Nonbipartite Dulmage-Mendelsohn Decomposition for Berge Duality

The Dulmage-Mendelsohn decomposition is a classical canonical decomposition in matching theory applicable for bipartite graphs, and is famous not only for its application in the field of matrix computation, but also for providing a prototypal structure in matroidal optimization theory. The Dulmage-Mendelsohn decomposition is stated and proved using the two color classes, and therefore generalizing this decomposition for nonbipartite graphs has been a difficult task. In this paper, we obtain a new canonical decomposition that is a generalization of the Dulmage-Mendelsohn decomposition for arbitrary graphs, using a recently introduced tool in matching theory, the basilica decomposition. Our result enables us to understand all known canonical decompositions in a unified way. Furthermore, we apply our result to derive a new theorem regarding barriers. The duality theorem for the maximum matching problem is the celebrated Berge formula, in which dual optimizers are known as barriers. Several results regarding maximal barriers have been derived by known canonical decompositions, however no characterization has been known for general graphs. In this paper, we provide a characterization of the family of maximal barriers in general graphs, in which the known results are developed and unified

Recognizing Members of the Tournament Equilibrium Set is NP-hard

A recurring theme in the mathematical social sciences is how to select the "most desirable" elements given a binary dominance relation on a set of alternatives. Schwartz's tournament equilibrium set (TEQ) ranks among the most intriguing, but also among the most enigmatic, tournament solutions that have been proposed so far in this context. Due to its unwieldy recursive definition, little is known about TEQ. In particular, its monotonicity remains an open problem up to date. Yet, if TEQ were to satisfy monotonicity, it would be a very attractive tournament solution concept refining both the Banks set and Dutta's minimal covering set. We show that the problem of deciding whether a given alternative is contained in TEQ is NP-hard.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure

Distance Constraint Satisfaction Problems

We study the complexity of constraint satisfaction problems for templates $\Gamma$ that are first-order definable in $(\Bbb Z; succ)$, the integers with the successor relation. Assuming a widely believed conjecture from finite domain constraint satisfaction (we require the tractability conjecture by Bulatov, Jeavons and Krokhin in the special case of transitive finite templates), we provide a full classification for the case that Gamma is locally finite (i.e., the Gaifman graph of $\Gamma$ has finite degree). We show that one of the following is true: The structure Gamma is homomorphically equivalent to a structure with a d-modular maximum or minimum polymorphism and $\mathrm{CSP}(\Gamma)$ can be solved in polynomial time, or $\Gamma$ is homomorphically equivalent to a finite transitive structure, or $\mathrm{CSP}(\Gamma)$ is NP-complete.Comment: 35 pages, 2 figure

Minimal Stable Sets in Tournaments

We propose a systematic methodology for defining tournament solutions as extensions of maximality. The central concepts of this methodology are maximal qualified subsets and minimal stable sets. We thus obtain an infinite hierarchy of tournament solutions, which encompasses the top cycle, the uncovered set, the Banks set, the minimal covering set, the tournament equilibrium set, the Copeland set, and the bipartisan set. Moreover, the hierarchy includes a new tournament solution, the minimal extending set, which is conjectured to refine both the minimal covering set and the Banks set.Comment: 29 pages, 4 figures, changed conten