On the swap-distances of different realizations of a graphical degree sequence

One of the first graph theoretical problems which got serious attention (already in the fifties of the last century) was to decide whether a given integer sequence is equal to the degree sequence of a simple graph (or it is {\em graphical} for short). One method to solve this problem is the greedy algorithm of Havel and Hakimi, which is based on the {\em swap} operation. Another, closely related question is to find a sequence of swap operations to transform one graphical realization into another one of the same degree sequence. This latter problem got particular emphases in connection of fast mixing Markov chain approaches to sample uniformly all possible realizations of a given degree sequence. (This becomes a matter of interest in connection of -- among others -- the study of large social networks.) Earlier there were only crude upper bounds on the shortest possible length of such swap sequences between two realizations. In this paper we develop formulae (Gallai-type identities) for these {\em swap-distance}s of any two realizations of simple undirected or directed degree sequences. These identities improves considerably the known upper bounds on the swap-distances.Comment: to be publishe

Caterpillar dualities and regular languages

We characterize obstruction sets in caterpillar dualities in terms of regular languages, and give a construction of the dual of a regular family of caterpillars. We show that these duals correspond to the constraint satisfaction problems definable by a monadic linear Datalog program with at most one EDB per rule

A simple Havel-Hakimi type algorithm to realize graphical degree sequences of directed graphs

One of the simplest ways to decide whether a given finite sequence of positive integers can arise as the degree sequence of a simple graph is the greedy algorithm of Havel and Hakimi. This note extends their approach to directed graphs. It also studies cases of some simple forbidden edge-sets. Finally, it proves a result which is useful to design an MCMC algorithm to find random realizations of prescribed directed degree sequences.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure submitted to "The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics

On the average rank of LYM-sets

Let S be a finite set with some rank function r such that the Whitney numbers wi = |{x S|r(x) = i}| are log-concave. Given so that wk − 1 < wk wk + m, set W = wk + wk + 1 + … + wk + m. Generalizing a theorem of Kleitman and Milner, we prove that every F S with cardinality |F| W has average rank at least kwk + … + (k + m) wk + m/W, provided the normalized profile vector x1, …, xn of F satisfies the following LYM-type inequality: x0 + x1 + … + xn m + 1

All maximum size two-part Sperner systems - in short

In this note we give a very short proof for the description of all maximum size two-part Sperner systems

A finite word poset : In honor of Aviezri Fraenkel on the occasion of his 70th birthday

Our word posets have �nite words of bounded length as their elements, with the words composed from a �nite alphabet. Their partial ordering follows from the inclusion of a word as a subsequence of another word. The elemental combinatorial properties of such posets are established. Their automorphism groups are determined (along with similar result for the word poset studied by Burosch, Frank and R¨ohl [4]) and a BLYM inequality is veri�ed (via the normalized matching property)