We say that a binary operation $*$ is associated with a (finite undirected) graph $G$ (without loops and multiple edges) if $*$ is defined on $V\left(G\right)$ and $uv\in E\left(G\right)$ if and only if $u\ne v$, $u*v=v$ and $v*u=u$ for any $u$, $v\in V\left(G\right)$. In the paper it is proved that a connected graph $G$ is geodetic if and only if there exists a binary operation associated with $G$ which fulfils a certain set of four axioms. (This characterization is obtained as an immediate consequence of a stronger result proved in the paper).

By a signpost system we mean an ordered pair $(W,P)$, where $W$ is a finite nonempty set, $P\subseteq W\times W\times W$ and the following statements hold: $$\text{if}(u,v,w)\in P,\text{then}(v,u,u)\in P\text{and}(v,u,w)\notin P,\text{for}\text{all}u,v,w\in W;\text{if}u\ne v,i\text{then}\text{there}\text{exists}r\in W\text{such}\text{that}(u,r,v)\in P,\text{for}\text{all}u,v\in W.$$ We say that a signpost system $(W,P)$ is smooth if the folowing statement holds for all $u,v,x,y,z\in W$: if $(u,v,x),(u,v,z),(x,y,z)\in P$, then $(u,v,y)\in P$. We say thay a signpost system $(W,P)$ is simple if the following statement holds for all $u,v,x,y\in W$: if $(u,v,x),(x,y,v)\in P$, then $(u,v,y),(x,y,u)\in P$. By the underlying graph of a signpost system $(W,P)$ we mean the graph $G$ with $V\left(G\right)=W$ and such that the following statement holds for all distinct $u,v\in W$: $u$ and $v$ are adjacent in $G$ if and...

By a ternary structure we mean an ordered pair $(X_0,T_0)$, where $X_0$ is a finite nonempty set and $T_0$ is a ternary relation on $X_0$. By the underlying graph of a ternary structure $(X_0,T_0)$ we mean the (undirected) graph $G$ with the properties that $X_0$ is its vertex set and distinct vertices $u$ and $v$ of $G$ are adjacent if and only if $$\{x\in X_0{T}_0(u,x,v)\}\cup \{x\in X_0{T}_0(v,x,u)\}=\{u,v\}.$$ A ternary structure $(X_0,T_0)$ is said to be the B-structure of a connected graph $G$ if $X_0$ is the vertex set of $G$ and the following statement holds for all $u,x,y\in X_0$: $T_0(x,u,y)$ if and only if $u$ belongs to an...