An equitable graph coloring is a proper vertex coloring of a graph G where the sizes of the color classes differ by at most one. The equitable chromatic number is the smallest number k such that G admits such equitable k-coloring. We focus on enumerative algorithms for the computation of the equitable coloring number and propose a general scheme to derive pruning rules for them: We show how the extendability of a partial coloring into an equitable coloring can be modeled via network flows. Thus, we obtain pruning rules which can be checked via flow algorithms. Computational experiments show that the search tree of enumerative algorithms can be significantly reduced in size by these rules and, in most instances, such naive approach even yields a faster algorithm. Moreover, the stability, i.e., the number of solved instances within a given time limit, is greatly improved. Since the execution of flow algorithms at each node of a search tree is time consuming, we derive arithmetic pruning rules (generalized Hall-conditions) from the network model. Adding these rules to an enumerative algorithm yields an even larger runtime improvement.
Since any equitable coloring is a coloring, it is clear that @math . Let @math be fixed. If @math admits an equitable @math -coloring, the sizes of the color classes are fixed. Recall that a clique is a set of pairwise adjacent vertices and that we call a set of vertices stable if it only contains pairwise nonadjacent vertices. In the following, we adopt several notations and definitions from @cite_11 . A partial @math -coloring of @math is given by @math such that: all @math are pairwise disjoint, @math for @math , and the @math are stable for @math . Note, that a partial coloring can also be completely empty, i.e., @math for @math
@cite_11
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In this paper we study a problem of vertex two-coloring of an undirected graph such that there is no monochromatic cycle of the given length. We show that this problem is hard to solve. We give a proof by presenting a reduction from the variation of satisfiability (SAT) problem. We show the nice properties of coloring cliques with two colors which plays pivotal role in the reduction construction. We consider the following probabilistic model of a graph on n labeled vertices. First choose a random graph G(n, 1 2), and then choose randomly a subset Q of vertices of size k and force it to be a clique by joining every pair of vertices of Q by an edge. The problem is to give a polynomial time algorithm for finding this hidden clique almost surely for various values of k. This question was posed independently, in various variants, by Jerrum and by Kucera. In this paper we present an efficient algorithm for all k>cn0.5, for any fixed c>0, thus improving the trivial case k>cn0.5(log n)0.5. The algorithm is based on the spectral properties of the graph. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 13: 457–466, 1998 We study deterministic, distributed algorithms for two weak variants of the standard graph coloring problem. We consider defective colorings, i.e., colorings where nodes of a color class may induce a graph of maximum degree d for some parameter d>0. We also look at colorings where a minimum number of multi-chromatic edges is required. For an integer k>0, we call a coloring k-partially proper if every node v has at least min k,deg(v) neighbors with a different color. We show that for all d∈ 1,...,Δ , it is possible to compute a O(Δ2 d2)-coloring with defect d in time O(log*n) where Δ is the largest degree of the network graph. Similarly, for all k∈ 1,...,Δ , a k-partially proper O(k2)-coloring can be computed in O(log*n) rounds. As an application of our weak defective coloring algorithm, we obtain a faster deterministic algorithm for the standard vertex coloring problem on graphs with moderate degrees. We show that in time O(Δ+log*n), a (Δ+1)-coloring can be computed, a task for which the best previous algorithm required time O(Δ*log(Δ) + log*n). The same result holds for the problem of computing a maximal independent set. Motivated by a frequency assignment problem in cellular networks, we introduce and study a new coloring problem that we call minimum conflict-free coloring (min-CF-coloring). In its general form, the input of the min-CF-coloring problem is a set system @math , where each @math is a subset of X. The output is a coloring @math of the sets in @math that satisfies the following constraint: for every @math there exists a color @math and a unique set @math such that @math and @math . The goal is to minimize the number of colors used by the coloring @math . Min-CF-coloring of general set systems is not easier than the classic graph coloring problem. However, in view of our motivation, we consider set systems induced by simple geometric regions in the plane. In particular, we study disks (both congruent and noncongruent), axis-parallel rectangles (with a constant ratio between the smallest and largest rectangle), regular hexagons (with a constant ratio between the smallest and largest hexagon), and general congruent centrally symmetric convex regions in the plane. In all cases we have coloring algorithms that use O(log n) colors (where n is the number of regions). Tightness is demonstrated by showing that even in the case of unit disks, @math colors may be necessary. For rectangles and hexagons we also obtain a constant-ratio approximation algorithm when the ratio between the largest and smallest rectangle (hexagon) is a constant. We also consider a dual problem of CF-coloring points with respect to sets. Given a set system @math , the goal in the dual problem is to color the elements in X with a minimum number of colors so that every set @math contains a point whose color appears only once in S. We show that O(log |X|) colors suffice for set systems in which X is a set of points in the plane and the sets are intersections of X with scaled translations of a convex region. This result is used in proving that O(log n) colors suffice in the primal version.