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On Approximate MMS Allocations on Restricted Graph Classes
Authors:
Václav Blažej,
Michał Dębski,
Zbigniew Lonc,
Marta Piecyk,
Paweł Rzążewski
Abstract:
We study the problem of fair division of a set of indivisible goods with connectivity constraints. Specifically, we assume that the goods are represented as vertices of a connected graph, and sets of goods allocated to the agents are connected subgraphs of this graph. We focus on the widely-studied maximin share criterion of fairness. It has been shown that an allocation satisfying this criterion…
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We study the problem of fair division of a set of indivisible goods with connectivity constraints. Specifically, we assume that the goods are represented as vertices of a connected graph, and sets of goods allocated to the agents are connected subgraphs of this graph. We focus on the widely-studied maximin share criterion of fairness. It has been shown that an allocation satisfying this criterion may not exist even without connectivity constraints, i.e., if the graph of goods is complete. In view of this, it is natural to seek approximate allocations that guarantee each agent a connected bundle of goods with value at least a constant fraction of the maximin share value to the agent. It is known that for some classes of graphs, such as complete graphs, cycles, and $d$-claw-free graphs for any fixed $d$, such approximate allocations indeed exist. However, it is an open problem whether they exist for the class of all graphs.
In this paper, we continue the systematic study of the existence of approximate allocations on restricted graph classes. In particular, we show that such allocations exist for several well-studied classes, including block graphs, cacti, complete multipartite graphs, and split graphs.
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Submitted 14 August, 2025; v1 submitted 8 August, 2025;
originally announced August 2025.
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Languages given by Finite Automata over the Unary Alphabet
Authors:
Wojciech Czerwiński,
Maciej Dębski,
Tomasz Gogasz,
Gordon Hoi,
Sanjay Jain,
Michał Skrzypczak,
Frank Stephan,
Christopher Tan
Abstract:
This paper studies the complexity of operations on finite automata and the complexity of their decision problems when the alphabet is unary. Let $n$ denote the maximum of the number of states of the input finite automata considered in the corresponding results. The following main results are obtained:
(1) Given two unary NFAs recognising $L$ and $H$, respectively, one can decide whether…
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This paper studies the complexity of operations on finite automata and the complexity of their decision problems when the alphabet is unary. Let $n$ denote the maximum of the number of states of the input finite automata considered in the corresponding results. The following main results are obtained:
(1) Given two unary NFAs recognising $L$ and $H$, respectively, one can decide whether $L \subseteq H$ as well as whether $L = H$ in time $2^{O((n \log n)^{1/3})}$. The previous upper bound on time was $2^{O((n \log n)^{1/2})}$ as given by Chrobak (1986), and this bound was not significantly improved since then.
(2) Given two unary UFAs (unambiguous finite automata) recognising $L$ and $H$, respectively, one can determine a UFA recognising $L \cup H$ and a UFA recognising complement of $L$, where these output UFAs have the number of states bounded by a quasipolynomial in $n$. However, in the worst case, a UFA for recognising concatenation of languages recognised by two $n$-state UFAs, uses $2^{Θ((n \log^2 n)^{1/3})}$ states.
(3) Given a unary language $L$, if $L$ contains the word of length $k$, then let $L(k)=1$ else let $L(k)=0$. Let $ω_L$ be the $ω$-word $L(0)L(1)\ldots$ and let $\cal L$ be a fixed $ω$-regular language. The last section studies how difficult it is to decide, given an $n$-state UFA or NFA
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Submitted 13 December, 2024; v1 submitted 13 February, 2023;
originally announced February 2023.
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Computing homomorphisms in hereditary graph classes: the peculiar case of the 5-wheel and graphs with no long claws
Authors:
Michał Dębski,
Zbigniew Lonc,
Karolina Okrasa,
Marta Piecyk,
Paweł Rzążewski
Abstract:
For graphs $G$ and $H$, an $H$-coloring of $G$ is an edge-preserving mapping from $V(G)$ to $V(H)$. In the $H$-Coloring problem the graph $H$ is fixed and we ask whether an instance graph $G$ admits an $H$-coloring. A generalization of this problem is $H$-ColoringExt, where some vertices of $G$ are already mapped to vertices of $H$ and we ask if this partial mapping can be extended to an $H$-color…
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For graphs $G$ and $H$, an $H$-coloring of $G$ is an edge-preserving mapping from $V(G)$ to $V(H)$. In the $H$-Coloring problem the graph $H$ is fixed and we ask whether an instance graph $G$ admits an $H$-coloring. A generalization of this problem is $H$-ColoringExt, where some vertices of $G$ are already mapped to vertices of $H$ and we ask if this partial mapping can be extended to an $H$-coloring.
