
S S
GC CG
AU C A A A U A I H
UA
U CG U A C S
CG
A C U G C G C A H
Fig. 17.5 Tree representations of RNA secondary structures. Left: The “full tree” representation
[8]. Right: Shapiro-style tree [21, 22]. R,S,M,I,H denote root, stem, multi-loop, interior loop, and
hairpin loop nodes, respectively
[23,24] extended the resulting metric to labelled graphs as well as graphs of different
orders. A well-known graph metric from the inexact graph matching paradigm was
developed by Bunke [3]. For coping with structural errors, he transformed a graph
G1 into G2 by calculating the edit costs of certain graph edit operations. Finally,
the so-called graph edit distance is defined by the minimal edit costs to transform
G1 to G2 .
Here we describe tree editing [20, 25] as a way to compare two secondary struc-
tures represented as trees. We consider three basic edit operations on a labeled
tree T . The relabel operation changes the label of a node v. The delete operation
removes a node v with parent v0 , making the children of v the children of v0 . The
insert operation is the complement of the delete operation, inserting a new node v as
child of v0 making the children of v0 the children of v. We follow the presentation in
[2], and write (l1 ! l2 ) for an edit operation and use as a special blank symbol.
If l1 ¤ and l2 ¤ it is a relabeling operation. If l2 D it is a deletion and if
l1 D it is an insertion.
Each edit operation is assigned a cost which is a metric on the alphabet
˙ [ fg. A sequence of edit operations that transforms one tree T1 into another
tree T2 is called an edit script. The cost of an edit script is the sum of the costs of
its edit operations. The edit distance ı.T1 ; T2 / is the cost of the minimum cost edit
script.
434 S. Washietl and T. Gesell
Mappings are relations and can be composed. Let T1 , T2 , T3 be three trees and
M1 and M2 the mapping of T1 to T2 and T2 to T3 , respectively. Then
˚ ˇ
M1 ı M2 D .v; w/ ˇ 9u 2 V .T2 / that .v; u/ 2 M1 and .u; w/ 2 M2 (17.11)
is a mapping of T1 to T3 . The function is a metric and one can show that the
minimum cost mapping is equivalent to the minimum cost edit script, i.e., the edit
distance ı.
To calculate ı, we need to calculate the minimum cost mapping. As it turns out,
this problem can be solved using again simple recursions and a dynamic program-
ming algorithm. Formally, we need to extend the definitions above to forests as roots
can be deleted turning the ordered tree into an ordered forest. Likewise two trees in
a forest can be merged by inserting a new root. Let F be a forest and v be a node
in F . In the following we write F v for the forest that is obtained be deleting v,
F T .v/ the forest that is obtained by deleting v and its descendants, and F .v/ for
the set of trees that have the children of v as their roots.
Let F1 and F2 be two forests and v and w the root of the rightmost tree in F1
and F2 , respectively. M is the optimal mapping between F1 and F2 . There are three
possibilities: (1) v has no partner in M , then the optimal mapping is the mapping
between F1 v and F2 and a deletion of v. (2) w has no partner in M then the
optimal mapping is the mapping between F1 and F2 w with w inserted. (3) Both
v and w have partners. Using the definition of mappings and considering the fact
that both v and w are by construction the rightmost roots it is easy to show that
this implies .v; w/ 2 M . The edit distance can be computed using the following
recursions corresponding to the three different cases.
8
ˆ
<ı.F1 v; F2 / C .v ! /
ˆ
ı.F1 ; F2 / D min ı.F1 ; F2 w/ C . ! w/
ˆ
:̂ı.F .v/; F .w// C ı.F T .v/; F T .w// C .v ! w/
1 2 1 1 2 2
17 Graph Representations and Algorithms in Computational Biology 435
The recursion is initialized with the edit distance between two empty forests
ı.; / D 0. The cases of one tree being empty is handled as follows
Acknowledgements Funding from the Austrian GEN-AU projects “noncoding RNA” and “Bioin-
formatics Integration Network” as well as financial support to the CIBIV institute from the Wiener
Wissenschafts-, Forschungs- and Technologiefonds (WWTF) is gratefully acknowledged.
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17 Graph Representations and Algorithms in Computational Biology 437
O. Mason ()
Hamilton Institute, NUI Maynooth, Maynooth, Ireland
e-mail: [email protected]
fact has led in a natural way to the recognition within the life sciences of a pressing
need for a closer and mutually beneficial interaction between computational and
mathematical scientists on the one hand and biologists on the other. It is important
to appreciate that these developments pose challenges and opportunities for both
experimental and theoretical scientists. Although modern biology now needs the
computational methods and theoretical frameworks provided by the mathematical
sciences, it is equally true that mathematicians and computational scientists need to
recognise that biological systems are substantially different from the physical and
engineering systems that have historically been the main focus of applied mathe-
matics. Old methods and tools cannot simply be dusted off and applied to this new
project [22, 36]; novel approaches and techniques are required, specifically tailored
to and inspired by biological problems.
Our purpose in the current chapter is to provide an introduction to one such prob-
lem that has been the focus of much attention in the field of computational biology
in the recent past. Specifically, we are concerned with the problem of assigning
functions to newly discovered genes and proteins [18, 35]. Although the number
of completely sequenced genomes has grown steadily over the past decade, many
fundamental questions still remain. One of the most significant of these relates to
determining the biological function of the gene products or proteins identified in
this process. At the time of writing, even for simple organisms such as S. cerevisiae
approximately 20% of the organism’s proteins have no assigned function [35]; such
proteins are said to be unannotated.
In the following section, we expand on what is to be understood by the notion of
protein function. For now, we simply note that, in view of the significant numbers
of unannotated proteins even for simple organisms, a major challenge for computa-
tional biology is to devise methods to reliably assign functions to these proteins
based on plausible biological hypotheses and the known functions of annotated
proteins. Unsurprisingly, there has been a considerable amount of interest in this
problem since the publication of sequenced genomes, and a variety of approaches
have been proposed. Early approaches made use of tools such as BLAST or PSI-
BLAST [1, 2] to predict function based on sequence similarity to proteins of known
function. Other methods based on phylogenetic profiles and gene co-expression pat-
terns have also been proposed [28, 43]. In keeping with the overall theme of this
book, we focus here on graph-theoretical methods that seek to exploit recently com-
piled networks of protein–protein interactions (PPI) to assign protein function. We
describe some of the main such methods and the principles on which they are based
in Sects. 18.3 and 18.4 below. In the interests of brevity, we shall largely focus on
direct methods and not describe techniques based on clustering methods such as
those presented in [8, 29, 30] (although we shall briefly describe one such method in
Sect. 18.5).
