Introduction to Graphs

Introduction to Graphs
Tecniche di Programmazione – A.A. 2012/2013

Summary
A.A. 2012/2013Tecniche di programmazione2
 Definition: Graph
 Related Definitions
 Applications

Definition: Graph

Definition: Graph
 A graph is a collection of points and lines connecting
some (possibly empty) subset of them.
 The points of a graph are most commonly known
as graph vertices, but may also be called “nodes” or
simply “points.”
 The lines connecting the vertices of a graph are most
commonly known as graph edges, but may also be called
“arcs” or “lines.”
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/

Big warning: Graph ≠ Graph ≠ Graph
Graph (plot)
(italiano: grafico)
Graph (maths)
(italiano: grafo)
≠
Graph (chart)
(italiano: grafico)

History
 The study of graphs is known as graph theory, and was
first systematically investigated by D. König in the 1930s
 Euler’s proof about the walk across all seven bridges of
Königsberg (1736), now known as the Königsberg bridge
problem, is a famous precursor to graph theory.
 In fact, the study of various sorts of paths in graphs has
many applications in real-world problems.

Königsberg Bridge Problem
 Can the 7 bridges the of
the city of Königsberg
over the river Preger all
be traversed in a single
trip without doubling back,
with the additional
requirement that the trip
ends in the same place it
began?
Today: Kaliningrad, Russia

Types of graphs: edge cardinality
 Simple graph:
 At most one edge (i.e.,
either one edge or no
edges) may connect any
two vertices
 Multigraph:
 Multiple edges are allowed
between vertices
 Loops:
 Edge between a vertex and
itself
 Pseudograph:
 Multigraph with loops
loop

Types of graphs: edge direction
 Undirected
 Oriented
 Edges have one direction
(indicated by arrow)
 Directed
 Edges may have one or
two directions
 Network
 Oriented graph with
weighted edges

Types of graphs: labeling
 Labels
 None
 OnVertices
 On Edges
 Groups (=colors)
 OfVertices
 no edge connects two
identically colored
vertices
 Of Edges
 adjacent edges must
receive different colors
 Of both

Directed and Oriented graphs
 A Directed Graph (di-graph) G is a pair (V,E), where
 V is a (finite) set of vertices
 E is a (finite) set of edges, that identify a binary relationship
overV
 𝐸 ⊆ 𝑉 × 𝑉

Example
4
1
5 6
2 3

Example
4
1
5 6
2 3
Loop

Example
4
1
5 6
2 3
V={1,2,3,4,5,6}
E={(1,2), (2,2), (2,5),
(5,4), (4,5), (4,1),
(2,4), (6,3)}

Undirected graph
 Ad Undirected Graph is still represented as a couple
G=(V,E), but the set E is made of non-ordered pairs of
vertices

Example
4
1
5 6
2 3
V={1,2,3,4,5,6}
E={(1,2), (2,5), (5,1), (6,3)}

Example
4
1
5 6
2 3
V={1,2,3,4,5,6}
E={(1,2), (2,5), (5,1), (6,3)}
Edge (1,5) adjacent
(or incident) to
vertices 1 and 5
Vertex 5 is adjacent
to vertices 1 and 2
Vertex 4 is isolated

Related Definitions

Degree
 In an undirected graph,
 the degree of a vertex is the number of incident edges
 In a directed graph
 The in-degree is the number of incoming edges
 The out-degree is the number of departing edges
 The degree is the sum of in-degree and out-degree
 A vertex with degree 0 is isolated

Degree
4
1
5 6
2 3
2 2
20 1
1

Degree
4
1
5 6
2 3
In: 1
Out: 1
In: 2
Out: 2
In: 1 or 2
Out: 2 or 3
In: 2
Out: 1
In: 1
Out: 0
In: 0
Out: 1

Paths
 A path on a graph G=(V,E) also called a trail, is
a sequence {v1, v2, …, vn} such that:
 v1, …, vn are vertices: vi V
 (v1, v2), (v2, v3), ..., (vn-1,vn) are graph edges: (vi-1,vi)  E
 vi are distinct (for “simple” paths).
 The length of a path is the number of edges (n-1)
 If there exist a path between vA and vB we say that vB is
reachable from vA

