Related papers: Definitions with no quantifier alternation

Given a graph $G$, an {\em obstacle representation} of $G$ is a set of points in the plane representing the vertices of $G$, together with a set of connected obstacles such that two vertices of $G$ are joined by an edge if and only if the…

A k-ranking of a graph G is a labeling of the vertices of G with values from 1,...,k such that any path joining two vertices with the same label contains a vertex having a higher label. The tree-depth of G is the smallest value of k for…

A class of graphs is $\chi$-bounded if there exists a function $f:\mathbb N\rightarrow \mathbb N$ such that for every graph $G$ in the class and an induced subgraph $H$ of $G$, if $H$ has no clique of size $q+1$, then the chromatic number…

The Weisfeiler-Leman (WL) dimension is an established measure for the inherent descriptive complexity of graphs and relational structures. It corresponds to the number of variables that are needed and sufficient to define the object of…

An axis-parallel $d$--dimensional box is a Cartesian product $R_1 \times R_2 \times ... \times R_d$ where $R_i$ (for $1 \le i \le d$) is a closed interval of the form $[a_i, b_i]$ on the real line. For a graph $G$, its \emph{boxicity}…

We deal with first-order definability in the substructure ordering $(\mathcal{D}; \sqsubseteq)$ of finite directed graphs. In two papers, the author has already investigated the first-order language of the embeddability ordering $(…

Automatic structures are first-order structures whose universe and relations can be represented as regular languages. It follows from the standard closure properties of regular languages that the first-order theory of an automatic structure…

The interplay of minimum degree conditions and structural properties of large graphs with forbidden subgraphs is a central topic in extremal graph theory. For a given graph $F$ we define the homomorphism threshold as the infimum over all…

In this paper the limit probabilities of first-order properties are studied. The random graph $G(n,p)$ {\it obeys Zero-One $k$-Law} if for each first-order property with quantifier depth not greater than $k$ its probability tends to 0 or…

Let $G$ be a graph. A subset $D \subseteq V(G)$ is called a 1-isolating set of $G$ if $\Delta(G-N[D]) \leq 1$, that is, $G-N[D]$ consists of isolated edges and isolated vertices only. The $1$-isolation number of $G$, denoted by…

Let G be a simple graph without isolated vertices. For a vertex i in G, the degree d_i is the number of vertices adjacent to i and the average 2-degree m_i is the mean of the degrees of the vertices which are adjacent to i. The sequence of…

A vertex coloring of a graph $G$ is distinguishing if non-identity automorphisms do not preserve it. The distinguishing number, $D(G)$, is the minimum number of colors required for such a coloring and the distinguishing threshold,…

A graph of order $n$ is said to be $k$-\emph{factor-critical} $(0\le k<n)$ if the removal of any $k$ vertices results in a graph with a perfect matching. A $k$-factor-critical graph $G$ is \emph{minimal} if $G-e$ is not $k$-factor-critical…

We consider straight line drawings of a planar graph $G$ with possible edge crossings. The \emph{untangling problem} is to eliminate all edge crossings by moving as few vertices as possible to new positions. Let $fix(G)$ denote the maximum…

A configuration of pebbles on the vertices of a graph is solvable if one can place a pebble on any given root vertex via a sequence of pebbling steps. The pebbling number of a graph G is the minimum number pi(G) so that every configuration…

An immersion of a graph $H$ into a graph $G$ is a one-to-one mapping $f:V(H) \to V(G)$ and a collection of edge-disjoint paths in $G$, one for each edge of $H$, such that the path $P_{uv}$ corresponding to edge $uv$ has endpoints $f(u)$ and…

The age $\mathcal{A}(G)$ of a graph $G$ (undirected and without loops) is the collection of finite induced subgraphs of $G$, considered up to isomorphy and ordered by embeddability. It is well-quasi-ordered (wqo) for this order if it…

In this paper, we proceed on determining the minimum $q_{min}$ among the connected nonbipartite graphs on $n\geq 5$ vertices and with domination number $\frac{n+1}{3}<\gamma\leq \frac{n-1}{2}$. Further results obtained are as follows:…

The dot-depth hierarchy is a classification of star-free languages. It is related to the quantifier alternation hierarchy of first-order logic over finite words. We consider fragments of languages with dot-depth 1/2 and dot-depth 1 obtained…

A weighted graph $\phi G$ encodes a finite metric space $D_{\phi G}$. When is $D$ totally decomposable? When does it embed in $\ell_1$ space? When does its representing matrix have $\leq 1$ positive eigenvalue? We give useful lemmata and…