The structure of the chapter is as follows. In the next section, we describe the bio-
logical background to the problem of protein function assignment, and then present
a mathematical formulation of the problem in Sect. 18.3. In Sect. 18.4 we describe
several studies that have provided evidence of a connection between network topol-
ogy and protein function. Section 18.5 is concerned with discussing some of the
18 Inference of Protein Function from the Structure of Interaction Networks 441
main graph-based algorithms for protein function assignment and highlighting some
difficulties and open questions to which they give rise. In Sect. 18.6, we discuss a
number of numerical studies comparing the various methods described throughout
the chapter. Finally, in Sect. 18.7 we present some concluding remarks about the
computational and graph-theoretical challenges arising from the problem of protein
function assignment.
has been running since 1998. The project is ongoing and is added to and updated
on a regular basis. For more information, the interested reader should consult ei-
ther the original reference [3] or the excellent documentation on the GO website
http://www.geneontology.org/.
The second annotation scheme – FunCat – was initially developed as part of
the S. cerevisiae genome project at MIPS but has since been broadened to include
annotations for several other eukaryotic and prokaryotic organisms [32]. FunCat is
structured differently to the GO scheme and is essentially organised as a number
of tree-like hierarchies. At the coarsest level, there are 28 different basic functional
categories including “metabolism”, “storage”, “protein synthesis”, and “cell type
differentiation”. Each of these corresponds to a tree consisting of successively more
specific functions. Each function within the annotation scheme is assigned a unique
numerical identifier that indicates which broad category it belongs to and its place in
the hierarchy. For instance, the broad category metabolism is assigned the identifier
01; at the next level down the hierarchy amino acid metabolism is assigned the
identifier 01.01; at one level lower again, we find “metabolism of the glutamate
group” with the identifier 01.01.03; the more specific “metabolism of glutamine”
is assigned 01.01.03.01 while at the most specific level biosynthesis of glutamine
and degradation of glutamine are assigned 01.01.03.01.01 and 01.01.03.01.02,
respectively.
Constructing comprehensive and convenient annotation schemes is only one step,
albeit a vital one, in the annotation of gene products; the proteins of an organism
must next be assigned to some functional category within the scheme. Essentially,
once the genome of an organism has been sequenced each protein identified must
have some collection of terms in either the GO scheme or the FunCat scheme as-
signed to it. As mentioned in the introduction, even for simple organisms this second
task is far from complete; however, for many organisms a significant fraction of their
proteome is annotated. Our interest is in combining this information with knowledge
of protein interactions to make sensible predictions for the functions of unannotated
proteins.
A significant outcome of the experimental advances made in recent years has been
the construction of large-scale networks detailing the physical and biochemical in-
teractions among the genes, proteins, and metabolites within the cell [25]. In partic-
ular, the development of high-throughput techniques for detecting PPI such as yeast-
2-hybrid [17] or tandem-affinity purification with mass spectrometry (TAP-MS)
[14] has led to the generation of detailed maps of PPI for a growing number of
simple organisms. Essentially a PPI network is an undirected graph with nodes rep-
resenting the proteins in an organism and edges representing physical interactions
between proteins. At the time of writing, the organisms for which PPI networks have
18 Inference of Protein Function from the Structure of Interaction Networks 443
Throughout, R denotes the field of real numbers and RC denotes the set of non-
negative real numbers. For finite sets S; T , S T denotes the usual Cartesian product
of S and T , while jS j denotes the cardinality of S and 2S represents the power set of
S consisting of all subsets of S . For a function f W S ! T and a subset R S , f jR
denotes the restriction of f to R. Also, for sets S and T , S nT D fx 2 S W x … T g
denotes the set difference of S and T , while S 4T denotes the symmetric difference
of S and T given by .S [ T /n.S \ T /.
The PPI networks we consider in this chapter are naturally modelled as finite
undirected graphs. For background on basic concepts and notation, consult [12].
Unless stated otherwise, we use the notation G D .V; E/ for a finite undirected
graph where V is the vertex set and E denotes the set of edges. Also, the notation
uv denotes the edge between vertices u and v in V if such an edge exists. In this
case, we also say that u and v are neighbours or level-1 neighbours.
444 O. Mason et al.
N.u/ D fv 2 V W uv 2 Eg:
We denote paths by the list of vertices occurring along the path. For instance,
u D v1 ; : : : ; vm D v denotes a path of length m 1 between u and v, where
vi vi C1 2 E for i D 1; : : : ; m 1. As usual, we say that a graph is connected if
there is a path between any pair .u; v/ of vertices in V . When dealing with real
PPI network data, it is typical to work with the largest connected component of
the graph. In fact, most data sets consist of a single very large component with a
number of other components of significantly smaller size. Thus, in the interests of
simplifying terminology, we shall always assume that the graphs we deal with are
connected.
The distance d.u; v/ between any two nodes in V is defined to be the length of
the shortest path between u and v (by default d.u; u/ D 0). Given a node u and a
positive integer k, the k-neighbourhood of u is the set of all nodes v ¤ u in V with
d.u; v/ k, and is denoted by N k .u/. We refer to nodes v with d.u; v/ D k as
level-k neighbours of u.
1
See Sect. 18.6 for a remark concerning the completeness of the annotation given by .
18 Inference of Protein Function from the Structure of Interaction Networks 445
O .u/ D ff 2 F W u .f / g (18.1)
What distinguishes the various algorithms is the principles used to generate the
score function and corresponding ranking scheme on F . In Sect. 18.5 we dis-
cuss several different such ranking schemes and their corresponding algorithms for
functional annotation. However, in the next section we discuss the evidence for a
connection between network topology and protein function and identify the key as-
sumptions underlying all graph-based PFP algorithms.
The fundamental idea behind the use of PPI to predict function is quite simple;
proteins that interact with each other are likely to share functionality. In essence
this is analogous to the concept that individuals within an organization who meet
regularly are more likely to be involved in performing similar tasks. This core idea
is in itself biologically plausible and its validity has been investigated by a number
of researchers. Specifically, attention has focussed on the tendency of a protein u
within a PPI network G D .V; E/ to share functions with the proteins or nodes
belonging to the k-neighbourhoods N k .u/ of u for different (positive integer) values
of the parameter k.
446 O. Mason et al.
An early, and influential, study of this kind appeared in the paper [34].
Specifically, the authors of this paper used publicly available data on PPI in yeast
and the annotation scheme of the Yeast Proteome Database [10] to investigate the
tendency of a protein to share functions with its immediate neighbours. The YPD
classification scheme used was based on cellular role and is similar to the “biologi-
cal process” categorization in the GO scheme described above. In [34], the authors
first focussed on the annotated proteins within the network; in our terminology, on
the induced subgraph on the set of vertices Va . For each u 2 Va , the functions of the
neighbouring vertices in N.u/ \ Va were ranked in descending order of frequency
and the three most commonly occurring functions were postulated as potential func-
tions for u. If any of these predicted functions corresponded with a known function
of u, the prediction was deemed to be correct. Promisingly, this simple scheme led
to “correct” predictions for 72% of the vertices in Va . Moreover, to test the degree
to which protein function was dependent on the actual topology of the network,
the authors “shuffled” or scrambled links between the nodes in the network in a
random manner. They report that on average for the randomized networks, the rate
of correct predictions was as low as 12%.
