The generalized $k$-connectivity ${\kappa }_k\left(G\right)$ of a graph $G$ was introduced by Chartrand et al. in 1984. As a natural counterpart of this concept, Li et al. in 2011 introduced the concept of generalized $k$-edge-connectivity which is defined as ${\lambda }_k\left(G\right)=min\{\lambda \left(S\right):S\subseteq V\left(G\right)$ and $\left|S\right|=k\}$, where $\lambda \left(S\right)$ denotes the maximum number $\ell$ of pairwise edge-disjoint trees $T_1,T_2,...,T_{\ell }$ in $G$ such that $S\subseteq V\left(T_i\right)$ for $1\le i\le \ell$. In this paper we prove that for any two connected graphs $G$ and $H$ we have ${\lambda }_3(G\square H)\ge {\lambda }_3\left(G\right)+{\lambda }_3\left(H\right)$, where $G\square H$ is the Cartesian product of $G$ and $H$. Moreover, the bound is sharp. We also...

A proper coloring $c:V\left(G\right)\to \{1,2,...,k\}$, $k\ge 2$ of a graph $G$ is called a graceful $k$-coloring if the induced edge coloring $c^{\text{'}}:E\left(G\right)\to \{1,2,...,k-1\}$ defined by $c^{\text{'}}\left(uv\right)=|c\left(u\right)-c\left(v\right)|$ for each edge $uv$ of $G$ is also proper. The minimum integer $k$ for which $G$ has a graceful $k$-coloring is the graceful chromatic number ${\chi }_g\left(G\right)$. It is known that if $T$ is a tree with maximum degree $\Delta$, then ${\chi }_g\left(T\right)\le \lceil \frac{5}{3}\Delta \rceil$ and this bound is best possible. It is shown for each integer $\Delta \ge 2$ that there is an infinite class of trees $T$ with maximum degree $\Delta$ such that ${\chi }_g\left(T\right)=\lceil \frac{5}{3}\Delta \rceil$. In particular, we investigate for each...

Let $G_1$ and $G_2$ be two given graphs. The Ramsey number $R(G_1,G_2)$ is the least integer $r$ such that for every graph $G$ on $r$ vertices, either $G$ contains a $G_1$ or $\overline{G}$ contains a $G_2$. Parsons gave a recursive formula to determine the values of $R(P_n,K_{1,m})$, where $P_n$ is a path on $n$ vertices and $K_{1,m}$ is a star on $m+1$ vertices. In this note, we study the Ramsey numbers $R(P_n,K_1\vee F_m)$, where $F_m$ is a linear forest on $m$ vertices. We determine the exact values of $R(P_n,K_1\vee F_m)$ for the cases $m\le n$ and $m\ge 2n$, and for the case that $F_m$ has no odd component. Moreover, we...

Let $G$ be a group and $\omega \left(G\right)$ be the set of element orders of $G$. Let $k\in \omega \left(G\right)$ and $m_k\left(G\right)$ be the number of elements of order $k$ in $G$. Let nse$\left(G\right)=\{m_k\left(G\right):k\in \omega \left(G\right)\}$. Assume $r$ is a prime number and let $G$ be a group such that nse$\left(G\right)=$ nse$\left(S_r\right)$, where $S_r$ is the symmetric group of degree $r$. In this paper we prove that $G\cong S_r$, if $r$ divides the order of $G$ and $r^2$ does not divide it. To get the conclusion we make use of some well-known results on the prime graphs of finite simple groups and their components.

Let $ex(n,G)$ denote the maximum number of edges in a graph on $n$ vertices which does not contain $G$ as a subgraph. Let $P_i$ denote a path consisting of $i$ vertices and let $m{P}_i$ denote $m$ disjoint copies of $P_i$. In this paper we count $ex(n,3P_4)$.

The Ramsey number $R(G,H)$ for a pair of graphs $G$ and $H$ is defined as the smallest integer $n$ such that, for any graph $F$ on $n$ vertices, either $F$ contains $G$ or $\overline{F}$ contains $H$ as a subgraph, where $\overline{F}$ denotes the complement of $F$. We study Ramsey numbers for some subgraphs of generalized wheels versus cycles and paths and determine these numbers for some cases. We extend many known results studied in [5, 14, 18, 19, 20]. In particular we count the numbers $R(K_1+L_n,P_m)$ and $R(K_1+L_n,C_m)$ for some integers $m$, $n$, where $L_n$ is...

