Bottleneck Steiner networks model energy consumption in wireless ad-hoc networks. The task is to design a network spanning a given set of terminals and at most $k$ Steiner points such that the length of the longest edge is minimised. The problem has been extensively studied for the case where an optimal solution is a tree in the Euclidean plane. However, in order to model a wider range of applications, including fault-tolerant networks, it is necessary to consider multi-connectivity constraints for networks embedded in more general metrics. We show that the $2$-connected bottleneck Steiner network problem is NP-hard in any planar $p$-norm and, in fact, if P$\,\neq\,$NP then an optimal solution cannot be approximated to within a ratio of ${2}^\frac{1}{p}-ε$ in polynomial time for any $ε>0$ and $1\leq p< \infty$.
An $\ell$-good sequencing of an STS$(v)$ is a permutation of the points of the design such that no $\ell$ consecutive points in this permutation contain a block of the design. We prove that, for every integer $\ell \geq 3$, there is an $\ell$-good sequencing of any STS$(v)$ provided that $v$ is sufficiently large. We also prove some new nonexistence results for $\ell$-good sequencings of STS$(v)$.
The geometric bottleneck Steiner network problem on a set of vertices $X$ embedded in a normed plane requires one to construct a graph $G$ spanning $X$ and a variable set of $k\geq 0$ additional points, such that the length of the longest edge is minimised. If no other constraints are placed on $G$ then a solution always exists which is a tree. In this paper we consider the Euclidean bottleneck Steiner network problem for $k\leq 2$, where $G$ is constrained to be 2-connected. By taking advantage of relative neighbourhood graphs, Voronoi diagrams, and the tree structure of block cut-vertex deco…
For given integers $r$ and $\ell$ such that $2\leqslant\ell\leqslant r-1$, an $r$-uniform hypergraph $H$ is called a partial Steiner $(n,r,\ell)$-system, if every subset of size $\ell$ lies in at most one edge of $H$. In particular, partial Steiner $(n,r,2)$-systems are also called linear hypergraphs. The partial Steiner $(n,r,\ell)$-system process starts with an empty hypergraph on vertex set $[n]$ at time $0$, the $ \binom{n}{r}$ edges arrive one by one according to a uniformly chosen permutation, and each edge is added if and only if it does not overlap any of the previously-added edges in …
Hypertrees are linear hypergraphs where every two vertices are connected by a unique path. Elliott and Rödl conjectured that for any given $μ>0$, there exists $n_0$ such that the following holds. Every $n$-vertex Steiner triple system contains all hypertrees with at most $(1-μ)n$ vertices whenever $n\geq n_0$. We prove this conjecture.
In this paper, we study the complexity of two types of digraph packing problems: perfect out-forests problem and Steiner cycle packing problem. For the perfect out-forest problem, we prove that it is NP-hard to decide whether a given strong digraph contains a 1-perfect out-forest. However, when restricted to a semicomplete digraph $D$, the problem of deciding whether $D$ contains an $i$-perfect out-forest becomes polynomial-time solvable, where $i\in \{0,1\}$. We also prove that it is NP-hard to find a 0-perfect out-forest of maximum size in a connected acyclic digraph, and it is NP-hard to fi…
Given an STS(v), we ask if there is a permutation of the points of the design such that no $\ell$ consecutive points in this permutation contain a block of the design. Results are obtained in the cases $\ell = 3,4$.
The problem of determining the smallest number of edges, $h(n;\barκ\geq r)$, which guarantees that any graph with $n$ vertices and $h(n;\barκ\geq r)$ edges will contain a pair of vertices joined by $r$ internally disjoint paths was posed by Erdös and Gallai. Bollobás considered the problem of determining the largest number of edges $f(n;\barκ\leq \ell)$ for graphs with $n$ vertices and local connectivity at most $\ell$. One can see that $f(n;\barκ\leq \ell)= h(n;\barκ\geq \ell+1)-1$. These two problems had received a wide attention of many researchers in the last few decades. In the above prob…
The Steiner $k$-diameter $sdiam_k(G)$ of a graph $G$, introduced by Chartrand, Oellermann, Tian and Zou in 1989, is a natural generalization of the concept of classical diameter. When $k=2$, $sdiam_2(G)=diam(G)$ is the classical diameter. The problem of determining the minimum size of a graph of order $n$ whose diameter is at most $d$ and whose maximum is $\ell$ was first introduced by Erdös and Rényi. In this paper, we generalize the above problem for Steiner $k$-diameter, and study the problem of determining the minimum size of a graph of order $n$ whose Steiner $3$-diameter is at most $d$ a…
The concept of maximum local connectivity $\bar κ$ of a graph was introduced by Bollobás. One of the problems about it is to determine the largest number of edges $f(n;\barκ\leq \ell)$ for graphs of order $n$ that have local connectivity at most $\ell$. We consider a generalization of the above concept and problem. For $S\subseteq V(G)$ and $|S|\geq 2$, the \emph{generalized local connectivity} $κ(S)$ is the maximum number of internally disjoint trees connecting $S$ in $G$. The parameter $\barκ_k(G)=max\{κ(S)|S\subseteq V(G),|S|=k\}$ is called the \emph{maximum generalized local connectivity} …