In addition to simply checking if an annotated protein in Va shares function with
some of its immediate neighbours, some slightly more sophisticated measures of
functional similarity can be investigated. For instance, the functional similarity [9]
of u; v in Va has been defined as
j .u/ \ .v/j
F S.u; v/ D : (18.3)
j .u/ [ .v/j
Using functional annotation data obtained from the FunCat database in January
2008, we have investigated the average of F S.:; :/ over pairs of interacting and non-
interacting proteins in a network of protein interactions in yeast obtained from the
Database of Interacting Proteins [41] in January 2008. The average taken over non-
interacting pairs was 0.015042, while the average for interacting pairs of proteins
was an order of magnitude higher at 0.15155.
The last observation and the results reported in [34] lend experimental support
to the hypothesis that interacting proteins tend to share functions and to the gen-
eral idea of exploiting interaction data to predict protein function. Further evidence
of this nature was subsequently presented in [16] and then more recently in [9].
This latter paper also investigated more closely the relationship between a protein’s
functions and those of its level-2 neighbours in N 2 .u/nN.u/. Using the FunCat
scheme of annotation, and interaction data obtained from the Munich Information
Center for Protein Sequences, the authors of [9] found that proteins are significantly
more likely to share functions exclusively with level-2 neighbours than they are to
share function exclusively with their level-1 neighbours. The findings reported in
[9] add to earlier evidence described in [7, 33] that the functions of level-2 neigh-
bours N 2 .u/nN.u/ of a protein are also potentially useful indicators of the functions
of u. It should also be noted that the authors of [9] introduce a novel topological
18 Inference of Protein Function from the Structure of Interaction Networks 447
measure for the degree of functional similarity between two proteins u and v in V .
We describe this and an associated algorithm for function prediction in more detail
in the following section.
The discussion in the previous two paragraphs should have made fairly clear
the general principle on which graph-based protein function prediction is based;
namely:
Given an unannotated u in Vu , the functions assigned in O .u/ should be “similar” to the
assigned functions of the level-1 and level-2 neighbours of u.
The above principle is still stated in a relatively loose fashion; it is the particular
interpretation of the word “similar” that determines the unique approach of each
specific algorithm for PFP. In the next section, we describe in detail several of the
more significant of these to have emerged recently.
In light of the observations made above, the simplest approach to predicting func-
tions for an unannotated protein u in an interaction network G D .V; E/ would be to
rank functions based on the frequency with which they occur among the annotated
neighbours of u. This is the approach taken in the so-called majority rule described
in [34].
The score function for the majority rule is defined as follows. For u 2 Vu and
f 2 F , u .f / is defined to be the total number of occurrences of f among the
annotated neighbours of u. Formally,
In keeping with the general framework outlined in Sect. 18.3, the functions with the
highest values of u .f / are assigned to u.
The two principal advantages of the majority rule are its simplicity and the fact
that it directly relates to the core biological hypothesis that interacting proteins
should have similar functionality. However, it also has several obvious drawbacks.
As it only considers annotated neighbours of unannotated proteins, it is unable to
make any prediction for proteins with no annotated neighbours. A further significant
disadvantage also arises from the fact that it only takes into account interactions be-
tween vertices in Vu and Va . This can indirectly lead to the very principle on which
it is based being violated. To see this consider the fragment shown in Fig. 18.1.
Here the solid nodes are annotated and belong to Va while the two unshaded
nodes are unannotated and belong to Vu . Suppose the annotated neighbour of u is
annotated with a function fi , while the two annotated neighbours of v and w are
annotated with a function fj ¤ fi . Then, following the majority rule, we would
assign the function fi to u and fj to v and w. But then u would have been assigned
448 O. Mason et al.
v w
the function fi while the majority of its neighbours would be annotated with the
different function fj . Although this example is overly simplistic, it illustrates this
fundamental problem with the majority rule. Another problem with this approach is
that it fails to take into account all of the information known about the annotated part
of the network. In particular, the frequency with which the various functions actually
occur for the annotated nodes is ignored. As this frequency can vary considerably
from function to function, this information should play some role in determining the
most likely functions for the unannotated nodes in Vu .
An attempt to address the final issue mentioned in the previous paragraph was made
in [16]. The algorithm described in this paper allows nodes in a k-neighbourhood
of an unannotated protein to be taken into account and ranks functions based on a
chi-squared score rather than a simple count. However, as noted in [9], the reliability
of predictions tends to decline dramatically when nodes at a distance greater than 2
are used to predict function. For this reason, and in the interests of simplicity, we
describe the method of [16] for the case of immediate neighbours only. In any case,
the extension to the more general case is obvious.
For each function f 2 F , let f denote the fraction of annotated nodes in the
network that are annotated with f :
jfw 2 Va W .w/ D f gj
f D :
jfVa gj
Also, for any u 2 Vu , let nu D jVa \ N.u/j, nfu D jfv 2 Va \ N.u/ W .v/ D f gj.
Then the score function for the chi-squared scheme is given by
.nfu f nu /2
u .f / D :
f nu
As with the majority rule, the functions f assigned to u are those corresponding to
the largest values of u .f /.
18 Inference of Protein Function from the Structure of Interaction Networks 449
nfu f nu
C f
f nu nu
We now discuss three basic extensions of the majority rule assignment, which we
shall refer to respectively as (V) the Vazquez method, (K) the Karaoz method, and
(N) the Nabieva method. Methods (V) and (K) pose the protein assignment problem
as an optimization problem, the objective of which is to minimize the number of “in-
consistent” edges. The methods differ mainly in the way they define inconsistency.
In the Vazquez method, the notion of an inconsistent edge is defined with respect to
an assignment (given an assignment , an edge e D .u; v/ is said to be inconsis-
tent if .u/\ .v/ D ;), whereas in the Karaoz method, it is defined with respect to
a function f (given a function f 2 F , an edge .u; v/ is said to be consistent if either
f 2 .u/ \ .v/ or f 62 .u/ [ .v/ and inconsistent otherwise). This observa-
tion suggests that, even though these methods are sometimes considered variations
of the same idea [27], they may in fact not be as closely related as they would seem
450 O. Mason et al.
at first sight. The Nabieva method is somewhat different from the other two, in the
sense that it is not an optimization-based method. Rather, it employs the notion of
functional flow to describe how nodes that are sufficiently close to one another can
inherit (a fraction of) each other’s functional annotation.
