Scheduling of unit-length jobs with bipartite incompatibility graphs on four uniform machines

In the paper we consider the problem of scheduling $n$ identical jobs on 4 uniform machines with speeds $s_1 \geq s_2 \geq s_3 \geq s_4,$ respectively. Our aim is to find a schedule with a minimum possible length. We assume that jobs are subject to some kind of mutual exclusion constraints modeled by a bipartite incompatibility graph of degree $\Delta$, where two incompatible jobs cannot be processed on the same machine. We show that the problem is NP-hard even if $s_1=s_2=s_3$. If, however, $\Delta \leq 4$ and $s_1 \geq 12 s_2$, $s_2=s_3=s_4$, then the problem can be solved to optimality in time $O(n^{1.5})$. The same algorithm returns a solution of value at most 2 times optimal provided that $s_1 \geq 2s_2$. Finally, we study the case $s_1 \geq s_2 \geq s_3=s_4$ and give an $O(n^{1.5})$-time $32/15$-approximation algorithm in all such situations

Locally constrained homomorphisms on graphs of bounded treewidth and bounded degree.

A homomorphism from a graph G to a graph H is locally bijective, surjective, or injective if its restriction to the neighborhood of every vertex of G is bijective, surjective, or injective, respectively. We prove that the problems of testing whether a given graph G allows a homomorphism to a given graph H that is locally bijective, surjective, or injective, respectively, are NP-complete, even when G has pathwidth at most 5, 4 or 2, respectively, or when both G and H have maximum degree 3. We complement these hardness results by showing that the three problems are polynomial-time solvable if G has bounded treewidth and in addition G or H has bounded maximum degree

Algorithms and Complexity for Geodetic Sets on Planar and Chordal Graphs

We study the complexity of finding the geodetic number on subclasses of planar graphs and chordal graphs. A set S of vertices of a graph G is a geodetic set if every vertex of G lies in a shortest path between some pair of vertices of S. The Minimum Geodetic Set (MGS) problem is to find a geodetic set with minimum cardinality of a given graph. The problem is known to remain NP-hard on bipartite graphs, chordal graphs, planar graphs and subcubic graphs. We first study MGS on restricted classes of planar graphs: we design a linear-time algorithm for MGS on solid grids, improving on a 3-approximation algorithm by Chakraborty et al. (CALDAM, 2020) and show that MGS remains NP-hard even for subcubic partial grids of arbitrary girth. This unifies some results in the literature. We then turn our attention to chordal graphs, showing that MGS is fixed parameter tractable for inputs of this class when parameterized by their treewidth (which equals the clique number minus one). This implies a linear-time algorithm for k-trees, for fixed k. Then, we show that MGS is NP-hard on interval graphs, thereby answering a question of Ekim et al. (LATIN, 2012). As interval graphs are very constrained, to prove the latter result we design a rather sophisticated reduction technique to work around their inherent linear structure

Parameterized complexity of coloring problems: Treewidth versus vertex cover

AbstractWe compare the fixed parameter complexity of various variants of coloring problems (including List Coloring, Precoloring Extension, Equitable Coloring, L(p,1)-Labeling and Channel Assignment) when parameterized by treewidth and by vertex cover number. In most (but not all) cases we conclude that parametrization by the vertex cover number provides a significant drop in the complexity of the problems

Locally Constrained Homomorphisms on Graphs of Bounded Treewidth and Bounded Degree

A homomorphism from a graph G to a graph H is locally bijective, surjective, or injective if its restriction to the neighborhood of every vertex of G is bijective, surjective, or injective, respectively. We prove that the problems of testing whether a given graph G allows a homomorphism to a given graph H that is locally bijective, surjective, or injective, respectively, are NP-complete, even when G has pathwidth at most 5, 4 or 2, respectively, or when both G and H have maximum degree 3. We complement these hardness results by showing that the three problems are polynomial-time solvable if G has bounded treewidth and in addition G or H has bounded maximum degree