We study the complexity of variants of $H$-Coloring in $F$-free graphs, i.e., graphs excluding a fixed graph $F$ as an induced subgraph. For integers $a,b,c \geq 1$, by $S_{a,b,c}$ we denote the graph obtained by identifying one endvertex of three paths on $a+1$, $b+1$, and $c+1$ vertices, respectively. For odd $k \geq 5$, by $W_k$ we denote the graph obtained from the $k$-cycle by adding a universal vertex.
As our main algorithmic result we show that $W_5$-ColoringExt is polynomial-time solvable in $S_{2,1,1}$-free graphs. This result exhibits an interesting non-monotonicity of $H$-ColoringExt with respect to taking induced subgraphs of $H$. Indeed, $W_5$ contains a triangle, and $K_3$-Coloring, i.e., classical 3-coloring, is NP-hard already in claw-free (i.e., $S_{1,1,1}$-free) graphs.
Our algorithm is based on two main observations:
1. $W_5$-ColoringExt in $S_{2,1,1}$-free graphs can be in polynomial time reduced to a variant of the problem of finding an independent set intersecting all triangles, and
2. the latter problem can be solved in polynomial time in $S_{2,1,1}$-free graphs.
We complement this algorithmic result with several negative ones. In particular, we show that $W_5$-ColoringExt is NP-hard in $S_{3,3,3}$-free graphs. This is again uncommon, as usually problems that are NP-hard in $S_{a,b,c}$-free graphs for some constant $a,b,c$ are already hard in claw-free graphs.
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Submitted 26 May, 2022;
originally announced May 2022.
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Faster 3-coloring of small-diameter graphs
Authors:
Michał Dębski,
Marta Piecyk,
Paweł Rzążewski
Abstract:
We study the 3-\textsc{Coloring} problem in graphs with small diameter. In 2013, Mertzios and Spirakis showed that for $n$-vertex diameter-2 graphs this problem can be solved in subexponential time $2^{\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{n \log n})}$. Whether the problem can be solved in polynomial time remains a well-known open question in the area of algorithmic graphs theory.
In this paper we present an algori…
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We study the 3-\textsc{Coloring} problem in graphs with small diameter. In 2013, Mertzios and Spirakis showed that for $n$-vertex diameter-2 graphs this problem can be solved in subexponential time $2^{\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{n \log n})}$. Whether the problem can be solved in polynomial time remains a well-known open question in the area of algorithmic graphs theory.
In this paper we present an algorithm that solves 3-\textsc{Coloring} in $n$-vertex diameter-2 graphs in time $2^{\mathcal{O}(n^{1/3} \log^{2} n)}$. This is the first improvement upon the algorithm of Mertzios and Spirakis in the general case, i.e., without putting any further restrictions on the instance graph.
In addition to standard branchings and reducing the problem to an instance of 2-\textsc{Sat}, the crucial building block of our algorithm is a combinatorial observation about 3-colorable diameter-2 graphs, which is proven using a probabilistic argument.
As a side result, we show that 3-\textsc{Coloring} can be solved in time $2^{\mathcal{O}( (n \log n)^{2/3})}$ in $n$-vertex diameter-3 graphs. We also generalize our algorithms to the problem of finding a list homomorphism from a small-diameter graph to a cycle.
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Submitted 28 April, 2021;
originally announced April 2021.
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Sequences of radius $k$ for complete bipartite graphs
Authors:
Michał Dębski,
Zbigniew Lonc,
Paweł Rzążewski
Abstract:
A \emph{$k$-radius sequence} for a graph $G$ is a sequence of vertices of $G$ (typically with repetitions) such that for every edge $uv$ of $G$ vertices $u$ and $v$ appear at least once within distance $k$ in the sequence. The length of a shortest $k$-radius sequence for $G$ is denoted by $f_k(G)$. We give an asymptotically tight estimation on $f_k(G)$ for complete bipartite graphs {which matches…
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A \emph{$k$-radius sequence} for a graph $G$ is a sequence of vertices of $G$ (typically with repetitions) such that for every edge $uv$ of $G$ vertices $u$ and $v$ appear at least once within distance $k$ in the sequence. The length of a shortest $k$-radius sequence for $G$ is denoted by $f_k(G)$. We give an asymptotically tight estimation on $f_k(G)$ for complete bipartite graphs {which matches a lower bound, valid for all bipartite graphs}. We also show that determining $f_k(G)$ for an arbitrary graph $G$ is NP-hard for every constant $k>1$.
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Submitted 14 November, 2017;
originally announced November 2017.