The Vazquez method was introduced in [38]. The basic idea is as follows. Let W
Va 7! 2F n; be given and let O denote the set of all extensions of to the whole
of V . Consider the functional E W O 7! RC ,
Xˇ ˇ
E. O / WD ˇfu 2 N.v/ W O .u/ \ O .v/ ¤ ;gˇ:
v2Vu
1 ˇˇ ˇ
u .f / WD fi W O i .u/ D f gˇ:
m
To avoid the computational problems associated with determining maximally con-
sistent assignments, the authors of [38] employ a stochastic optimization technique
called simulated annealing to compute approximations to the maximally consistent
assignments. Using this technique they generate 100 assignments f Q 1 ; : : : ; Q 100 g
at random (note that the method does not guarantee that Q i 6D Q j for all .i; j / so
the solution set may contain multiple copies of the same solution) and then define a
scoring function Q as follows:
1 ˇˇ ˇ
Qu .f / WD fi W Q i .u/ D f gˇ:
100
To assess the performance of the method, the authors follow a common approach.
They apply the algorithm to a test set Vtest Va comprising only annotated nodes,
which, for the purpose of assessment, are treated as if unannotated. For a given node
v 2 Vtest , a prediction is considered successful if Q .v/ 2 .v/. The rate of success
is defined as the ratio of the number of successful predictions to the total number of
predictions, jVtest j (this is analogous to the specificity measure (18.7) defined below).
The authors show that, roughly speaking, the likelihood of the method making a
successful prediction increases with the degree of a node. The results indicate that
the Vazquez method outperforms the Majority Rule in terms of overall success rate,
although the percentage difference between the two is on average no more than 10%,
and 20% at best.
18 Inference of Protein Function from the Structure of Interaction Networks 451
The Karaoz method was introduced in [20]. The basic idea is as follows. Let W
Va 7! 2F nf;g be given. We define W Va F 7! f0; 1gjVa j , as follows:
(
1 if f 2 .u/I
.u; f / WD
0 otherwise:
Unlike the previous two methods, the functional flow algorithm [27], which we de-
scribe next, does not involve the optimization of a cost functional. In this method, a
protein is modelled as a “source” of functions. Associated with each protein there is
a number of reservoirs, one for each function, each of which holds a certain amount
of function. The amount of function in the reservoirs can change as a result of func-
tional flow between neighbouring proteins. The direction and the magnitude of this
flow are determined by the functional gradient and the link capacity, respectively.
More formally, let Rvf .k/ denote the amount of function f at protein v at time
step k. For all edges uv 2 E and all functions f 2 F , we assume that the flow
f
guv .k/ of function f at time k along the edge uv is given by
8
<0 if Ruf .k/ < Rvf .k/
f
guv .k/ WD n o
:min wuv ; P wuv
otherwise
y2N.u/ wuy
where wuv denotes the capacity or weight of the edge uv. A simple flow balance
analysis shows that Ruf .k/ satisfies the recurrence equation
X
Rvf .k/ D Rvf .k 1/ C f
guv f
.k/ gvu .k/ :
u2N.v/
It is assumed that the amount of function Rvf .0/ stored in the reservoir for function
f at protein v at time k D 0 is “1” if v 2 Vu and f 2 .v/ and 0 otherwise. The
functional score for function f at node v is defined as the total inflow of f during
a fixed number of iteration steps d , where d is taken to be half of the diameter of
the graph:
d
X X
f
v .f / D guv .k/:
kD1 u2N.v/
2
Functional flow clearly cannot converge in its current form.
18 Inference of Protein Function from the Structure of Interaction Networks 453
is suggested. Before functional flow can be reliably employed, the impact of the
choice of stopping time on the predictions made needs to be more fully understood.
Moreover, a clear way of determining in advance when to stop the algorithm is
obviously necessary for its wider use.
Another promising approach to the problem of PFP has been proposed in [11, 23].
We focus on the details of the scheme described in [11]. Here, the authors adopt
the technique of Markov random fields, which was originally developed in the
area of image reconstruction. This is a probabilistic approach to the problem and
the output of the algorithm is a distribution function for each individual function
f 2 F , which specifies the probability P r.f 2 O .u// that a node u 2 Vu has
the function f . Specifically, in the scheme of [11], the nodes of V are labelled
as u1 ; : : : ; up ; upC1 ; : : : ; upCq where ui 2 Vu for i D 1; : : : ; p, ui 2 Va for
i D p C 1; : : : ; p C q and p C q D n. Then for a given function f 2 F , the
random variable X D .X1 ; : : : ; Xn / on V is defined as
(
1 if node i is annotated with f
Xi D (18.4)
0 if node i is not annotated with f:
After this is completed for each f 2 F and each node u 2 Vu , we will have
computed a probability Pr.u; f / indicating the likelihood that the node u has the
function f . In keeping with the general framework outlined in Sect. 18.3, this cor-
responds to the score function u .f / and can naturally be used to define a ranking
on the functions in F and to generate predictions for the possible functions of an
unannotated protein u 2 Vu .
The authors of [11] tested the performance of their algorithm on PPI network
data for S. cerevisiae obtained from the MIPS database and used the yeast functional
annotation in the Yeast Proteome Database (YPD). We discuss the details of their
results and their validation method in the following section.
454 O. Mason et al.
The author of [18] suggested that the number of common interacting partners two
proteins possess be used as a measure of functional similarity. Building on this idea,
the same research group developed the PRODISTIN algorithm for PFP and clus-
tering of interaction networks in [7]. The core idea behind this algorithm is to use
the so-called Czekanowski–Dice (CD) distance on a PPI network G D .V; E/ as a
measure of functional similarity. Formally, for u 2 V , define the extended neigh-
bourhood of u as Ne .u/ D N.u/ [ fug. Then for any pair of nodes u; v 2 V , the CD
distance is given by
the question of how well these methods actually perform in practice is clearly of
paramount importance. In this section, we review and summarise the results of
several comparative studies published in the literature and illustrate the key ideas
behind the metrics used in these comparisons.
The first question to be addressed in comparing the performance of different
methods is which metric or metrics to use to perform the comparison. In [11], the
“leave one out” validation method and the measures sensitivity and specificity were
introduced and used to compare the performance of their MRF method to the ma-
jority and chi-squared schemes. This is one of the earliest systematic comparative
studies of its kind and the core methodology of this paper has subsequently been
used by other authors [9].
The idea behind “leave one out” is simply to treat each annotated protein as unan-
notated in turn, run the algorithm and compare the predicted functions to the known
functions of the protein. Thus, the validation process only considers the annotated
part of the network (the induced subgraph on Va ) and treats one annotated protein u
as unannotated. The algorithm is then run on Va and functional predictions are made
for u using either a prediction threshold as in (18.1) or by choosing the highest m
scoring functions as in (18.2). In this way, predictions are generated for all annotated
proteins in the network, which can be compared to their known functions.
