Given a set of points P ⊆ R 2, a conflict-free coloring of P is an assignment of colors to points of P, such that each non-empty axis-parallel rectangle T in the plane contains a point whose color is distinct from all other points in P ∩ T. This notion has been the subject of recent interest, and is motivated by frequency assignment in wireless cellular networks: one naturally would like to minimize the number of frequencies (colors) assigned to bases stations (points), such that within any range (for instance, rectangle), there is no interference. We show that any set of n points in R 2 can be conflict-free colored with Õ(n.382+ɛ) colors in expected polynomial time, for any arbitrarily small ɛ> 0. This improves upon the previously known bound of O ( p n log log n/log n).

We study the problem of conflict-free (CF) coloring of a set of points in the plane, in an online fashion, with respect to halfplanes, nearly-equal axis-parallel rectangles, and congruent disks. As a warm-up exercise, the online CF coloring of points on the line with respect to intervals is also considered. We present randomized algorithms in the oblivious adversary model, where the adversary does not see the colors used. For the problems considered, the algorithms always produce valid CF colorings, and use O(log n) colors with high probability (these bounds are optimal in the worst case). Our randomized online algorithms are considerably simpler than previous algorithms for this problem and use fewer colors. We also present a deterministic algorithm for the CF coloring of points in the plane with respect to nearly-equal axis-parallel rectangles, using O(polylog(n)) colors. This is the first efficient deterministic online CF coloring algorithm for this problem. 1

This paper studies deterministic algorithms for a frequency assignment problem in cellular networks. A cellular network consists of fixed-position base stations and moving agents. Each base station operates at a fixed frequency, and this allows an agent tuned at this frequency to communicate with the base station. Each agent has a specific range of communication (described as a geometric shape, e.g., a disc) that may contain one or several base stations. To avoid interference, the goal is to assign frequencies to base stations such that for any range, there exists a base station in the range with a frequency that is not reused by some other base station in the range. The base station with this unique (in the range) frequency serves the aforementioned range. Since using many frequencies is expensive, the optimization goal is to use as few frequencies as possible. The problem can be modeled as a special coloring problem for hypergraphs. Base stations are the vertices, ranges are the hyperedges, and colors (frequencies) must be assigned to vertices following the conflict-free property: In every hyperedge there is a color that occurs exactly once. We concentrate on the special case where the n base stations lie on the real line and ranges are the n(n + 1)/2 nonempty subsets of consecutive points. This problem is called conflict-free coloring for intervals. We introduce a hierarchy of four models for the above problem: (i) the static model, where the complete hypergraph is given and all vertices are colored simultaneously, (ii) the dynamic offline model, where the vertices appear in some order and the conflict-free prop-

Abstract. We consider an online version of the conflict-free coloring of a set of points on the line, where each newly inserted point must be assigned a color upon insertion, and at all times the coloring has to be conflict-free, in the sense that in every interval I there is a color that appears exactly once in I. We present deterministic and randomized algorithms for achieving this goal, and analyze their performance, that is, the maximum number of colors that they need to use, as a function of the number n of inserted points. We first show that a natural and simple (deterministic) approach may perform rather poorly, requiring Ω ( √ n) colors in the worst case. We then derive two efficient variants of this simple algorithm. The first is deterministic and uses O(log 2 n) colors, and the second is randomized and uses O(log n) colors with high probability. We also show that the O(log 2 n) bound on the number of colors used by our deterministic algorithm is tight on the worst case. We also analyze the performance of the simplest proposed algorithm when the points are inserted in a random order, and present an incomplete analysis that indicates that, with high probability, it uses only O(log n) colors. Finally, we show that in the extension of this problem to two dimensions, where the relevant ranges are disks, n colors may be required in the worst case. Keywords. Conflict-free coloring; Online algorithms; Randomized algorithms; Branching processes. AMS Subject Classification. 05C15, 52C45, 68Q25, 68W20, 68W40. 1. Introduction. Let P be a set of n points in R d and R a set of subsets of R d, called ranges (e.g.,

