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.

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 ⩾ 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 ⩾ 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-Coloring is NP-hard in P_t-free graphs for some constant t and W_5-ColoringExt is NP-hard in S_{3,3,3}-free graphs of bounded degree. 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

We study the 3-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 graph theory. In this paper we present an algorithm that solves 3-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-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-Coloring can be solved in time $2^{\mathcal{O}( (n \log n)^{2/3})}$ in $n$-vertex diameter-3 graphs. This is the first algorithm for 3-Coloring which works in subexponential time for all diameter-3 graphs. We also discuss generalizations of our results to the weighted variant of 3-Coloring.

We study the 3-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^{𝒪(√{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-Coloring in n-vertex diameter-2 graphs in time 2^{𝒪(n^{1/3} log² 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-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-Coloring can be solved in time 2^{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.

For a graph $G$, $L(G)^t$ is the $t$th power of the line graph of $G$; that is, vertices of $L(G)^t$ are edges of $G$ and two edges $e,f\in E(G)$ are adjacent in $L(G)^t$ if $G$ contains a path with at most $t$ vertices that starts in a vertex of $e$ and ends in a vertex of $f$. The distance-$t$ chromatic index of $G$ is the chromatic number of $L(G)^t$, and a $t$-strong clique in $G$ is a clique in $L(G)^t$. Finding upper bounds for the distance-$t$ chromatic index and $t$-strong clique are problems related to two famous problems: the conjecture of Erdös and Nešetřil concerning the strong chromatic index, and the degree/diameter problem. We prove that the size of a $t$-strong clique in a graph with maximum degree $\Delta$ is at most $1.75\Delta^t+O\left(\Delta^{t-1}\right)$, and for bipartite graphs the upper bound is at most $\Delta^t+O\left(\Delta^{t-1}\right)$. As a corollary, we obtain upper bounds of $1.881\Delta^t +O\left(\Delta^{t-1}\right)$ and $1.9703+O\left(\Delta^{t-1}\right)$ on the distance-$t$ chromatic index of bipartite graphs and general graphs. We also show results for some special classes of graphs: $K_{1,r}$-free graphs and graphs with a large girth.

A vertex coloring φ of a graph G is p-centered if for every connected subgraph H of G either φ uses more than p colors on H or there is a color that appears exactly once on H Centered colorings form one of the families of parameters that allow to capture notions of sparsity of graphs: A class of graphs has bounded expansion if and only if there is a function f such that for every p ≥ 1, every graph in the class admits a p-centered coloring using at most f(p) colors. In this paper, we give upper bounds for the maximum number of colors needed in a p-centered coloring of graphs from several widely studied graph classes. We show that: (1) planar graphs admit p-centered colorings with (p3 log p) colors where the previous bound was (p19); (2) bounded degree graphs admit p-centered colorings with (p) colors while it was conjectured that they may require exponential number of colors in p; (3) graphs avoiding a fixed graph as a topological minor admit p-centered colorings with a polynomial in p number of colors. All these upper bounds imply polynomial algorithms for computing the colorings. Prior to this work there were no non-trivial lower bounds known. We show that: (4) there are graphs of treewidth t that require colors in any p-centered coloring and this bound matches the upper bound; (5) there are planar graphs that require Ω(p2 log p) colors in any p-centered coloring. We also give asymptotically tight bounds for outerplanar graphs and planar graphs of treewidth 3. We prove our results with various proof techniques. The upper bound for planar graphs involves an application of a recent structure theorem while the upper bound for bounded degree graphs comes from the entropy compression method. We lift the result for bounded degree graphs to graphs avoiding a fixed topological minor using the Grohe-Marx structure theorem.

We study colorings of Euclidean spaces avoiding specified patterns on straight lines. This extends the seminal work of Thue on avoidability properties of sequences to continuous, higher dimensional structures. We prove that every space $\mathbb{R}^d$ has a $2$-coloring such that no sequence of colors derived from collinear points separated by unit distance consists of more than $r(d)$ identical blocks. In case of the plane we show that $r(2)\leqslant 43$. We also consider more general patterns and give a sufficient condition for a pattern to be avoided in the plane. This supports a general Pattern Avoidance Conjecture in Euclidean spaces. The proofs are based mainly on the probabilistic method, but additional tools are forced by the geometric nature of the problem. We also consider similar questions for general geometric graphs in the plane. In the conclusion of the paper, we pose several conjectures alluding to some famous open problems in Euclidean Ramsey Theory.

WebDiAL is a specification which tries to enable web applications to detect browsers within local network area and provide means for launching URLs by the application on the devices. Example applications and implementation, as well as security considerations, are also presented in this paper.