A number of standard metrics have been introduced to assess the performance
of classifiers and it is natural to ask if these can be adapted to evaluate PFP algo-
rithms. The notions of true-positive rate (tp-rate) and false positive rate (fp-rate)
and Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) graphs are basic in evaluating classi-
fier performance [13]. These concepts are usually defined for classification problems
with two classes – positive and negative. However, if we consider the set of all or-
dered pairs .v; f / where v 2 Va and f 2 F , and define a positive as a pair for
which f 2 .v/ and a negative as a pair for which f … .v/, it is possible to
introduce definitions of fp-rate and tp-rate for PFP algorithms. As a simple illus-
tration, we include a ROC graph based on these definitions comparing the majority
and chi-squared methods in Fig. 18.2. This plot was generated using functional data
from the FunCat annotation scheme and using PPI data obtained from the Database
of Interacting Proteins [41] in January 2008. For low values of fp-rate, the majority
rule outperforms the chi-squared rule, but the results are far from conclusive. Note
that the values of fp-rate are extremely low because, in the definition of positives
and negatives, the number of negatives will be considerably larger than the number
of positives [13]. An alternative definition of true and false positives was given in
[27] (which we discuss below) but in general it is not straightforward to apply ROC
techniques to PFP algorithms as the number of classes is far greater than two and
each protein can be assigned to more than one class.
We next describe some specific metrics introduced for assessing PFP algorithms
and discuss the results reported in the literature. In [11] the concepts specificity:
P
u2Va j O .u/ \ .u/j
SP D P (18.7)
O
u2V j .u/j
a
456 O. Mason et al.
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
TP Rate
Majority
Chi−squared
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07
FP Rate
Fig. 18.2 TP-rate fP-rate plot for majority and chi-squared rules
and sensitivity:
P
u2Va j O .u/ \ .u/j
SN D P ; (18.8)
u2Va j .u/j
were introduced. Specificity measures the ratio of the total number of correct pre-
dictions to the total number of predictions while sensitivity measures the ratio of the
total number of correct predictions to the total number of known functions in the
initial assignment.
Notions of sensitivity and specificity are standard in the evaluation of classifier
performance. To avoid confusion, we briefly point out how the above definitions
relate to those in the ROC literature. Sensitivity and specificity are usually defined
for classification problems with two classes, positive and negative. The sensitivity of
a method is defined to be the ratio of the total number of correctly classified positives
to the total number of positives. As above, if we consider the set of all ordered pairs
.v; f / where v 2 Va and f 2 F , and define a positive as a pair for which f 2 .v/,
it is clear that the definition of sensitivity given above corresponds to the usual one
in this case. Specificity is usually defined as the ratio of the total number of correctly
classified negatives to the total number of negatives. This is slightly different from
the definition given above. To make it possible to discuss results from the published
literature, we have chosen to work with the definitions that have been adopted in
studying PFP.
18 Inference of Protein Function from the Structure of Interaction Networks 457
When the threshold is low or when a large value of m is chosen, the scheme
will generate a large number of predictions, and on the average a large number of
correct predictions, leading to a higher value of SN but as the denominator of SP
will also be large in this case, the specificity is low. This essentially means that many
spurious predictions are generated at low thresholds, which is intuitively obvious.
The idea behind the use of these measures in comparing protein prediction algo-
rithms is the following. If two methods are being compared and for any fixed value
of specificity method 1 has a higher value of sensitivity than method 2, then method
1 is performing better than method 2. In practice, a plot of sensitivity against speci-
ficity is generated over a range of threshold values for the various methods being
compared and if the plot of one method lies above that of another, the former method
is deemed to be more accurate. To illustrate the idea we include in Fig. 18.3 a simple
plot of sensitivity versus specificity for the majority and chi-squared schemes. This
plot was generated using functional data from the FunCat annotation scheme and
using PPI data obtained from the Database of Interacting Proteins [41] in January
2008. Although the results plotted here cannot be said to be conclusive, they do
indicate that the majority rule outperforms the chi-squared rule over a range of
specificity values between 0.08 and 0.35. The chi-squared rule gives higher sen-
sitivity values when specificity is lower than 0.08 but at this stage the specificity is
arguably too low for any practical purposes anyway.
These results essentially agree with the comparison presented in [11] as to the
relative performance of the chi-squared and majority schemes; however, in [11], the
YPD classification scheme was used and the PPI data were obtained from the MIPS
0.7
Majority
Chi−squared
0.6
0.5
0.4
Sensitivity
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35
Specificity
database. The primary interest of that study was to compare the MRF scheme to
the majority and chi-squared schemes. For each of the three basic categories in the
YPD classification scheme the sensitivity-specificity curve for the MRF algorithm
was found to lie above those of both the majority and the chi-squared schemes,
indicating that the MRF is the most accurate of these three PFP algorithms. It is
worth noting that in the results of [11] the majority rule appears to significantly
outperform the chi-squared scheme.
A more comprehensive comparative study was performed in [9]. Here using PPI
data from the GRID database [6], the majority, chi-squared, PRODISTIN, func-
tional flow and Functional Similarity Weight (FSW) methods were compared using
the MIPS FunCat classification scheme. Moreover, in a separate study in the same
paper, all of the aforementioned algorithms and the MRF scheme of Deng et al. [11]
were compared using the GO annotations. As in the study in [11], sensitivity-
specificity plots were used as a comparative tool; however, in the FunCat scheme,
only informative functional categories were used. A functional category f 2 F is
informative if jfv 2 Va W f 2 .v/gj 30 (at least 30 proteins are annotated
with f ). Based on the FunCat scheme, the results indicate that the PRODISTIN and
FSW schemes significantly outperform the others, with FSW a clear winner. Of the
other methods included in the study, the majority rule performs slightly better than
the rest but the difference is considerably less than that between majority and FSW.
There is no significant difference in performance between any of the other methods.
The MRF method was included in the comparison in [9] based on the GO scheme
and, with the exception of the FSW approach performed best in each of the three
basic categories of biochemical function, cellular role, and subcellular location. No
clear difference could be observed between the performances of any of the other
methods in any of the three schemes. As pointed out in the recent survey paper [35],
given that the FSW method was proposed by the authors of [9], their study can only
be viewed as an independent comparison of the methods other than FSW. As such, it
provides evidence that the MRF scheme outperforms other competing schemes, with
little significant difference between the results for majority, chi-squared, PRODIS-
TIN, and functional flow.
It should be noted here that another comparative study was presented in [27]
based on a different metric to the specificity-sensitivity plot described above. In this
paper, functional flow was compared to Genmulticut – a variation of the optimisa-
tion approach described in [38] – the majority rule, and the chi-squared scheme.
The PPI data used were obtained from the GRID database [6], while the FunCat
annotations were used; however, only categories at the second level in the hierarchy
were used in contrast to the study in [9], which employed the finest classification
in the FunCat database. In [27], to evaluate the performance of the algorithms, the
annotated proteins in Va were divided into two sets, Va1 , Va2 , and the functional
annotations of the proteins in Va1 were used to predict functions for Va2 using the
top-ranked functions as in (18.2). A ROC curve of true positives against false posi-
tives was then generated as the parameter m was varied. A prediction for a protein
was deemed true if more than half of the predicted function are true and false oth-
erwise. It is not easy to rigorously justify this definition of true and false positive
18 Inference of Protein Function from the Structure of Interaction Networks 459
and there are clear problems with it. For instance, a protein which has only been
annotated with three functions can never generate a true positive if we choose to
predict seven functions per protein, even if the three true functions are the top three
ranked functions by the method. This is clearly unsatisfactory, and adapting the stan-
dard ROC approach along the lines suggested above appears to be a preferable way
to proceed. On a straight comparison, functional flow and majority were seen to
perform better than the chi-squared and the Genmulticut methods, with functional
flow performing marginally better than the majority method.
