On the deficiency of bipartite graphs (Q1293200)

An edge-coloring of a graph \(G\) with colors \(1,2,3,\dots\) is consecutive if the set of colors present at each vertex of \(G\) is a consecutive set of integers. For a bipartite graph \(G\), a consecutive edge-coloring has an application in scheduling and thus had been studied before by A. S. Asratian, R. R. Kamalian, D. Hanson, C. O. M. Loten, B. Toft, and others. This paper investigages bipartite graphs which do not have a consecutive edge-coloring. Reviewer's comments: Several standard notions like deficiency, core and Class \(i\) of a graph \(G\) were redefined in other sense in this paper. Perhaps, the authors should replace them by some other terminologies, otherwise, eventually one may have to say, for instance, that ``it may be possible that a Class \(i\) graph (in the sense that \(\chi'(G)= \Delta(G)+ i-1\)) does not belong to Class \(i\) (in the sense of the present authors that \(G\) is \(i\)-deficient)''.