Let $D=(V,A)$ be a digraph of order $n$, $S$ a subset of $V$ of size $k$ and $2\le k\leq n$. A strong subgraph $H$ of $D$ is called an $S$-strong subgraph if $S\subseteq V(H)$. A pair of $S$-strong subgraphs $D_1$ and $D_2$ are said to be arc-disjoint if $A(D_1)\cap A(D_2)=\emptyset$. Let $\lambda_S(D)$ be the maximum number of arc-disjoint $S$-strong subgraphs in $D$. The strong subgraph $k$-arc-connectivity is defined as $$\lambda_k(D)=\min\{\lambda_S(D)\mid S\subseteq V(D), |S|=k\}.$$ The parameter $\lambda_k(D)$ could be seen as a generalization of classical edge-connectivity of undirected graphs. In this paper, we study the strong subgraph 2-arc-connectivity of Cartesian product $\lambda_2(G\Box H)$ of two digraphs $G$ and $H$. We prove that $\lambda_2(G\Box H)\ge \lambda_2(G)+\lambda_2(H)-1$ but there is no linear upper bound for $\lambda_2(G\Box H)$ in terms of $\lambda_2(G)$ and $\lambda_2(H).$ We also obtain exact values for $\lambda_2(G\Box H)$, where $G$ and $H$ are digraphs from some digraph families.
Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs) are one of the most popular architectures that are used to solve classification problems accompanied by graphical information. We present a rigorous theoretical understanding of the effects of graph convolutions in multi-layer networks. We study these effects through the node classification problem of a non-linearly separable Gaussian mixture model coupled with a stochastic block model. First, we show that a single graph convolution expands the regime of the distance between the means where multi-layer networks can classify the data by a factor of at least $1/\sqrt[4]{\mathbb{E}{\rm deg}}$, where $\mathbb{E}{\rm deg}$ denotes the expected degree of a node. Second, we show that with a slightly stronger graph density, two graph convolutions improve this factor to at least $1/\sqrt[4]{n}$, where $n$ is the number of nodes in the graph. Finally, we provide both theoretical and empirical insights into the performance of graph convolutions placed in different combinations among the layers of a network, concluding that the performance is mutually similar for all combinations of the placement. We present extensive experiments on both synthetic and real-world data that illustrate our results.
We describe a polynomial-time algorithm which, given a graph $G$ with treewidth $t$, approximates the pathwidth of $G$ to within a ratio of $O(t\sqrt{\log t})$. This is the first algorithm to achieve an $f(t)$-approximation for some function $f$. Our approach builds on the following key insight: every graph with large pathwidth has large treewidth or contains a subdivision of a large complete binary tree. Specifically, we show that every graph with pathwidth at least $th+2$ has treewidth at least $t$ or contains a subdivision of a complete binary tree of height $h+1$. The bound $th+2$ is best possible up to a multiplicative constant. This result was motivated by, and implies (with $c=2$), the following conjecture of Kawarabayashi and Rossman (SODA'18): there exists a universal constant $c$ such that every graph with pathwidth $\Omega(k^c)$ has treewidth at least $k$ or contains a subdivision of a complete binary tree of height $k$. Our main technical algorithm takes a graph $G$ and some (not necessarily optimal) tree decomposition of $G$ of width $t'$ in the input, and it computes in polynomial time an integer $h$, a certificate that $G$ has pathwidth at least $h$, and a path decomposition of $G$ of width at most $(t'+1)h+1$. The certificate is closely related to (and implies) the existence of a subdivision of a complete binary tree of height $h$. The approximation algorithm for pathwidth is then obtained by combining this algorithm with the approximation algorithm of Feige, Hajiaghayi, and Lee (STOC'05) for treewidth.
A directed graph is oriented if it can be obtained by orienting the edges of a simple, undirected graph. For an oriented graph $G$, let $\beta(G)$ denote the size of a minimum feedback arc set, a smallest subset of edges whose deletion leaves an acyclic subgraph. A simple consequence of a result of Berger and Shor is that any oriented graph $G$ with $m$ edges satisfies $\beta(G) = m/2 - \Omega(m^{3/4})$. We observe that if an oriented graph $G$ has a fixed forbidden subgraph $B$, the upper bound of $\beta(G) = m/2 - \Omega(m^{3/4})$ is best possible as a function of the number of edges if $B$ is not bipartite, but the exponent $3/4$ in the lower order term can be improved if $B$ is bipartite. We also show that for every rational number $r$ between $3/4$ and $1$, there is a finite collection of digraphs $\mathcal{B}$ such that every $\mathcal{B}$-free digraph $G$ with $m$ edges satisfies $\beta(G) = m/2 - \Omega(m^r)$, and this bound is best possible up to the implied constant factor. The proof uses a connection to Tur\'an numbers and a result of Bukh and Conlon. Both of our upper bounds come equipped with randomized linear-time algorithms that construct feedback arc sets achieving those bounds. Finally, we give a characterization of quasirandom directed graphs via minimum feedback arc sets.
A natural way of increasing our understanding of NP-complete graph problems is to restrict the input to a special graph class. Classes of $H$-free graphs, that is, graphs that do not contain some graph $H$ as an induced subgraph, have proven to be an ideal testbed for such a complexity study. However, if the forbidden graph $H$ contains a cycle or claw, then these problems often stay NP-complete. A recent complexity study on the $k$-Colouring problem shows that we may still obtain tractable results if we also bound the diameter of the $H$-free input graph. We continue this line of research by initiating a complexity study on the impact of bounding the diameter for a variety of classical vertex partitioning problems restricted to $H$-free graphs. We prove that bounding the diameter does not help for Independent Set, but leads to new tractable cases for problems closely related to 3-Colouring. That is, we show that Near-Bipartiteness, Independent Feedback Vertex Set, Independent Odd Cycle Transversal, Acyclic 3-Colouring and Star 3-Colouring are all polynomial-time solvable for chair-free graphs of bounded diameter. To obtain these results we exploit a new structural property of 3-colourable chair-free graphs.