The aim of this chapter has been to introduce the biological problem of PFP, pro-
vide a starting point into the literature on this topic, and highlight potential areas
of research for applied graph theorists to which this problem gives rise. For this
reason, we have provided the biological background to the problem, describing the
difficulties inherent in giving a consistent, unambiguous meaning to the term “func-
tion” and outlining how some of the main databases of functional annotation deal
with these issues. We have also provided a formal abstract framework for discussing
network-based function prediction and have formulated the major algorithms in the
literature within this framework using common notation throughout. In this final
section, we briefly discuss some general issues with the problem of PFP itself and
with the various algorithms described here.
First of all, it has been noted that there is a definite need for a systematic and uni-
form evaluation of the performance of the different techniques [9]. Currently, most
comparisons in the published literature, such as those discussed above in Sect. 18.6,
appear in papers by authors describing and, understandably, supporting their own
method and a comprehensive, independent comparison would be very welcome.
Also, the PPI data and the functional classification scheme used for evaluation
purposes vary from one paper to another making it yet more difficult to make an
objective judgement on the relative performance of the algorithms. To further com-
plicate the situation, a set of universally accepted measures that can be used to rate
performance is also lacking at the moment, with different measures again being used
in different papers. The sensitivity and specificity measures discussed above seem
to have attained some level of acceptance but it is far from universal at the time of
writing. Furthermore, the measures that have been proposed should be subjected to
a more thorough theoretical analysis so as to understand precisely what they have to
say about algorithm performance.
One fundamental issue that applies to all of the algorithms discussed here has
been previously highlighted in [11]. All current approaches, and the framework out-
lined in Sect. 18.3 assume that the annotations of the annotated proteins in Va are
complete. This assumption is clearly questionable as many proteins in Va may pos-
sess functions other than those in the list specified by the current annotation .
460 O. Mason et al.
Acknowledgements This work was partially supported by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) grant
03/RP1/I382 and the Irish Higher Education Authority (HEA) PRTLI Network Mathematics grant.
Neither Science Foundation Ireland nor the Higher Education Authority is responsible for any use
of data appearing in this publication.
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Chapter 19
Applications of Perfect Matchings in Chemistry
Damir Vukičević
19.1 Introduction
D. Vukičević ()
Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Split, Nikole Tesle 12,
HR-21000 Split, Croatia
e-mail: [email protected]
the first one defines matching as a set of edges and the latter one as a graph. However,
these two notions are often incorrectly identified.
Kekulé structure is the term standardly used for perfect matchings in the chem-
ical literature. Throughout this chapter the terms perfect matchings and Kekulé
structures are used: perfect matchings in more mathematical contexts and Kekulé
structures in more chemical contexts.
In this chapter, several important mathematical methods that give relevant chem-
ical information are illustrated:
1. An algorithm that establishes the existence of the perfect matching (or Kekulé
structure in graph) is presented. The existence of Kekulé structure(s) of some
chemical compound gives important information about its stability. It is well
known that benzenoids that have Kekulé structures (so-called aromatic ben-
zenoids) can be stable, while those that do not have Kekulé structures are not
stable.
2. Algorithms for the enumeration of Kekulé structures are presented. It is described
how the number of perfect matchings of graphs (and some of their subgraphs) can
be used in chemistry. Three applications are described: estimation of resonance
energy, estimation of -electron energy, and estimation of bond lengths.
3. Algebraic Kekulé structures are presented and chemical information incorpo-
rated in them is analyzed. Also, the information content of algebraic Kekulé and
classic Kekulé structures is compared.
4. Possibilities of coding and storing information about Kekulé structures are
presented.
5. Several classification methods of Kekulé structures are analyzed. It is shown that
classifications obtained by these methods correlate well with the chemical sig-
nificance of Kekulé structures.
6. A resonance graph is presented and its application in nanotechnology is com-
mented.
The main goal of this chapter is to present a multidisciplinary study of Kekulé
structures. A dominant role is played by three sciences: mathematics, chemistry, and
computer science. Models presented here give an insight into the nature of some
chemical compounds. The most interesting feature of these models is the possibility
to predict the properties of chemical compounds that have never existed nor been
synthesized. Hence, this theory gives us a glimpse beyond our real world, a glimpse
into the world of almost infinite possibilities.
Here, we present only a very limited scope of mathematical analyses and possi-
ble chemical applications of this research. Much other information about chemical
structures can be extracted from the enumeration and classification of Kekulé struc-
tures. Therefore, Kekulé structures attracted much attention in both the mathemat-
ical (see [1] and references within) and chemical literature (see [2] and references
within).
Remark 1. Note that loops are not included in any matching, hence they are of no
interest for matching theory. Therefore throughout this chapter by the word graph,
we imply loopless graph.
19 Applications of Perfect Matchings in Chemistry 465
Let us start by saying a few words about enumeration and existence of perfect
matchings. As described in the following sections, existence and number of perfect
matchings of a molecular graph (and some of its subgraphs) are used to give very
good estimates of much chemically relevant data. Existence of perfect matchings
can be determined in polynomial time [3] using the Hungarian method. In order to
present this method, we need the concept of the enlarged path. Let M be any match-
ing in graph G: An M -alternated path is a path whose edges alternate in sets M and
EnM: An M -alternated path is an M -augmented path if its first and last vertex are
not covered by M:
Let us describe the Hungarian method algorithm [3, 4] for bipartite graphs:
This algorithm can be easily modified [4] such that it solves the problem for all
graphs. Unfortunately, enumeration of perfect matchings is an NP-hard problem.
Simple (but nonpolynomial) recursive algorithms that enumerate all perfect match-
ings in graphs are based on the following theorems.
Theorem 1. Let G be a graph and uv 2 E .G/ :Then, the number .G/ of match-
ings of G is
.G/ D .G u v/ C .G uv/ :
Proof. The first summand is the number of perfect matchings M such that uv 2 M
and the second summand is the number of perfect matchings M such that uv … M:
t
u
Proof. Trivial. t
u
These recursive algorithms are very efficient for small graphs, but inefficient for
large graphs. Unfortunately, it can be shown that in general there is no efficient
466 D. Vukičević
8 !
ˆ
ˆ 1; .i; j / 2 E G I
< !
aij D 1; .j; i / 2 E G I
ˆ
:̂
0; otherwise.
!
Denote by G the directed graph obtained from G by replacing each edge ij by a
!
pair of antiparallel edges .i; j / and .j; i / : An even cycle cover of G is a collection
!
