Total Colourings Of Graphs

This book provides an up-to-date and rapid introduction to an important and currently active topic in graph theory. The author leads the reader to the forefront of research in this area. Complete and easily readable proofs of all the main theorems, together with numerous examples, exercises and open problems are given. The book is suitable for use as a textbook or as seminar material for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. The references are comprehensive and so it will also be useful for researchers as a handbook.

What is the "archetypal" image that comes to mind when one thinks of an infinite graph? What with a finite graph - when it is thought of as opposed to an infinite one? What structural elements are typical for either - by their presence or absence - yet provide a common ground for both? In planning the workshop on "Cycles and Rays" it had been intended from the outset to bring infinite graphs to the fore as much as possible. There never had been a graph theoretical meeting in which infinite graphs were more than "also rans", let alone one in which they were a central theme. In part, this is a matter of fashion, inasmuch as they are perceived as not readily lending themselves to applications, in part it is a matter of psychology stemming from the insecurity that many graph theorists feel in the face of set theory - on which infinite graph theory relies to a considerable extent. The result is that by and large, infinite graph theorists know what is happening in finite graphs but not conversely. Lack of knowledge about infinite graph theory can also be found in authoritative l sources. For example, a recent edition (1987) of a major mathematical encyclopaedia proposes to ". . . restrict [itself] to finite graphs, since only they give a typical theory". If anything, the reverse is true, and needless to say, the graph theoretical world knows better. One may wonder, however, by how much.

This volume presents the proceedings of the CRM workshop on graph coloring and applications. The articles span a wide spectrum of topics related to graph coloring, including: list-colorings, total colorings, colorings and embeddings of graphs, chromatic polynomials, characteristic polynomials, chromatic scheduling, and graph coloring problems related to frequency assignment. Outstanding researchers in combinatorial optimization and graph theory contributed their work. A list of open problems is included.

This is a supplementary volume to the major three-volume Handbook of Combinatorial Optimization set. It can also be regarded as a stand-alone volume presenting chapters dealing with various aspects of the subject in a self-contained way.

Contains a wealth of information previously scattered in research journals, conference proceedings and technical reports. Identifies more than 200 unsolved problems. Every problem is stated in a self-contained, extremely accessible format, followed by comments on its history, related results and literature. The book will stimulate research and help avoid efforts on solving already settled problems. Each chapter concludes with a comprehensive list of references which will lead readers to original sources, important contributions and other surveys.

Graph coloring is one of the oldest and best-known problems of graph theory. Statistics show that graph coloring is one of the central issues in the collection of several hundred classical combinatorial problems. This book covers the problems in graph coloring, which can be viewed as one area of discrete optimization.

A comprehensive treatment of color-induced graph colorings is presented in this book, emphasizing vertex colorings induced by edge colorings. The coloring concepts described in this book depend not only on the property required of the initial edge coloring and the kind of objects serving as colors, but also on the property demanded of the vertex coloring produced. For each edge coloring introduced, background for the concept is provided, followed by a presentation of results and open questions dealing with this topic. While the edge colorings discussed can be either proper or unrestricted, the resulting vertex colorings are either proper colorings or rainbow colorings. This gives rise to a discussion of irregular colorings, strong colorings, modular colorings, edge-graceful colorings, twin edge colorings and binomial colorings. Since many of the concepts described in this book are relatively recent, the audience for this book is primarily mathematicians interested in learning some new areas of graph colorings as well as researchers and graduate students in the mathematics community, especially the graph theory community.