Fixed points of Boolean networks, guessing graphs, and coding theory

n this paper, we are interested in the number of fixed points of functions $f:A^n\to A^n$ over a finite alphabet $A$ defined on a given signed digraph $D$. We first use techniques from network coding to derive some lower bounds on the number of fixed points that only depends on $D$. We then discover relationships between the number of fixed points of $f$ and problems in coding theory, especially the design of codes for the asymmetric channel. Using these relationships, we derive upper and lower bounds on the number of fixed points, which significantly improve those given in the literature. We also unveil some interesting behavior of the number of fixed points of functions with a given signed digraph when the alphabet varies. We finally prove that signed digraphs with more (disjoint) positive cycles actually do not necessarily have functions with more fixed points

Guessing Games on Triangle-free Graphs

9 pages, submitted to Electronic Journal of Combinatoric9 pages, submitted to Electronic Journal of CombinatoricThe guessing game introduced by Riis is a variant of the "guessing your own hats" game and can be played on any simple directed graph G on n vertices. For each digraph G, it is proved that there exists a unique guessing number gn(G) associated to the guessing game played on G. When we consider the directed edge to be bidirected, in other words, the graph G is undirected, Christofides and Markstr om introduced a method to bound the value of the guessing number from below using the fractional clique number Kf(G). In particular they showed gn(G) >= |V(G)| - Kf(G). Moreover, it is pointed out that equality holds in this bound if the underlying undirected graph G falls into one of the following categories: perfect graphs, cycle graphs or their complement. In this paper, we show that there are triangle-free graphs that have guessing numbers which do not meet the fractional clique cover bound. In particular, the famous triangle-free Higman-Sims graph has guessing number at least 77 and at most 78, while the bound given by fractional clique cover is 50