S C of even directed cycles C in G such that every vertex of G is contained in
exactly one cycle in S C:
Let us prove:
!
X n1
Y
det As G D sgn ./ ai;.i / ; ./
2Sn i D0
Y
Since ai;.i / D 1 and sgn j D 1; it follows that contributes 1 to ./ :u
t
i 2Vj
which implies
e D v C f 1:
f
X 1
f ci c C e c C .v C f 1/ .mod 2/
i D0
Hence, c C v is odd. t
u
Proof. Let us assume that G is connected since otherwise we may treat each com-
ponent separately. We prove the claim by induction on the number of edges. If G is
a tree, then any orientation is Pfaffian. Now, let G be a graph such that jEj jV j :
There is an edge e such that its deletion merges two faces in one. By induction hy-
pothesis graph Gne has a Pfaffian orientation. It is sufficient to orient e in such way
that one of these two faces has an odd number of edges oriented clockwise (the same
will automatically hold for the other one, too). t
u
3 23
3 23
1 1 1 1
kink
1 ... p
1 ... p
2 ...
...
q q
Let G be any graph. Denote by .G/ the number of Kekulé structures. Also denote
by 3 .G/ the number of unordered pairs of Kekulé structures M1 and M2 such that
symmetric difference M1 M2 is the cycle of length 6 and by 5 .G/ the number
470 D. Vukičević
2
RE .0:841eV 3 .G/ C 0:336eV 5 .G// :
.G/
Electrons that create Kekulé structures are called -electrons. Total -electron energy
E can be estimated by [14, 15]:
p
E 0:7578 2 jEj jV j C 0:1899 jV j .G/jV j=2 :
One of the most interesting results is the classical result of L. Pauling [16] that
estimates bond length Duv between two adjacent atoms u and v using the value of
Puv D .G uv/ = .G/ as input:
1:84 Puv
Duv D D0 .D0 D1 / ;
0:84 Puv C 1
Let G be a benzenoid graph with at least one Kekulé structure. Let K be a Kekulé
structure in G: Denote by SF the set of all congruent hexagonal faces in G: The
algebraic Kekulé structure [17] AKS .K/ is the function AKS .K/ W SF ! N0 that
assigns to each face F 2 SF number of edges in K that are on its boundary in such
a way that edges that are on the boundary of the infinite face and F are counted
twice.
1
http://www.iupac.org/goldbook/R05333.pdf.
19 Applications of Perfect Matchings in Chemistry 471
Remark 2. The chemical motivation for such a definition is the following: each
double bond consists of two -electrons. Hence, if it belongs to a single hexagon,
we may assume that both electrons belong to this hexagon. If it is on the border of
two hexagons, then we may assume that each hexagon contains one of these two
electrons. In this way distribution of all electrons to faces is described which gives
chemically relevant data.
This concept is also defined for fullerenes. Fullerenes are allotropic modifica-
tions of carbon. In chemistry, they are defined as closed carbon-cage molecules
containing only pentagonal and hexagonal rings [18]. In mathematics fullerene
graphs (we call them fullerenes also for the sake of brevity) are defined as planar
3-regular 3-connected graphs in which all faces are pentagons and hexagons. Note
that fullerenes don’t have an irrelevant outer face. Hence for each Kekulé structure
K; AKS .K/ assigns to each face the number of edges in K: Algebraic Kekulé struc-
tures are also analyzed for nanotubes, phenylenes, and so on, but here we restrict
our attention to benzenoids and fullerenes.
Catacondensed benzenoids are benzenoids in which all vertices are on the outer
face and pericondensed benzenoids are benzenoids that contain internal vertices
(vertices that are not on the outer face). It can be easily seen that
5 5
3 3 3 3
Fig. 19.3 Two Kekulé
structures that correspond to 5 5
the same algebraic Kekulé
structure
472 D. Vukičević
Note that G has at least one pendant hexagon H1 (a hexagon adjacent to only one
other hexagon H2 ): Note that AKS .K1 / .H1 / D AKS .K2 / .H1 / can only be 4; 5,
or 6 and in each case arrangement of edges in K is fixed. Let G 0 be a benzenoid that
has all faces the same as G, but has no face H1 andlet K10 and K20 be restrictions
of K1 and K2 to G: It can be easily seen that AKS K10 D AKS K20 : From the
inductive hypothesis, it follows that K10 D K20 ; but then K1 D K2 which is a
contradiction. t
u
and by
gK .H / D AKS .K/ .H / mod 2
Moreover, when n tends to infinity, then ratio tf n= jEj tends to 5=12: Let us present
the results of paper [22]. Square grid Rpq is defined as a Cartesian product Pp Pq
of paths Pp and Pq with p and q vertices, respectively. Recall that Cartesian product
G1 G2 of graphs G1 and G2 is defined by
It is proved in [22]
j thatk jthe total
k forcing number of rectangular grid Rpq is
p1 q1
.p 1/ .q 1/ 2 2
: Also total forcing numbers of benzenoids [23]
and toroidal polyhexes have been analyzed [24].
It is well known in chemistry that all Kekulé structures are not of the same signifi-
cance. There are five simple purely graph-theoretical measures that can well predict
the importance of Kekulé structures in benzenoids and fullerenes. These five mea-
sures are [25, 26]:
1. Number of -electrons belonging to hexagons (applicable only for fullerenes).
2. Number of conjugated hexagons.
3. Degree of freedom.
4. Number of independent conjugated hexagons.
5. Number of independent conjugated cycles.
Let us explain these notions. In chemistry edges contained in the observed Kekulé
structures are called double bonds and others are called single bonds. A conjugated
cycle is a cycle in which single and double bonds alternate and a conjugated hexagon
is a conjugated cycle of length 6. We say that two cycles are independent if they
don’t have joint vertices. The degree of freedom of a Kekulé structure is the smallest
number of edges that completely determine the Kekulé structure. More precisely,
the forcing set of Kekulé structure K is the set K 0 K such that K is the only
Kekulé structure that contains K 0 : The degree of freedom is the cardinality of the
smallest forcing set. The number of -electrons that belong to a hexagon in a Kekulé
structure K is assumed to be
X
AKS .K/ .H / :
H is hexagon
Remark 3. Note that the forcing set identifies a single Kekulé structure while total
forcing set identifies all Kekulé structures.
474 D. Vukičević
Fig. 19.4
Buckminsterfullerene
Let G be a planar graph with at least one Kekulé structure. Resonance graph
R D R .G/ of G is a graph whose vertices are Kekulé structures and two Kekulé
structures K1 and K2 are adjacent if K1 K2 is a face of G. Especially, if we
observe fullerenes or benzenoids, then we define that K1 and K2 are adjacent if
K1 K2 is a hexagon. The resonance graph has been independently introduced
by several authors [30–32] and by Zhang et al. under the name Z-transformation
[33]. These graphs have been extensively studied in mathematics and chemistry.
