Relationship of kk-Bend and Monotonic ℓ\ell-Bend Edge Intersection Graphs of Paths on a Grid

If a graph $G$ can be represented by means of paths on a grid, such that each vertex of $G$ corresponds to one path on the grid and two vertices of $G$ are adjacent if and only if the corresponding paths share a grid edge, then this graph is called EPG and the representation is called EPG representation. A $k$-bend EPG representation is an EPG representation in which each path has at most $k$ bends. The class of all graphs that have a $k$-bend EPG representation is denoted by $B_k$. $B_\ell^m$ is the class of all graphs that have a monotonic (each path is ascending in both columns and rows) $\ell$-bend EPG representation. It is known that $B_k^m \subsetneqq B_k$ holds for $k=1$. We prove that $B_k^m \subsetneqq B_k$ holds also for $k \in \{2, 3, 5\}$ and for $k \geqslant 7$ by investigating the $B_k$-membership and $B_k^m$-membership of complete bipartite graphs. In particular we derive necessary conditions for this membership that have to be fulfilled by $m$, $n$ and $k$, where $m$ and $n$ are the number of vertices on the two partition classes of the bipartite graph. We conjecture that $B_{k}^{m} \subsetneqq B_{k}$ holds also for $k\in \{4,6\}$. Furthermore we show that $B_k \not\subseteq B_{2k-9}^m$ holds for all $k\geqslant 5$. This implies that restricting the shape of the paths can lead to a significant increase of the number of bends needed in an EPG representation. So far no bounds on the amount of that increase were known. We prove that $B_1 \subseteq B_3^m$ holds, providing the first result of this kind

Monotonic Representations of Outerplanar Graphs as Edge Intersection Graphs of Paths on a Grid

A graph $G$ is called an edge intersection graph of paths on a grid if there is a grid and there is a set of paths on this grid, such that the vertices of $G$ correspond to the paths and two vertices of $G$ are adjacent if and only if the corresponding paths share a grid edge. Such a representation is called an EPG representation of $G$. $B_{k}$ is the class of graphs for which there exists an EPG representation where every path has at most $k$ bends. The bend number $b(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the smallest natural number $k$ for which $G$ belongs to $B_k$. $B_{k}^{m}$ is the subclass of $B_k$ containing all graphs for which there exists an EPG representation where every path has at most $k$ bends and is monotonic, i.e. it is ascending in both columns and rows. The monotonic bend number $b^m(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the smallest natural number $k$ for which $G$ belongs to $B_k^m$. Edge intersection graphs of paths on a grid were introduced by Golumbic, Lipshteyn and Stern in 2009 and a lot of research has been done on them since then. In this paper we deal with the monotonic bend number of outerplanar graphs. We show that $b^m(G)\leqslant 2$ holds for every outerplanar graph $G$. Moreover, we characterize in terms of forbidden subgraphs the maximal outerplanar graphs and the cacti with (monotonic) bend number equal to $0$, $1$ and $2$. As a consequence we show that for any maximal outerplanar graph and any cactus a (monotonic) EPG representation with the smallest possible number of bends can be constructed in a time which is polynomial in the number of vertices of the graph

New special cases of the quadratic assignment problem with diagonally structured coefficient matrices

We consider new polynomially solvable cases of the well-known Quadratic Assignment Problem involving coefficient matrices with a special diagonal structure. By combining the new special cases with polynomially solvable special cases known in the literature we obtain a new and larger class of polynomially solvable special cases of the QAP where one of the two coefficient matrices involved is a Robinson matrix with an additional structural property: this matrix can be represented as a conic combination of cut matrices in a certain normal form. The other matrix is a conic combination of a monotone anti-Monge matrix and a down-benevolent Toeplitz matrix. We consider the recognition problem for the special class of Robinson matrices mentioned above and show that it can be solved in polynomial time

Optimizing the Incidences between Points and Arcs on a Circle

Projet PRAXITELEGiven a set P of 2n+1 points regularly spaced on a circle, a number pi for pairwise distinct points and a number alpha for pairwise distinct and fixed length arcs incident to points in P, the sum of incidences between alpha arcs and pi points, is optimized by contiguously assigning both arcs and points. An extension to negative incidences by considering $\pm 1$ weights on points is provided. Optimizing a special case of a bilinear form (Hardy, Littlewood and Pólya' theorem) as well as Circulant $\times$ anti-Monge QAP directly follow

Travelling salesman paths on Demidenko matrices

In the path version of the Travelling Salesman Problem (Path-TSP), a salesman is looking for the shortest Hamiltonian path through a set of n cities. The salesman has to start his journey at a given city s, visit every city exactly once, and finally end his trip at another given city t. In this paper we show that a special case of the Path-TSP with a Demidenko distance matrix is solvable in polynomial time. Demidenko distance matrices fulfill a particular condition abstracted from the convex Euclidian special case by Demidenko (1979) as an extension of an earlier work of Kalmanson (1975). We identify a number of crucial combinatorial properties of the optimal solution and design a dynamic programming approach with time complexity O(n6)

A Note on the Maximum of a certain Bilinear Form

In this note a generalization of a result by Hardy, Littlewood and P'olya (1926) is derived on computing the maximum of a certain bilinear form. The proof is elementary