For a connected graph $G=(V,E)$, a matching $M\subseteq E$ is a matching cut of $G$ if $G-M$ is disconnected. It is known that for an integer $d$, the corresponding decision problem Matching Cut is polynomial-time solvable for graphs of diameter at most $d$ if $d\leq 2$ and NP-complete if $d\geq 3$. We prove the same dichotomy for graphs of bounded radius. For a graph $H$, a graph is $H$-free if it does not contain $H$ as an induced subgraph. As a consequence of our result, we can solve Matching Cut in polynomial time for $P_6$-free graphs, extending a recent result of Feghali for $P_5$-free graphs. We then extend our result to hold even for $(sP_3+P_6)$-free graphs for every $s\geq 0$ and initiate a complexity classification of Matching Cut for $H$-free graphs.
In this short note, we show that for any $\epsilon >0$ and $k<n^{0.5-\epsilon}$ the choice number of the Kneser graph $KG_{n,k}$ is $\Theta (n\log n)$.
We consider the space needed to store a searchable partial-sums data structure with constant query time for a static sequence $S$ of $n$ positive integers in $o \left( \frac{\log n}{(\log \log n)^2} \right)$. Arroyuelo and Raman (2022) recently showed that such a structure can fit in $n H_0 (S) + o (n)$ bits. Starting with Ferragina and Venturini's (2007) $n H_k$-compressed representation of strings that supports fast random access, and augmenting it with sublinear data structures reminiscent of those Raman, Raman and Rao (2002) used in their succinct bitvectors, we slightly improve Arroyuelo and Raman's bound to $n H_k (S) + o (n)$ bits for $k \in o \left( \frac{\log n}{(\log \log n)^2} \right)$.
Let $X^{(n)}$ be an observation sampled from a distribution $P_{\theta}^{(n)}$ with an unknown parameter $\theta,$ $\theta$ being a vector in a Banach space $E$ (most often, a high-dimensional space of dimension $d$). We study the problem of estimation of $f(\theta)$ for a functional $f:E\mapsto {\mathbb R}$ of some smoothness $s>0$ based on an observation $X^{(n)}\sim P_{\theta}^{(n)}.$ Assuming that there exists an estimator $\hat \theta_n=\hat \theta_n(X^{(n)})$ of parameter $\theta$ such that $\sqrt{n}(\hat \theta_n-\theta)$ is sufficiently close in distribution to a mean zero Gaussian random vector in $E,$ we construct a functional $g:E\mapsto {\mathbb R}$ such that $g(\hat \theta_n)$ is an asymptotically normal estimator of $f(\theta)$ with $\sqrt{n}$ rate provided that $s>\frac{1}{1-\alpha}$ and $d\leq n^{\alpha}$ for some $\alpha\in (0,1).$ We also derive general upper bounds on Orlicz norm error rates for estimator $g(\hat \theta)$ depending on smoothness $s,$ dimension $d,$ sample size $n$ and the accuracy of normal approximation of $\sqrt{n}(\hat \theta_n-\theta).$ In particular, this approach yields asymptotically efficient estimators in some high-dimensional exponential models.
A palindromic substring $T[i.. j]$ of a string $T$ is said to be a shortest unique palindromic substring (SUPS) in $T$ for an interval $[p, q]$ if $T[i.. j]$ is a shortest one such that $T[i.. j]$ occurs only once in $T$, and $[i, j]$ contains $[p, q]$. The SUPS problem is, given a string $T$ of length $n$, to construct a data structure that can compute all the SUPSs for any given query interval. It is known that any SUPS query can be answered in $O(\alpha)$ time after $O(n)$-time preprocessing, where $\alpha$ is the number of SUPSs to output [Inoue et al., 2018]. In this paper, we first show that $\alpha$ is at most $4$, and the upper bound is tight. Also, we present an algorithm to solve the SUPS problem for a sliding window that can answer any query in $O(\log\log W)$ time and update data structures in amortized $O(\log\sigma)$ time, where $W$ is the size of the window, and $\sigma$ is the alphabet size. Furthermore, we consider the SUPS problem in the after-edit model and present an efficient algorithm. Namely, we present an algorithm that uses $O(n)$ time for preprocessing and answers any $k$ SUPS queries in $O(\log n\log\log n + k\log\log n)$ time after single character substitution. As a by-product, we propose a fully-dynamic data structure for range minimum queries (RmQs) with a constraint where the width of each query range is limited to polylogarithmic. The constrained RmQ data structure can answer such a query in constant time and support a single-element edit operation in amortized constant time.
We recall some of the history of the information-theoretic approach to deriving core results in probability theory and indicate parts of the recent resurgence of interest in this area with current progress along several interesting directions. Then we give a new information-theoretic proof of a finite version of de Finetti's classical representation theorem for finite-valued random variables. We derive an upper bound on the relative entropy between the distribution of the first $k$ in a sequence of $n$ exchangeable random variables, and an appropriate mixture over product distributions. The mixing measure is characterised as the law of the empirical measure of the original sequence, and de Finetti's result is recovered as a corollary. The proof is nicely motivated by the Gibbs conditioning principle in connection with statistical mechanics, and it follows along an appealing sequence of steps. The technical estimates required for these steps are obtained via the use of a collection of combinatorial tools known within information theory as `the method of types.'