Graph Theory

This workshop focused on recent developments in graph theory. These included in particular recent breakthroughs on nowhere-zero flows in graphs, width parameters, applications of graph sparsity in algorithms, and matroid structure results

The topology of fullerenes

Fullerenes are carbon molecules that form polyhedral cages. Their bond structures are exactly the planar cubic graphs that have only pentagon and hexagon faces. Strikingly, a number of chemical properties of a fullerene can be derived from its graph structure. A rich mathematics of cubic planar graphs and fullerene graphs has grown since they were studied by Goldberg, Coxeter, and others in the early 20th century, and many mathematical properties of fullerenes have found simple and beautiful solutions. Yet many interesting chemical and mathematical problems in the field remain open. In this paper, we present a general overview of recent topological and graph theoretical developments in fullerene research over the past two decades, describing both solved and open problems. WIREs Comput Mol Sci 2015, 5:96–145. doi: 10.1002/wcms.1207 Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website

Study on Two Optimization Problems: Line Cover and Maximum Genus Embedding

In this thesis, we study two optimization problems which have a lot of important applications in diverse domains: Line Cover Problem (LCP) in Computational Geometry and Maximum Genus Embedding (MGE) in Topological Graph Theory. We study LCP whose decision version is known NP-Complete from the perspective of Parameterized Complexity, as well as classical techniques in Algorithm Design. In particular, we provide an exact algorithm in time O(n^3 2n) based on Dynamic Programming and initiate a dual problem of LCP in terms of Linear Programming Duality. We study the dual problem by applying approximation and kernelization, obtaining an approximation algorithm with ratio k - 1 and a kernel of size O(k^4). Then we survey related geometric properties on LCP. Finally we propose a Parameterized Algorithm to solve LCP with running time O*(k^k/1:35^k). We explore connections between the maximum genus of a graph and its cycle space consisting of fundamental cycles only. We revisit a known incorrect approach of finding a maximum genus embedding via computing a maximum pairing of intersected fundamental cycles with respect to an arbitrary spanning tree. We investigate the reason it failed and conclude it confused the concept of deficiency. Also, we characterize the upper-embeddablity of a graph in terms of maximum pairings of intersected fundamental cycles, i.e. a graph is upper-embeddable if and only if the number of maximum pairings of intersected fundamental cycles for any spanning tree is the same. Finally, we present a lower and an upper bound of the maximum number of vertex-disjoint cycles in a general graph, beta(G) - 2gammaM(G) and beta(G) - gammaM(G), only depending on maximum genus and cycle rank

Combinatorics

Combinatorics is a fundamental mathematical discipline which focuses on the study of discrete objects and their properties. The current workshop brought together researchers from diverse fields such as Extremal and Probabilistic Combinatorics, Discrete Geometry, Graph theory, Combiantorial Optimization and Algebraic Combinatorics for a fruitful interaction. New results, methods and developments and future challenges were discussed. This is a report on the meeting containing abstracts of the presentations and a summary of the problem session

Introduction to Louis Michel’s lattice geometry through group action

Group action analysis developed and applied mainly by Louis Michel to the study of N-dimensional periodic lattices is the central subject of the book. Di¬fferent basic mathematical tools currently used for the description of lattice geometry are introduced and illustrated through applications to crystal structures in two- and three-dimensional space, to abstract multi-dimensional lattices and to lattices associated with integrable dynamical systems. Starting from general Delone sets the authors turn to di¬fferent symmetry and topological classifications including explicit construction of orbifolds for two- and three-dimensional point and space groups

IST Austria Thesis

We describe arrangements of three-dimensional spheres from a geometrical and topological point of view. Real data (fitting this setup) often consist of soft spheres which show certain degree of deformation while strongly packing against each other. In this context, we answer the following questions: If we model a soft packing of spheres by hard spheres that are allowed to overlap, can we measure the volume in the overlapped areas? Can we be more specific about the overlap volume, i.e. quantify how much volume is there covered exactly twice, three times, or k times? What would be a good optimization criteria that rule the arrangement of soft spheres while making a good use of the available space? Fixing a particular criterion, what would be the optimal sphere configuration? The first result of this thesis are short formulas for the computation of volumes covered by at least k of the balls. The formulas exploit information contained in the order-k Voronoi diagrams and its closely related Level-k complex. The used complexes lead to a natural generalization into poset diagrams, a theoretical formalism that contains the order-k and degree-k diagrams as special cases. In parallel, we define different criteria to determine what could be considered an optimal arrangement from a geometrical point of view. Fixing a criterion, we find optimal soft packing configurations in 2D and 3D where the ball centers lie on a lattice. As a last step, we use tools from computational topology on real physical data, to show the potentials of higher-order diagrams in the description of melting crystals. The results of the experiments leaves us with an open window to apply the theories developed in this thesis in real applications

Combinatorial Optimization

Combinatorial Optimization is a very active field that benefits from bringing together ideas from different areas, e.g., graph theory and combinatorics, matroids and submodularity, connectivity and network flows, approximation algorithms and mathematical programming, discrete and computational geometry, discrete and continuous problems, algebraic and geometric methods, and applications. We continued the long tradition of triannual Oberwolfach workshops, bringing together the best researchers from the above areas, discovering new connections, and establishing new and deepening existing international collaborations