Example
4
1
5 6
2 3
Path = { 1, 2, 5 }
Length = 2

Cycles
 A cycle is a path where v1 = vn
 A graph with no cycles is said acyclic

Example
4
1
5 6
2 3
Path = { 1, 2, 5, 1 }
Length = 3

Reachability (Undirected)
 An undirected graph is connected if, for every couple of
vertices, there is a path connecting them
 The connected sub-graph of maximum size are called
connected components
 A connected graph has exactly one connected
component

Connected components
4
1
5 6
2 3
The graph is not
connected.
Connected components =
3
{ 4 } , { 1, 2, 5 }, { 3, 6 }

Reachability (Directed)
 A directed graph is strongly connected if, for every
ordered pair of vertices (v, v’), there exists at least one
path connecting v to v’

Example
4
1
5
2
The graph is strongly
connected

Example
4
1
5
2
The graph is not strongly
connected

Complete graph
 A graph is complete if, for every pair of vertices, there is
an edge connecting them (they are adjacent)
 Symbol: Kn

Complete graph: edges
 In a complete graph with n vertices, the number of
edges is
 n(n-1), if the graph is directed
 n(n-1)/2, if the graph is undirected
 If self-loops are allowed, then
 n2 for directed graphs
 n(n-1) for undirected graphs

Density
 The density of a graph G=(V,E) is the ration of the
number of edges to the total number of edges
𝑑 =
𝐸 𝐺
𝐸 𝐾 𝑉(𝐺)

Esempio
4
1
3
2
Density = 0.5
Existing: 3 edges
Total: 6 possible edges

Trees and Forests
 An undirected acyclic graph is called forest
 An undirected acyclic connected graph is called tree

Example
Tree

Example
Forest

Example This is not a tree nor a
forest
(it contains a cycle)

Rooted trees
 In a tree, a special node may be singled out
 This node is called the “root” of the tree
 Any node of a tree can be the root

Tree (implicit) ordering
 The root node of a tree induces an ordering of the
nodes
 The root is the “ancestor” of all other nodes/vertices
 “children” are “away from the root”
 “parents” are “towards the root”
 The root is the only node without parents
 All other nodes have exactly one parent
 The furthermost (children-of-children-of-children…)
nodes are “leaves”

Example
Rooted Tree

Weighted graphs
 A weighted graph is a graph in which each branch (edge)
is given a numerical weight.
 A weighted graph is therefore a special type of labeled
graph in which the labels are numbers (which are usually
taken to be positive).

Applications

Graph applications
 Graphs are everywhere
 Facebook friends (and posts, and ‘likes’)
 Football tournaments (complete subgraphs + binary tree)
 Google search index (V=page, E=link, w=pagerank)
 Web analytics (site structure, visitor paths)
 Car navigation (GPS)
 Market Matching

Market matching
 H = Houses (1, 2, 3, 4)
 B = Buyers (a, b, c, d)
 V = H  B
 Edges: (h, b)  E if b would like to buy h
 Problem: can all houses be sold and all
buyers be satisfied?
 Variant: if the graph is weighted with a
purchase offer, what is the most
convenient solution?
 Variant: consider a ‘penalty’ for unsold
items
This graph is called
“bipartite”:
H  B = 

Connecting cities
 We have a water reservoir
 We need to serve many cities
 Directly or indirectly
 What is the most efficient set of inter-city water
connections?
 Also for telephony,
gas, electricity, …
We are searching for
the “minimum
spanning tree”

Google Analytics (Visitors Flow)

Customer behavior
User actions encoded
as frequencies

Street navigation
We must find a
“Hamiltonian cycle”
TSP:The traveling
salesman problem

Train maps

Chemistry (Protein folding)

Facebook friends

Flow chart
BEGIN
END

Resources
 Maths Encyclopedia: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/
 Basic GraphTheory with Applications to Economics
http://www.isid.ac.in/~dmishra/mpdoc/lecgraph.pdf
 Application of GraphTheory in real world
http://prezi.com/tseh1wvpves-/application-of-graph-theory-
in-real-world/
 JGraphT Library: http://jgrapht.org/

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 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

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