The irregularity cost or sum of a graph (Q2367986)

A multigraph is called irregular if no two of its vertices have the same degree. It is well known that no graph is irregular. However, if \(G\) is a graph having at most one isolated vertex and no component isomorphic to \(K_ 2\) then there is an irregular multigraph \(H\) containing \(G\) as its underlying graph. In \textit{F. Harary} and \textit{O. R. Oellermann} [The irregularity cost of a graph, to appear], the irregularity cost \(\text{ic}(G)\) of a graph \(G\) was defined to be the minimum number of edges that must be added to \(G\) to obtain an irregular multigraph (having \(G\) as its underlying graph). Independently, in [\textit{M. S. Jacobson}, \textit{E. Kubicka} and \textit{G. Kubicki}] the irregularity sum \(s(G)\) was defined to be twice the minimum number of edges in a multigraph having \(G\) as its underlying graph. (The definition of irregularity sum given in this paper is in error due to an apparent typo.) Then clearly, \(s(G)=2(\text{ic}(G)+| E(G)|)\). Thus essentially the same concept was discovered independently. Furthermore, there are many common results in the two aforementioned papers. In this paper, many of the common results are presented without proof. Each team will publish their full papers separately.