230 research outputs found
Bounds on the Game Transversal Number in Hypergraphs
Let be a hypergraph with vertex set and edge set of order
\nH = |V| and size \mH = |E|. A transversal in is a subset of vertices
in that has a nonempty intersection with every edge of . A vertex hits
an edge if it belongs to that edge. The transversal game played on involves
of two players, \emph{Edge-hitter} and \emph{Staller}, who take turns choosing
a vertex from . Each vertex chosen must hit at least one edge not hit by the
vertices previously chosen. The game ends when the set of vertices chosen
becomes a transversal in . Edge-hitter wishes to minimize the number of
vertices chosen in the game, while Staller wishes to maximize it. The
\emph{game transversal number}, , of is the number of vertices
chosen when Edge-hitter starts the game and both players play optimally. We
compare the game transversal number of a hypergraph with its transversal
number, and also present an important fact concerning the monotonicity of
, that we call the Transversal Continuation Principle. It is known that
if is a hypergraph with all edges of size at least~, and is not a
-cycle, then \tau_g(H) \le \frac{4}{11}(\nH+\mH); and if is a
(loopless) graph, then \tau_g(H) \le \frac{1}{3}(\nH + \mH + 1). We prove
that if is a -uniform hypergraph, then \tau_g(H) \le \frac{5}{16}(\nH +
\mH), and if is -uniform, then \tau_g(H) \le \frac{71}{252}(\nH +
\mH).Comment: 23 pages
Dominating sets in Kneser graphs
This thesis investigates dominating sets in Kneser graphs as well as a selection of other topics related to graph domination. Dominating sets in Kneser graphs, especially those of minimum size, often correspond to interesting combinatorial incidence structures.
We begin with background on the dominating set problem and a review of known bounds, focusing on algebraic bounds. We then consider this problem in the Kneser graphs, discussing basic results and previous work. We compute the domination number for a few of the Kneser graphs with the aid of some original results. We also investigate the connections between Kneser graph domination and the theory of combinatorial designs, and introduce a new type of design that generalizes the properties of dominating sets in Kneser graphs. We then consider dominating sets in the vector space analogue of Kneser graphs. We end by highlighting connections between the dominating set problem and other areas of combinatorics. Conjectures and open problems abound
Inapproximability of H-Transversal/Packing
Given an undirected graph G=(V,E) and a fixed pattern graph H with k vertices, we consider the H-Transversal and H-Packing problems. The former asks to find the smallest subset S of vertices such that the subgraph induced by V - S does not have H as a subgraph, and the latter asks to find the maximum number of pairwise disjoint k-subsets S1, ..., Sm such that the subgraph induced by each Si has H as a subgraph.
We prove that if H is 2-connected, H-Transversal and H-Packing are almost as hard to approximate as general k-Hypergraph Vertex Cover and k-Set Packing, so it is NP-hard to approximate them within a factor of Omega(k) and Omega(k / polylog(k)) respectively. We also show that there is a 1-connected H where H-Transversal admits an O(log k)-approximation algorithm, so that the connectivity requirement cannot be relaxed from 2 to 1. For a special case of H-Transversal where H is a (family of) cycles, we mention the implication of our result to the related Feedback Vertex Set problem, and give a different hardness proof for directed graphs
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