Density version of the Ramsey problem and the directed Ramsey problem

We discuss a variant of the Ramsey and the directed Ramsey problem. First, consider a complete graph on $n$ vertices and a two-coloring of the edges such that every edge is colored with at least one color and the number of bicolored edges $|E_{RB}|$ is given. The aim is to find the maximal size $f$ of a monochromatic clique which is guaranteed by such a coloring. Analogously, in the second problem we consider semicomplete digraph on $n$ vertices such that the number of bi-oriented edges $|E_{bi}|$ is given. The aim is to bound the size $F$ of the maximal transitive subtournament that is guaranteed by such a digraph. Applying probabilistic and analytic tools and constructive methods we show that if $|E_{RB}|=|E_{bi}| = p{n\choose 2}$, ($p\in [0,1)$), then $f, F < C_p\log(n)$ where $C_p$ only depend on $p$, while if $m={n \choose 2} - |E_{RB}| <n^{3/2}$ then $f= \Theta (\frac{n^2}{m+n})$. The latter case is strongly connected to Tur\'an-type extremal graph theory.Comment: 17 pages. Further lower bound added in case $|E_{RB}|=|E_{bi}| = p{n\choose 2}

Compression via Matroids: A Randomized Polynomial Kernel for Odd Cycle Transversal

The Odd Cycle Transversal problem (OCT) asks whether a given graph can be made bipartite by deleting at most $k$ of its vertices. In a breakthrough result Reed, Smith, and Vetta (Operations Research Letters, 2004) gave a \BigOh(4^kkmn) time algorithm for it, the first algorithm with polynomial runtime of uniform degree for every fixed $k$. It is known that this implies a polynomial-time compression algorithm that turns OCT instances into equivalent instances of size at most \BigOh(4^k), a so-called kernelization. Since then the existence of a polynomial kernel for OCT, i.e., a kernelization with size bounded polynomially in $k$, has turned into one of the main open questions in the study of kernelization. This work provides the first (randomized) polynomial kernelization for OCT. We introduce a novel kernelization approach based on matroid theory, where we encode all relevant information about a problem instance into a matroid with a representation of size polynomial in $k$. For OCT, the matroid is built to allow us to simulate the computation of the iterative compression step of the algorithm of Reed, Smith, and Vetta, applied (for only one round) to an approximate odd cycle transversal which it is aiming to shrink to size $k$. The process is randomized with one-sided error exponentially small in $k$, where the result can contain false positives but no false negatives, and the size guarantee is cubic in the size of the approximate solution. Combined with an \BigOh(\sqrt{\log n})-approximation (Agarwal et al., STOC 2005), we get a reduction of the instance to size \BigOh(k^{4.5}), implying a randomized polynomial kernelization.Comment: Minor changes to agree with SODA 2012 version of the pape

Packing Arc-Disjoint 4-Cycles in Oriented Graphs

Given a directed graph G and a positive integer k, the Arc Disjoint r-Cycle Packing problem asks whether G has k arc-disjoint r-cycles. We show that, for each integer r ? 3, Arc Disjoint r-Cycle Packing is NP-complete on oriented graphs with girth r. When r is even, the same result holds even when the input class is further restricted to be bipartite. On the positive side, focusing on r = 4 in oriented graphs, we study the complexity of the problem with respect to two parameterizations: solution size and vertex cover size. For the former, we give a cubic kernel with quadratic number of vertices. This is smaller than the compression size guaranteed by a reduction to the well-known 4-Set Packing. For the latter, we show fixed-parameter tractability using an unapparent integer linear programming formulation of an equivalent problem