Edge-colourings of graphs have been studied for decades. We study edge-colourings with respect to hereditary graph properties. For a graph $G$, a hereditary graph property $𝒫$ and $l\ge 1$ we define ${\chi }_{𝒫,l}^{\text{'}}\left(G\right)$ to be the minimum number of colours needed to properly colour the edges of $G$, such that any subgraph of $G$ induced by edges coloured by (at most) $l$ colours is in $𝒫$. We present a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of ${\chi }_{𝒫,l}^{\text{'}}\left(G\right)$. We focus on edge-colourings of graphs with respect to the hereditary...

Let $G$ be a simple connected graph with vertex set $V\left(G\right)=\{v_1,v_2,\cdots ,v_n\}$ and edge set $E\left(G\right)$, and let $d_{v_i}$ be the degree of the vertex $v_i$. Let $D\left(G\right)$ be the distance matrix and let $T_r\left(G\right)$ be the diagonal matrix of the vertex transmissions of $G$. The generalized distance matrix of $G$ is defined as $D_{\alpha }\left(G\right)=\alpha T_r\left(G\right)+(1-\alpha )D\left(G\right)$, where $0\le \alpha \le 1$. Let ${\lambda }_1\left(D_{\alpha }\left(G\right)\right)\ge {\lambda }_2\left(D_{\alpha }\left(G\right)\right)\ge ...\ge {\lambda }_n\left(D_{\alpha }\left(G\right)\right)$ be the generalized distance eigenvalues of $G$, and let $k$ be an integer with $1\le k\le n$. We denote by $S_k\left(D_{\alpha }\left(G\right)\right)={\lambda }_1\left(D_{\alpha }\left(G\right)\right)+{\lambda }_2\left(D_{\alpha }\left(G\right)\right)+...+{\lambda }_k\left(D_{\alpha }\left(G\right)\right)$ the sum of the $k$ largest generalized distance eigenvalues. The generalized distance spread of a graph $G$ is defined as $D_{\alpha }S\left(G\right)={\lambda }_1\left(D_{\alpha }\left(G\right)\right)-{\lambda }_n\left(D_{\alpha }\left(G\right)\right)$....

Suppose that $A$ is a real symmetric matrix of order $n$. Denote by $m_A\left(0\right)$ the nullity of $A$. For a nonempty subset $\alpha$ of $\{1,2,...,n\}$, let $A\left(\alpha \right)$ be the principal submatrix of $A$ obtained from $A$ by deleting the rows and columns indexed by $\alpha$. When $m_{A\left(\alpha \right)}\left(0\right)=m_A\left(0\right)+\left|\alpha \right|$, we call $\alpha$ a P-set of $A$. It is known that every P-set of $A$ contains at most $\lfloor n/2\rfloor$ elements. The graphs of even order for which one can find a matrix attaining this bound are now completely characterized. However, the odd case turned out to be more difficult to tackle. As...

Let $G$ be a finite group and let $\pi \left(G\right)=\{p_1,p_2,...,p_k\}$ be the set of prime divisors of $\left|G\right|$ for which $p_1<p_2<\cdots <p_k$. The Gruenberg-Kegel graph of $G$, denoted $GK\left(G\right)$, is defined as follows: its vertex set is $\pi \left(G\right)$ and two different vertices $p_i$ and $p_j$ are adjacent by an edge if and only if $G$ contains an element of order $p_i{p}_j$. The degree of a vertex $p_i$ in $\mathrm{GK}\left(G\right)$ is denoted by $d_G\left(p_i\right)$ and the $k$-tuple $D\left(G\right)=(d_G\left(p_1\right),d_G\left(p_2\right),...,d_G\left(p_k\right))$ is said to be the degree pattern of $G$. Moreover, if $\omega \subseteq \pi \left(G\right)$ is the vertex set of a connected component of $GK\left(G\right)$, then the largest $\omega$-number which divides $\left|G\right|$, is...

A graph $G$ is a $k$-tree if either $G$ is the complete graph on $k+1$ vertices, or $G$ has a vertex $v$ whose neighborhood is a clique of order $k$ and the graph obtained by removing $v$ from $G$ is also a $k$-tree. Clearly, a $k$-tree has at least $k+1$ vertices, and $G$ is a 1-tree (usual tree) if and only if it is a $1$-connected graph and has no $K_3$-minor. In this paper, motivated by some properties of 2-trees, we obtain a characterization of $k$-trees as follows: if $G$ is a graph with at least $k+1$ vertices, then $G$ is...