This paper develops new techniques for constructing separators for graphs embedded on surfaces of bounded genus. For any arbitrarily small positive " we show that any n-vertex graph G of genus g can be divided in O(n + g) time into components whose sizes do not exceed "n by removing a set C of O( p (g + 1=")n) vertices. Our result improves the best previous ones with respect to the size of C and the time complexity of the algorithm. Moreover, we show that one can cut off from G a piece of no more than (1 \Gamma ")n vertices by removing a set of O( p n"(g" + 1) vertices. Both results are optimal up to a constant factor. Keywords: graph separator, graph genus, algorithm, divide-and-conquer, topological graph theory AMS(MOS) subject classifications: 05C10, 05C85, 68R10 1 Bulgarian Academy of Sci., CICT, G.Bonchev 25-A, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria 2 Department of Comp.Sci.,Rice University, P.O.Box 1892, Houston, Texas 77251, USA 1 Introduction Let S be a class of graphs closed under t...

Methods for solving sparse linear systems of equations can be categorized under two broad classes- direct and iterative. Direct methods are methods based on gaussian elimination. This report discusses one such direct method namely Nested dissection. Nested Dissection, originally proposed by Alan George, is a technique for solving sparse linear systems efficiently. This report is a survey of some of the work in the area of nested dissection and attempts to put it together using a common framework.