Given a set of graphs, the median graph has been theoretically presented as a useful concept to infer a representative of the set. However, the computation of the median graph is a highly complex task and its practical application has been very limited up to now. In this work we present two major contributions. On one side, and from a theoretical point of view, we show new theoretical propertie...

The concept of a signpost system on a set is introduced. It is a ternary relation on the set satisfying three fairly natural axioms. Its underlying graph is introduced. When the underlying graph is disconnected some unexpected things may happen. The main focus are signpost systems satisfying some extra axioms. Their underlying graphs have lots of structure: the components are modular graphs or ...

A class C of graphs is said to be dually compact closed if, for every infinite G ∈ C, each finite subgraph of G is contained in a finite induced subgraph of G which belongs to C. The class of trees and more generally the one of chordal graphs are dually compact closed. One of the main part of this paper is to settle a question of Hahn, Sands, Sauer and Woodrow by showing that the class of bridg...

The median graph has been shown to be a good choice to obtain a representative of a set of graphs. However, its computation is a complex problem. Recently, graph embedding into vector spaces has been proposed to obtain approximations of the median graph. The problem with such an approach is how to go from a point in the vector space back to a graph in the graph space. The main contribution of t...

Let e be an edge of a median graph G which is contained in exactly one 4-cycle. Then it is proved that G n e is a median graph. The converse holds as well provided that e is not contained is a subgraph isomorphic to the 3-cube minus a vertex. These results are used to give several characterizations of median grid graphs. (Grid graphs are subgraphs of complete grids, i.e. of the Cartesian produc...

A hierarchy of classes of graphs is proposed which includes hypercubes, acyclic cubical complexes, median graphs, almost-median graphs, semi-median graphs and partial cubes. Structural properties of these classes are derived and used for the characterization of these classes by expansion procedures, for a characterization of semi-median graphs by metrically defined relations on the edge set of ...

A periphery transversal of a median graph G is introduced as a set of vertices that meets all the peripheral subgraphs of G. Using this concept, median graphs with geodetic number 2 are characterized in two ways. They are precisely the median graphs that contain a periphery transversal of order 2 as well as the median graphs for which there exists a profile such that the remoteness function is ...

A periphery transversal of a median graph G is introduced as a set of vertices that meets all the peripheral subgraphs of G. Using this concept, median graphs with geodetic number 2 are characterized in two ways. They are precisely the median graphs that contain a periphery transversal of order 2 as well as the median graphs for which there exists a profile such that the remoteness function is ...

In a connected graph G, the status of a vertex is the sum of the distances of that vertex to each of the other vertices in G. The subgraph induced by the vertices of minimum (maximum) status in G is called the median (anti-median) of G. The median problem of graphs is closely related to the optimization problems involving the placement of network servers, the core of the entire networks. Bipart...

A profile on a graph G is any nonempty multiset whose elements are vertices from G. The corresponding remoteness function associates to each vertex x ∈ V (G) the sum of distances from x to the vertices in the profile. Starting from some nice and useful properties of the remoteness function in hypercubes, the remoteness function is studied in arbitrary median graphs with respect to their isometr...