The following technical report is available from
http://aib.informatik.rwth-aachen.de:
The Longest Path Problem is Polynomial on Interval Graphs
Kyriaki Ioannidou, George B. Mertzios, Stavros D. Nikolopoulos
AIB 2009-11
The longest path problem is the problem of finding a path of
maximum length in a graph. Polynomial solutions for this problem are
known only for small classes of graphs, while it is NP-hard on general
graphs, as it is a generalization of the Hamiltonian path problem.
Motivated by the work of Uehara and Uno in~\cite{Ueh04}, where they left
the longest path problem open for the class of interval graphs, in this
paper we show that the problem can be solved in polynomial time on
interval graphs. The proposed algorithm runs in $O(n^4)$ time, where $n$
is the number of vertices of the input graph, and bases on a dynamic
programming approach.
The following technical report is available from
http://aib.informatik.rwth-aachen.de:
The Recognition of Tolerance and Bounded Tolerance Graphs is NP-complete
George B. Mertzios, Ignasi Sau, Shmuel Zaks
AIB 2009-06
Tolerance graphs model interval relations in such a way that
intervals can tolerate a certain degree of overlap without being in
conflict. This class of graphs has been extensively studied, due to both
its interesting structure and its numerous applications (in
bioinformatics, constrained-based temporal reasoning, resource
allocation, and scheduling problems, among others). Several efficient
algorithms for optimization problems that are NP-hard in general graphs
have been designed for tolerance graphs. In spite of this, the
recognition of tolerance graphs -namely, the problem of deciding whether
a given graph is a tolerance graph- as well as the recognition of their
main subclass of bounded tolerance graphs, are probably the most
fundamental open problems in this context (cf.~the book on tolerance
graphs~\cite{GolTol04}) since their introduction almost three decades
ago~\cite{GoMo82}. In this article we resolve this problem, by proving
that both recognition problems are NP-complete, even in the case where
the input graph is a trapezoid graph. For our reduction we extend the
notion of an acyclic orientation of permutation and trapezoid graphs.
Our main tool is a new algorithm (which uses an approach similar
to~\cite{Cheah96}) that transforms a given trapezoid graph into a
permutation graph, while preserving this new acyclic orientation property.
The following technical report is available from
http://aib.informatik.rwth-aachen.de:
Satellites and Mirrors for Solving Independent Set on Sparse Graphs
Joachim Kneis, Alexander Langer
AIB 2009-08
We study the well-known Maximum Independent Set (MIS) problem and
introduce the notion of satellites of a node. Branching on nodes with
satellites is extremely simple. Nevertheless, satellites can be used to
overcome a couple of hard cases in previous algorithms. Together with
the notion of mirrors, introduced by Fomin, Grandoni, and Kratsch,
they can be used to solve MIS in time bounded by O^*(1.1928^{m-n}),
which is O^*(1.0922^n) for cubic graphs. This improves over previous
results for sparse graphs.