(i) We provide a framework for online conflict-free coloring (CF-coloring) any hypergraph. We use this framework to obtain an efficient randomized online algorithm for CF-coloring any k-degenerate hypergraph. Our algorithm uses O(k log n) colors with high probability and this bound is asymptotically optimal for any constant k. Moreover, our algorithm uses O(k log k log n) random bits with high probability. (ii) We show a deterministic online CF-coloring algorithm for points on the line with respect to intervals that uses Θ(log n) colors by allowing at most one recoloring operation at any given insertion step. We also show a deterministic online CF-coloring algorithm for points in plane with respect to halfplanes that uses Θ(log n) colors and recolors O(n) points during the run. As a corollary of (i), we obtain asymptotically optimal randomized algorithms for online CF-coloring some hypergraphs that arise in geometry and model an important version of the frequency assignment task for cellular networks. For example, hypergraphs that are induced by n points on a line with respect to intervals and also for n points in the plane with

Let H = (V, E) be a hypergraph. A conflict-free coloring of H is an assignment of colors to V such that in each hyperedge e ∈ E there is at least one uniquely-colored vertex. This notion is an extension of the classical graph coloring. Such colorings arise in the context of frequency assignment to cellular antennae, in battery consumption aspects of sensor networks, in RFID protocols and several other fields, and has been the focus of many recent research papers. In this paper, we survey this notion and its combinatorial and algorithmic aspects.

Abstract. A conflict-free coloring for a given set of disks is a coloring of the disks such that for any point p on the plane there is a disk among the disks covering p having a color different from that of the rest of the disks that covers p. In the dynamic offline setting, a sequence of disks is given, we have to color the disks one-by-one according to the order of the sequence and maintain the conflict-free property at any time for the disks that are colored. This paper focuses on unit disks, i.e., disks with radius one. We give an algorithm that colors a sequence of n unit disks in the dynamic offline setting using O(log n) colors. The algorithm is asymptotically optimal because Ω(log n) colors is necessary to color some set of n unit disks for any value of n [9]. 1

A finite family R of simple Jordan regions in the plane defines a hypergraph H = H(R) where the vertex set of H is R and the hyperedges are all subsets S ⊂Rfor which there is a point p such that S = {r ∈R|p ∈ r}. The chromatic number of H(R) is the minimum number of colors needed to color the members of R such that no hyperedge is monochromatic. In this paper we initiate the study of the chromatic number of such hypergraphs and obtain the following results: (i) Any hypergraph that is induced by a family of n simple Jordan regions such that the maximum union complexity of any k of them (for 1 ≤ k ≤ m) is bounded by U(m) and U(m) m is a nondecreasing function is O ( U(n))-colorable. Thus, for example, we prove that any finite family of pseudo-discs can n be colored with a constant number of colors. (ii) Any hypergraph induced by a finite family of planar discs is four colorable. This bound is tight. In fact, we prove that this statement is equivalent to the four-color theorem. (iii) Any hypergraph induced by n axis-parallel rectangles is O(log n)-colorable. This bound is asymptotically tight. Our proofs are constructive. Namely, we provide deterministic polynomial-time algorithms for coloring such hypergraphs with only “few ” colors (that is, the number of colors used by these algorithms is upper bounded by the same bounds we obtain on the chromatic number of the given hypergraphs). As an application of (i) and (ii) we obtain simple constructive proofs for the following: (iv) Any set of n Jordan regions with near linear union complexity admits a conflict-free (CF) coloring with polylogarithmic number of colors. (v) Any set of n axis-parallel rectangles admits a CF-coloring with O(log2 (n)) colors.

We investigate a coloring problem, called ordered coloring, in grids and some other families of grid-like graphs. Ordered coloring (also known as vertex ranking) is related to conflict-free coloring and other traditional coloring problems. Such coloring problems can model (among others) efficient frequency assignments in cellular networks. Our main technical results improve upper and lower bounds for the ordered chromatic number of grids and related graphs. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to calculate exactly the ordered chromatic number of these graph families.