The 1-Steiner tree problem, the problem of constructing a Steiner minimum tree containing at most one Steiner point, has been solved in the Euclidean plane by Georgakopoulos and Papadimitriou using plane subdivisions called oriented Dirichlet cell partitions. Their algorithm produces an optimal solution within $O(n^2)$ time. In this paper we generalise their approach in order to solve the $k$-Steiner tree problem, in which the Steiner minimum tree may contain up to $k$ Steiner points for a given constant $k$. We also extend their approach further to encompass other normed planes, and to solve …
In 1973 Erdos asked whether there are n-vertex partial Steiner triple systems with arbitrary high girth and quadratically many triples. (Here girth is defined as the smallest integer g \ge 4 for which some g-element vertex-set contains at least g-2 triples.) We answer this question, by showing existence of approximate Steiner triple systems with arbitrary high girth. More concretely, for any fixed \ell \ge 4 we show that a natural constrained random process typically produces a partial Steiner triple system with (1/6-o(1))n^2 triples and girth larger than \ell. The process iteratively adds ran…
The Steiner diameter $sdiam_k(G)$ of a graph $G$, introduced by Chartrand, Oellermann, Tian and Zou in 1989, is a natural generalization of the concept of classical diameter. When $k=2$, $sdiam_2(G)=diam(G)$ is the classical diameter. The problem of determining the minimum size of a graph of order $n$ whose diameter is at most $d$ and whose maximum is $\ell$ was first introduced by Erdös and Rényi. Recently, Mao considered the problem of determining the minimum size of a graph of order $n$ whose Steiner $k$-diameter is at most $d$ and whose maximum is at most $\ell$, where $3\leq k\leq n$, and…
The problem of determining the largest number $f(n;\barκ\leq \ell)$ of edges for graphs with $n$ vertices and maximal local connectivity at most $\ell$ was considered by Bollobás. Li et al. studied the largest number $f(n;\barκ_3\leq2)$ of edges for graphs with $n$ vertices and at most two internally disjoint Steiner trees connecting any three vertices. In this paper, we further study the largest number $f(n;\barκ_k=1)$ of edges for graphs with $n$ vertices and exactly one Steiner tree connecting any $k$ vertices with $k\geq 3$. It turns out that this is not an easy task to finish, not like th…
The Steiner distance of a graph, introduced by Chartrand, Oellermann, Tian and Zou in 1989, is a natural generalization of the concept of classical graph distance. For a connected graph $G$ of order at least $2$ and $S\subseteq V(G)$, the \emph{Steiner distance} $d(S)$ among the vertices of $S$ is the minimum size among all connected subgraphs whose vertex sets contain $S$. Let $n$ and $k$ be two integers with $2\leq k\leq n$. Then the \emph{Steiner $k$-eccentricity $e_k(v)$} of a vertex $v$ of $G$ is defined by $e_k(v)=\max \{d(S)\,|\,S\subseteq V(G), \ |S|=k, \ and \ v\in S \}$. Furthermore,…
We develop a general method of proving that certain star configurations in finit e-dimensional normed spaces are Steiner minimal trees. This method generalizes the results of Lawlor and Morgan (1994) that could only be applied to differentiable norms. The generalization uses the subdifferential calculus from convex analysis. We apply this method to two special norms. The first norm, occurring in the work of Cieslik, has unit ball the polar of the difference body of the n-simplex (in dimension 3 this is the rhombic dodecahedron). We determine the maximum degree of a given point in a Steiner min…
Let $G$ be a connected graph and $\ell : E(G) \to \mathbb{R}^+$ a length-function on the edges of $G$. The Steiner distance $\mathrm{sd}_G(A)$ of $A \subseteq V(G)$ within $G$ is the minimum length of a connected subgraph of $G$ containing $A$, where the length of a subgraph is the sum of the lengths of its edges. It is clear that every subgraph $H \subseteq G$, with the induced length-function $\ell|_{E(H)}$, satisfies $\mathrm{sd}_H(A) \geq \mathrm{sd}_G(A)$ for every $A \subseteq V(H)$. We call $H \subseteq G$ $k$-geodesic in $G$ if equality is attained for every $A \subseteq V(H)$ with $|A…
The embedding of finite metrics in $\ell_1$ has become a fundamental tool for both combinatorial optimization and large-scale data analysis. One important application is to network flow problems in which there is close relation between max-flow min-cut theorems and the minimal distortion embeddings of metrics into $\ell_1$. Here we show that this theory can be generalized considerably to encompass Steiner tree packing problems in both graphs and hypergraphs. Instead of the theory of $\ell_1$ metrics and minimal distortion embeddings, the parallel is the theory of diversities recently introduce…