It has been proved that resonance graphs of catacondensed benzenoids are con-
nected, bipartite, and that they are either a path or have girth four. Also, it has been
proved that the resonance graph of catacondensed benzenoid has a Hamilton path
[34]. One of the most interesting results is that the resonance graphs of catacon-
densed benzenoid graphs are medians [35]. Let us explain the concept of the median
graphs.
The interval I .u; v/ consists of all vertices on the shortest paths between u and v:
A median of vertices u; v and w is a vertex that lies in I .u; v/ \ I .u; w/ \ I .v; w/ :
A connected graph is a median graph if every triple of its vertices has a unique
median.
This result has been generalized and published in the paper [36]. These results
are very important, because median graphs have been extensively studied (see ref-
erences in [36]). Another interesting consequence of these results is the fact that
every resonance graph can be isometrically embedded into a hypercube. These
results have been a basis for the creation of software for visualization of the res-
onance graph of the benzenoid graph. This software can be downloaded from the
Web page.2
2
http://www-mat.pfmb.uni-mb.si/personal/vesel/visual/visualHBG.html.
476 D. Vukičević
Using the computer [38] it has been found that there are 932 out of 2,780 vertices
in the main component of RI . Then, it was discovered that 17,454 out of 52,168
vertices are in the main component of R: Denote by chm .n/, ichm .n/, iccm .n/,
and df m .n/ the numbers of Kekulé structures in the main component that have n
conjugated hexagons, maximally n independent conjugated hexagons, maximally
n, independent conjugated cycles, and degree of freedom equal to n, respectively.
Denote analogously by cho .n/, icho .n/, icco .n/, and df o .n/, numbers of Kekulé
structures that are not in the main component.
478 D. Vukičević
Tables 19.1–19.4 show that the term main component is indeed justified.
It can be readily seen that almost all very significant Kekulé structures are within
the main component, while almost all not very significant Kekulé structures are
outside the main component.
Let G be a connected graph with at least one Kekulé structure. Anti-Kekulé set
E 0 E is the set such that G E 0 is connected, but has no Kekulé structures. Anti-
Kekulé number akn .G/ of graph G is the smallest cardinality of an anti-Kekulé set.
If there is no such set, then akn .G/ D 1: An anti-Kekulé set can be observed as
the measure of the aromaticity of the graph. Anti-Kekulé numbers of fullerenes C20
[39] and C60 and C70 have been determined.
A very important class of fullerenes are leapfrog fullerenes. Leapfrog fullerenes
are fullerenes obtained from other smaller fullerenes by leapfrog transformation.
Let us explain the concept of leapfrog transformation [18, 40].
To define the leapfrog transformation of a fullerene we have to introduce stella-
tion and dualization. Stellation, S t, of a face is achieved by adding a new vertex in
its center followed by connecting it with each boundary vertex. It is also called a
Table 19.3 Distribution of n iccm .n/ icco .n/ 100 iccm .n/ =
maximal number of .iccm .n/ C icco .n//
independent conjugated
cycles among Kekulé 4 0 1;645 0.00
structures 5 0 8;675 0.00
6 80 12;661 0.63
7 4;702 11;733 28.61
8 8;800 0 100.00
9 3;872 0 100.00
capping operation or triangulation. When all the faces of a graph are thus operated
on, it is referred to as an omnicapping operation and the resulting graph is denoted
by S t .G/. Dualization, Du, of a graph is built as follows. Locate a point in the cen-
ter of each face. Join two such points if their corresponding faces have a common
edge. The new edge is called the edge dual. Leapfrog, Le, is a composite operation
that can be written as: Le .G/ D Du .S t .G//.
In paper [18], it has been proved that the anti-Kekulé number of all fullerenes
is either 3 or 4 and that for each leapfrog fullerene the anti-Kekulé number can be
established by observing a finite number of cases not depending on the size of the
fullerene.
480 D. Vukičević
19.9 Conclusion
In this chapter, several mathematical methods that provide chemically relevant data
have been illustrated. There are many more methods [1] and chemical applications
of perfect matchings [2]. There are whole theories about perfect matchings in math-
ematics, chemistry, and computer science. Also, there are a lot of problems that are
still open. Probably, the hardest and the most interesting one is:
Provide an algorithm for efficient enumeration of the Kekulé structure of any
graph or prove that such an algorithm does not exist.
This problem is directly related to one of the most important problems of theo-
retical computer science, namely: is it true that P D NP ‹
A simpler problem is to analyze different classes of chemically relevant nonpla-
nar compounds (i.e., some classes on nanotubes with specified types of junctions)
and to try to provide an efficient method for enumeration of Kekulé structures for
these types of chemical compounds.
Classification of Kekulé structures is also based on some nonpolynomial algo-
rithms (i.e., an algorithm for finding the degree of freedom). Hence, it is of interest
to try to find as efficient algorithms as possible for some interesting classes of these
structures.
Kekulé structures probably hide some still unknown information about cor-
responding chemical compounds. Hence, it is of interest to further study these
structures.
In conclusion, we may say that Kekulé structures play an important role in chem-
istry and that this fact provides a series of interesting issues in mathematics. Many
relevant problems are solved and many remain open. Many theoretical results have
been obtained and a lot of them are open challenges.
Acknowledgments Partial support of the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports of the
Republic of Croatia is gratefully acknowledged (grant no. 177–0000000-0884 and grant no.
037-0000000-2779).
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Index
G X, 320 centre, 50
G e, 320 centroid, 55
G v, 320 characteristic polynomial, 258
D .G/, 320 characteristic polynomials, 321
9rn.G/, 322 chord diagram, 269
8rn.G/, 321 signed, 269
sim.G; H /, 320 chordal graph, 55
k-connected, 221 chromatic distance, 352
n-cube, 56 chromatic metric, 352
r-regular graphs, 327 chromatic polynomial, 275
G .n; 12 /, 323 chromatic polynomials, 321
chromatically alien, 337, 340
chromatically related, 337, 340
circle graph, 274
a.e., 322 circuit, 221
active edge circuit partition polynomial, 270, 282, 283
externally, 225, 247 clique number, 348
internally, 225, 247 cocycle, 221
adversary reconstruction number, 321 -coloring, 232
alien, 337, 340, 352 complement of class, 338
ally reconstruction number, 322 complex
almost every, 322 face, 240
anticircuit, 231 facet, 240
automorphism group, 322 pure, 240
avalanche, 237 simplicial, 240
average distance, 58 configuration
critical, 237
ice, 236
bad coloring polynomial, 234 level, 237
symmetric function extension, 276 of a system, 237
stable, 237
ˇ invariant, 242
weight, 237
boundary components, 268
convex hull, 64
bouquet graph, 269
convexity, 64
bridge, 221
convolution, 248
cover polynomial, 287
critical configuration polynomial, 238
caterpillar, 329 cut, 221
cellular embedding, 267 -edge, see bridge
483
484 Index
U-polynomial, 276
W-polynomial, 276
unicyclic graphs, 329
weight system, 281
universal reconstruction number, 321