Related papers: The Least Spanning Area of a Knot and the Optimal …
How much cutting is needed to simplify the topology of a surface? We provide bounds for several instances of this question, for the minimum length of topologically non-trivial closed curves, pants decompositions, and cut graphs with a given…
Using region crossing changes, we define a new invariant called the multi-region index of a knot. We prove that the multi-region index of a knot is bounded from above by twice the crossing number of the knot. In addition, we show that the…
Soss proved that it is NP-hard to find the maximum 2D span of a fixed-angle polygonal chain: the largest distance achievable between the endpoints in a planar embedding. These fixed-angle chains can serve as models of protein backbones. The…
We describe in this chapter (Chapter IX) the idea of building an algebraic topology based on knots (or more generally on the position of embedded objects). That is, our basic building blocks are considered up to ambient isotopy (not…
It is shown that given any link-manifold, there is an algorithm to decide if the manifold contains an embedded, essential planar surface; if it does, the algorithm will construct one. If a slope on the boundary of the link-manifold is…
In this work, we carry out structural and algorithmic studies of a problem of barrier forming: selecting theminimum number of straight line segments (barriers) that separate several sets of mutually disjoint objects in the plane. The…
The probability of a random polygon (or a ring polymer) having a knot type $K$ should depend on the complexity of the knot $K$. Through computer simulation using knot invariants, we show that the knotting probability decreases exponentially…
Minimizing the weight of an edge set satisfying parity constraints is a challenging branch of combinatorial optimization as witnessed by the binary hypergraph chapter of Alexander Schrijver's book ``Combinatorial Optimization" (Chapter 80).…
It was recently shown that there exists an explicit bound for the number of Pachner moves needed to connect any two triangulation of any Haken 3-manifold which contains no fibred sub-manifolds as strongly simple pieces of its…
We prove that any knot or link in any 3-manifold can be nicely decomposed (splitted) by a filling Dehn sphere. This has interesting consequences in the study of branched coverings over knots and links. We give an algorithm for computing…
In this paper, we give some examples of area minimizing surfaces to clarify some well-known features of these surfaces in more general settings. The first example is about Meeks-Yau's result on embeddedness of solution to the Plateau…
In this paper, we study a generalization of the classical minimum cut prob- lem, called Connectivity Preserving Minimum Cut (CPMC) problem, which seeks a minimum cut to separate a pair (or pairs) of source and destination nodes and…
A ribbon is, intuitively, a smooth mapping of an annulus $S^1 \times I$ in 3-space having constant width $\varepsilon$. This can be formalized as a triple $(x,\varepsilon, \mathbf{u})$ where $x$ is smooth curve in 3-space and $\mathbf{u}$…
In this paper we study the area minimizing problem in some kinds of conformal cones. This concept is a generalization of the cones in Eulcidean spaces and the cylinders in product manifolds. We define a non-closed-minimal (NCM) condition…
Let $G$ be a directed graph with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges, embedded on a surface $S$, possibly with boundary, with first Betti number $\beta$. We consider the complexity of finding closed directed walks in $G$ that are either contractible…
This paper introduces an exact algorithm for the construction of a shortest curvature-constrained network interconnecting a given set of directed points in the plane and an iterative method for doing so in 3D space. Such a network will be…
In this paper we investigate the colorful components framework, motivated by applications emerging from comparative genomics. The general goal is to remove a collection of edges from an undirected vertex-colored graph $G$ such that in the…
A veritable zoo of different knots is seen in the ensemble of looped polymer chains, whether created computationally or observed in vitro. At short loop lengths, the spectrum of knots is dominated by the trivial knot (unknot). The…
Internal stabilization adds a trivial handle to an embedded surface in a coordinate chart. It is known that any pair of smoothly knotted surfaces in a simply-connected $4$-manifold become smoothly isotopic after sufficiently many internal…
A Boolean network (BN) is a discrete dynamical system defined by a Boolean function that maps to the domain itself. A trap space of a BN is a generalization of a fixed point, which is defined as the sub-hypercubes closed by the function of…