No abstract

Geometrically, a graph is a collection of points (or vertices) together with a set of edges (or curves) each of which joins two distinct vertices of the graph, and no two of which have points in common except possibly end points. Two given vertices of the graph may be joined by no edge or one edge, but may not be joined by more than one edge. From an abstract point of view, a graph G is a collection of elements ﹛x1, x2, …﹜ called points or vertices, together with a second collection of certain pairs (xα, Xβ) of distinct points of G. It is helpful to retain the geometric language, and refer to any pair in as an edge (or a curve) of G that joins the points xα and Xβ.

A family of circuits of a graph G is said to be independent if no two of the circuits have a common vertex; it is called edge-independent if no two of them have an edge in common. A set of vertices will be called a representing set for the circuits (for the sake of brevity we shall call it a representing set), if every circuit of G passes through at least one vertex of the representing set. Denote by I(G) = k the maximum number of circuits in an independent family and by R(G) the minimum number of vertices of a representing set. Dirac and Gallai asked whether there is any relation between I(G) and R(G) (trivially R(G) ≥ I(G)).