Kernels for Below-Upper-Bound Parameterizations of the Hitting Set and Directed Dominating Set Problems

In the {\sc Hitting Set} problem, we are given a collection $\cal F$ of subsets of a ground set $V$ and an integer $p$, and asked whether $V$ has a $p$-element subset that intersects each set in $\cal F$. We consider two parameterizations of {\sc Hitting Set} below tight upper bounds: $p=m-k$ and $p=n-k$. In both cases $k$ is the parameter. We prove that the first parameterization is fixed-parameter tractable, but has no polynomial kernel unless coNP$\subseteq$NP/poly. The second parameterization is W[1]-complete, but the introduction of an additional parameter, the degeneracy of the hypergraph $H=(V,{\cal F})$, makes the problem not only fixed-parameter tractable, but also one with a linear kernel. Here the degeneracy of $H=(V,{\cal F})$ is the minimum integer $d$ such that for each $X\subset V$ the hypergraph with vertex set $V\setminus X$ and edge set containing all edges of $\cal F$ without vertices in $X$, has a vertex of degree at most $d.$ In {\sc Nonblocker} ({\sc Directed Nonblocker}), we are given an undirected graph (a directed graph) $G$ on $n$ vertices and an integer $k$, and asked whether $G$ has a set $X$ of $n-k$ vertices such that for each vertex $y\not\in X$ there is an edge (arc) from a vertex in $X$ to $y$. {\sc Nonblocker} can be viewed as a special case of {\sc Directed Nonblocker} (replace an undirected graph by a symmetric digraph). Dehne et al. (Proc. SOFSEM 2006) proved that {\sc Nonblocker} has a linear-order kernel. We obtain a linear-order kernel for {\sc Directed Nonblocker}

Clique number of tournaments

We introduce the notion of clique number of a tournament and investigate its relation with the dichromatic number. In particular, it permits defining \dic-bounded classes of tournaments, which is the paper's main topic

Dynamic Data Structures for Series Parallel Digraphs

We consider the problem of dynamically maintaining general series parallel directed acyclic graphs (GSP dags), two-terminal series parallel directed acyclic graphs (TTSP dags) and looped series parallel directed graphs (looped SP digraphs). We present data structures for updating (by both inserting and deleting either a group of edges or vertices) GSP dags, TTSP clags and looped SP digraphs of m edges and n vertices in O( log n) worst-case time. The time required to check whether there is a path between two given vertices is O(log n), while a path of length k can be traced out in O(k + log n) time. For GSP and TTSP dags, our data structures are able to report a regular expression describing all the paths between two vertices x and y in O(h + log n), where h ≤ n is the total number of vertices which are contained in paths from x to y. Although GSP dags can have as many as O(n2) edges, we use an implicit representation which requires only O(n) space. Motivations for studying dynamic graphs arise in several areas, such as communication networks, Incremental compilation environments and the design of very high level languages, while the dynamic maintenance of series parallel graphs is also relevant in reducible flow diagrams

Uphill & Downhill Domination in Graphs and Related Graph Parameters.

Placing degree constraints on the vertices of a path allows the definitions of uphill and downhill paths. Specifically, we say that a path π = v1, v2,...vk+1 is a downhill path if for every i, 1 ≤ i ≤ k, deg(vi) ≥ deg(vi+1). Conversely, a path π = u1, u2,...uk+1 is an uphill path if for every i, 1 ≤ i ≤ k, deg(ui) ≤ deg(ui+1). We investigate graphical parameters related to downhill and uphill paths in graphs. For example, a downhill path set is a set P of vertex disjoint downhill paths such that every vertex v ∈ V belongs to at least one path in P, and the downhill path number is the minimum cardinality of a downhill path set of G. For another example, the downhill domination number of a graph G is defined to be the minimum cardinality of a set S of vertices such that every vertex in V lies on a downhill path from some vertex in S. The uphill domination number is defined as expected. We determine relationships among these invariants and other graphical parameters related to downhill and uphill paths. We also give a polynomial time algorithm to find a minimum downhill dominating set and a minimum uphill dominating set for any graph