Coloring nearly-disjoint hypergraphs with \(n + o(n)\) colors (Q1185879)

A hypergraph \(H\) on a set \(V\) of vertices is a collection of subsets of \(V\) (the edges of \(H)\). The chromatic index \(\chi'(H)\) of \(H\) is the smallest number of colors with which the edges of \(H\) can be colored so that no two edges with a non-null intersection get the same colour. A hypergraph \(H\) is called nearly-disjoint if any two distinct edges of \(H\) intersect in at most one vertex. The famous Erdős-Faber-Lovász conjecture [\textit{P. Erdős}, On the combinatorial problems I would most like to see solved, Combinatorica 1, 25-42 (1981; Zbl 0486.05001)] says that if \(H\) is a nearly-disjoint hypergraph with \(n\) vertices then \(\chi'(H)\geq n\). The best upper bound to date [\textit{W. I. Chang} and \textit{E. L. Lawler}, Edge coloring of hypergraphs and a conjecture of Erdős, Faber, Lovász, Combinatorica 8, No. 3, 293-295 (1989; Zbl 0661.05026)] is \(\lceil 1.5 n-2\rceil\). The article under review improves this result (for large \(n)\) to \(n+o(n)\).