A subgraph T of a digraph D is an out-branching if T is an oriented spanning tree with only one vertex of in-degree zero (called the root). The vertices of T of out-degree zero are leaves. In the Directed k-Leaf Problem, we are given a digraph D and an integral parameter k, and we are to decide whether D has an out-branching with at least k leaves. Recently, Kneis et al. (2008) obtained an algorithm for the problem of running time 4 k · n O(1). We describe a new algorithm for the problem of running time 3.72 k · n O(1). In Rooted Directed k-Leaf Problem, apart from D and k, we are given a vertex r of D and we are to decide whether D has an out-branching rooted at r with at least k leaves. Very recently, Fernau et al. (2008) found an O(k 3)-size kernel for Rooted Directed k-Leaf. In this paper, we obtain an O(k) kernel for Rooted Directed k-Leaf restricted to acyclic digraphs. 1

The algebraic framework introduced in [Koutis, Proc. of the 35 th ICALP 2008] reduces several combinatorial problems in parameterized complexity to the problem of detecting multilinear degree-k monomials in polynomials presented as circuits. The best known (randomized) algorithm for this problem requires only O ∗ (2 k) time and oracle access to an arithmetic circuit, i.e. the ability to evaluate the circuit on elements from a suitable group algebra. This algorithm has been used to obtain the best known algorithms for several parameterized problems. In this paper we use communication complexity to show that the O ∗ (2 k) algorithm is essentially optimal within this evaluation oracle framework. On the positive side, we give new applications of the method: finding a copy of a given tree on k nodes, a spanning tree with at least k leaves, a minimum set of nodes that dominate at least t nodes, and an m-dimensional k-matching. In each case we achieve a faster algorithm than what was known. We also apply the algebraic method to problems in exact counting. Among other results, we show that a combination of dynamic programming and a variation of the algebraic method can break the trivial upper bounds for exact parameterized counting in fairly general settings. 1

The k-Leaf Out-Branching problem is to find an out-branching, that is a rooted oriented spanning tree, with at least k leaves in a given digraph. The problem has recently received much attention from the viewpoint of parameterized algorithms. Here, we take a kernelization based approach to the k-Leaf-Out-Branching problem. We give the first polynomial kernel for Rooted k-Leaf-Out-Branching, a variant of k-Leaf-Out-Branching where the root of the tree searched for is also a part of the input. Our kernel has cubic size and is obtained using extremal combinatorics. For the k-Leaf-Out-Branching problem, we show that no polynomial kernel is possible unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses to third level by applying a recent breakthrough result by Bodlaender et al. (ICALP 2008) in a non-trivial fashion. However, our positive results for Rooted k-Leaf-Out-Branching immediately imply that the seemingly intractable k-Leaf-Out-Branching problem admits a data reduction to n independent O(k³) kernels. These two results, tractability and intractability side by side, are the first ones separating many-to-one kernelization from Turing kernelization. This answers affirmatively an open problem regarding “cheat kernelization” raised by Mike Fellows and Jiong Guo independently.

In 2000 Alber et al. [SWAT 2000] obtained the first parameterized subexponential algorithm on undirected planar graphs by showing that k-DOMINATING SET is solvable in time 2 O( √ k)

Abstract. The Directed Maximum Leaf Out-Branching problem is to find an out-branching (i.e. a rooted oriented spanning tree) in a given digraph with the maximum number of leaves. In this paper, we obtain two combinatorial results on the number of leaves in out-branchings. We show that – every strongly connected n-vertex digraph D with minimum indegree at least 3 has an out-branching with at least (n/4) 1/3 − 1 leaves; – if a strongly connected digraph D does not contain an out-branching with k leaves, then the pathwidth of its underlying graph UG(D) is O(k log k). Moreover, if the digraph is acyclic, the pathwidth is at most 4k. The last result implies that it can be decided in time 2 O(k log2 k) · n O(1) whether a strongly connected digraph on n vertices has an out-branching with at least k leaves. On acyclic digraphs the running time of our algorithm is 2 O(k log k) · n O(1). 1

Abstract. Given an undirected graph with n nodes, the Maximum Leaf Spanning Tree problem is to find a spanning tree with as many leaves as possible. When parameterized in the number of leaves k, this problem can be solved in time O(4 k poly(n)) using a simple branching algorithm introduced by a subset of the authors [12]. Daligault, Gutin, Kim, and Yeo [6] improved the branching and obtained a running time of O(3.72 k poly(n)). In this paper, we study the problem from an exponential time viewpoint, where it is equivalent to the Connected Dominating Set problem. Here, Fomin, Grandoni, and Kratsch showed how to break the Ω(2 n) barrier and proposed an O(1.9407 n)-time algorithm [10]. In light of some useful properties of [12] and [6], we present a branching algorithm whose running time of O(1.8966 n) has been analyzed using the Measure-and-Conquer technique. Finally we provide a lower bound of Ω(1.4422 n) for the worst case running time of our algorithm. 1

A subdigraph T of a digraph D is called an out-tree if T is an oriented tree with just one vertex s of in-degree zero. A spanning outtree is called an out-branching. A vertex x of an out-branching B is called a leaf if d + B (x) = 0. This is mainly a survey paper on out-branchings with minimum and maximum number of leaves. We give short proofs of some well-known theorems. 1

In this paper we consider a natural generalization of the well-known Max Leaf Spanning Tree problem. In the generalized Weighted Max Leaf problem we get as input an undirected connected graph G, a rational number k not smaller than 1 and a weight function w: V ↦ → R≥1 on the vertices, and are asked whether a spanning tree T for G exists such that the combined weight of the leaves of T is at least k. We show that it is possible to transform an instance 〈G, w, k 〉 of Weighted Max Leaf in linear time into an equivalent instance 〈G ′ , w ′ , k ′ 〉 such that |V (G ′) | ≤ 5.5k and k ′ ≤ k. In the context of fixed parameter complexity this means that Weighted Max Leaf admits a kernel with 5.5k vertices. The analysis of the kernel size is based on a new extremal result which shows that every graph G = (V, E) that excludes some simple substructures always contains a spanning tree with at least |V |/5.5 leaves.

Abstract. The k-Leaf Out-Branching problem is to find an out-branching, that is a rooted oriented spanning tree, with at least k leaves in a given digraph. The problem has recently received much attention from the viewpoint of parameterized algorithms. Here, we take a kernelization based approach to the k-Leaf-Out-Branching problem. We give the first polynomial kernel for Rooted k-Leaf-Out-Branching, a variant of k-Leaf-Out-Branching where the root of the tree searched for is also a part of the input. Our kernel has cubic size and is obtained using extremal combinatorics. For the k-Leaf-Out-Branching problem, we show that no polynomial kernel is possible unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses to third level by applying a recent breakthrough result by Bodlaender et al. (ICALP 2008) in a non-trivial fashion. However, our positive results for Rooted k-Leaf-Out-Branching immediately imply that the seemingly intractable k-Leaf-Out-Branching problem admits a data reduction to n independent O(k 3) kernels. These two results, tractability and intractability side by side, are the first ones separating many-to-one kernelization from Turing kernelization. This answers affirmatively an open problem regarding “cheat kernelization ” raised by Mike Fellows and Jiong Guo independently. 1.