Abstract: Recently, Araujo et al. [Manuscript in preparation, 2017] introduced the notion of Cycle Convexity of graphs. In their seminal work, they studied the graph convexity parameter called hull number for this new graph convexity they proposed, and they presented some of its applications in Knot theory. Roughly, the tunnel number of a knot embedded in a plane is upper bounded by the hull number of a corresponding planar 4-regular graph in cycle convexity. In this paper, we go further in the study of this new graph convexity and we study the interval number of a graph in cycle convexity. This parameter is, alongside the hull number, one of the most studied parameters in the literature about graph convexities. Precisely, given a graph G, its interval number in cycle convexity, denoted by in(cc)(G), is the minimum cardinality of a set S subset of V (G) such that every vertex w is an element of E V (G) \ S has two distinct neighbors u, v is an element of S such that u and v lie in same connected component of G[S], i.e. the subgraph of G induced by the vertices in S. In this work, first we provide bounds on in(cc) (G) and its relations to other graph convexity parameters, and explore its behaviour on grids. Then, we present some hardness results by showing that deciding whetherin(cc) (G) <= k is NP-complete, even if G is a split graph or a bounded-degree planar graph, and that the problem is W[2]-hard in bipartite graphs when k is the parameter. As a consequence, we obtain that in(cc) (G) cannot be approximated up to a constant factor in the classes of split graphs and bipartite graphs (unless P = NP). On the positive side, we present polynomial-time algorithms to compute in(cc) (G) for outerplanar graphs, cobipartite graphs and interval graphs. We also present fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) algorithms to compute it for (q, q – 4)-graphs when q is the parameter and for general graphs G when parameterized either by the treewidth or the neighborhood diversity of G. Some of our hardness results and positive results are not known to hold for related graph convexities and domination problems. We hope that the design of our new reductions and polynomial-time algorithms can be helpful in order to advance in the study of related graph problems.

Abstract: A set of autonomous robots have to collaborate in order to accomplish a common task in a ring-topology where neither nodes nor edges are labeled (that is, the ring is anonymous). We present a unified approach to solve three important problems: the exclusive perpetual exploration, the exclusive perpetual clearing, and the gathering problems. In the first problem, each robot aims at visiting each node infinitely often while avoiding that two robots occupy a same node (exclusivity property); in exclusive perpetual clearing (also known as graph searching), the team of robots aims at clearing the whole ring infinitely often (an edge is cleared if it is traversed by a robot or if both its endpoints are occupied); and in the gathering problem, all robots must eventually occupy the same node. We investigate these tasks in the Look-Compute-Move model where the robots cannot communicate but can perceive the positions of other robots. Each robot is equipped with visibility sensors and motion actuators, and it operates in asynchronous cycles. In each cycle, a robot takes a snapshot of the current global configuration (Look), then, based on the perceived configuration, takes a decision to stay idle or to move to one of its adjacent nodes (Compute), and in the latter case it eventually moves to this neighbor (Move). Moreover, robots are endowed with very weak capabilities. Namely, they are anonymous, asynchronous, oblivious, uniform (execute the same algorithm) and have no common sense of orientation. In this setting, we devise algorithms that, starting from an exclusive and rigid (i.e. aperiodic and asymmetric) configuration, solve the three above problems in anonymous ring-topologies.

Abstract: Cops and robber games, introduced by Winkler and Nowakowski (in Discrete Math. 43(2-3), 235-239, 1983) and independently defined by Quilliot (in J. Comb. Theory, Ser. B 38(1), 89-92, 1985), concern a team of cops that must capture a robber moving in a graph. We consider the class of k-chordal graphs, i.e., graphs with no induced (chordless) cycle of length greater than k, ka parts per thousand yen3. We prove that k-1 cops are always sufficient to capture a robber in k-chordal graphs. This leads us to our main result, a new structural decomposition for a graph class including k-chordal graphs. We present a polynomial-time algorithm that, given a graph G and ka parts per thousand yen3, either returns an induced cycle larger than k in G, or computes a tree-decomposition of G, each bag of which contains a dominating path with at most k-1 vertices. This allows us to prove that any k-chordal graph with maximum degree Delta has treewidth at most (k-1)(Delta-1)+2, improving the O(Delta(Delta-1) (k-3)) bound of Bodlaender and Thilikos (Discrete Appl. Math. 79(1-3), 45-61, 1997. Moreover, any graph admitting such a tree-decomposition has small hyperbolicity). As an application, for any n-vertex graph admitting such a tree-decomposition, we propose a compact routing scheme using routing tables, addresses and headers of size O(klog Delta+logn) bits and achieving an additive stretch of O(klog Delta). As far as we know, this is the first routing scheme with O(klog Delta+logn)-routing tables and small additive stretch for k-chordal graphs.

Abstract: Efficient algorithms for computing routing tables should take advantage of particular properties arising in large scale networks. Two of them are of special interest: low (logarithmic) diameter and high clustering coefficient. High clustering coefficient implies the existence of few large induced cycles. Considering this fact, we propose here a routing scheme that computes short routes in the class of k-chordal graphs, i.e., graphs with no induced cycles of length more than k. In the class of k-chordal graphs, our routing scheme achieves an additive stretch of at most k – 1, i.e., for all pairs of nodes, the length of the route never exceeds their distance plus k – 1. In order to compute the routing tables of any n-node graph with diameter D we propose a distributed algorithm which uses O(log n)-bit messages and takes O(D) time. The corresponding routing scheme achieves the stretch of k – 1 on k-chordal graphs. We then propose a routing scheme that achieves a better additive stretch of 1 in chordal graphs (notice that chordal graphs are 3-chordal graphs). In this case, distributed computation of routing tables takes O(min{Delta D, n}) time, where Delta is the maximum degree of the graph. Our routing schemes use addresses of size log n bits and local memory of size 2(d-1) log n bits per node of degree d. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.