This is the nineteenth edition of a (usually) quarterly column that covers new developments in the theory of NP-completeness. The presentation is modeled on that used by M. R. Garey and myself in our book ‘‘Computers and Intractability: A Guide to the Theory of NP-Completeness,’ ’ W. H. Freeman & Co., New York, 1979 (hereinafter referred to as ‘‘[G&J]’’; previous columns will be referred to by their dates). A background equivalent to that provided by [G&J] is assumed, and, when appropriate, cross-references will be given to that book and the list of problems (NP-complete and harder) presented there. Readers who have results they would like mentioned (NP-hardness, PSPACE-hardness, polynomial-time-solvability, etc.) or open problems they would like publicized, should

Given a graph G = (V; E), k distinct vertices u 1 ; u 2 ; 1 1 1, u k 2 V and k natural numbers n 1 ; n 2 ; 1 1 1 ; n k such that P k i=1 n i = jV j, we wish to find a partition V 1 ; V 2 ; 1 1 1 ; V k of the vertex set V such that u i 2 V i , jV i j = n i , and V i induces a connected subgraph of G for each i, 1 i k. Such a partition is called a k- partition of G. The problem of finding a k-partition of a general graph is NP-hard [DF85], and hence it is very unlikely that there is a polynomial-time algorithm to solve the problem. Although not every graph has a k-partition, Gyori and Lov'asz independently proved that every k-connected graph has a k-partition for any u 1 ; u 2 ; 1 1 1 ; u k and n 1 ; n 2 ; 1 1 1 ; n k [G78, L77]. However, their proofs do not yield any polynomial-time algorithm for actually finding a k- ...

x 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Historical Background . . .............................. 4 1.2 Drawing Styles . ................................... 4 1.2.1 Polyline drawings .............................. 5 1.2.2 Planar drawings ............................... 5 1.2.3 Straight line drawings ............................ 6 1.2.4 Orthogonal drawings . . ........................... 7 1.2.5 Grid drawings ................................ 8 1.3 Properties of Drawings ................................ 9 1.4 Scope of this Thesis .................................. 10 1.4.1 Rectangular drawings . . . ......................... 11 1.4.2 Orthogonal drawings . . ........................... 12 1.4.3 Box-rectangular drawings ........................... 14 1.4.4 Convex drawings . . ............................. 16 1.5 Summary ....................................... 16 2 Preliminaries 20 2.1 Basic Terminology .................................. 20 2.1.1 Graphs and Multigraphs ........................... 20 i CO...

Abstract. We discuss various questions around partitioning a split graph into connected parts. Our main result is a polynomial time algorithm that decides whether a given split graph is fully decomposable.

This paper builds a general mathematical and algorithmic theory for balloon-twisting structures, from balloon animals to balloon polyhedra, by modeling their underlying graphs (edge skeleta). In particular, we give algorithms to find the fewest balloons that can make exactly a desired graph or, using fewer balloons but allowing repeated traversal or shortcuts, the minimum total length needed by a given number of balloons. In contrast, we show NP-completeness of determining whether such an optimal construction is possible with balloons of equal length.