Some remarks on cycles in graphs and digraphs (Q5936027)

This is a survey paper on certain cycle-space and cycle-lattice related results. The cycle-space of graph \(D\) is the set of mod \(2\) sums of incidence vectors of cycles of \(D\), while the cycle-lattice of \(D\) is the set of integer combinations of incidence vectors of cycles of \(D\). It is indicated how the ear-decomposition of a graph can be used to construct a directed ear-basis of the cycle-lattice (this result is used to characterize \((p,q)\)-odd digraphs; see \textit{A. Galluccio} and \textit{M. Loebl} [J. Graph Theory 23, No. 2, 175-184 (1996; Zbl 0859.05047)]) and how the directed path-decomposition helps to find a so-called \(2\)-chain basis of a distribution graph. The notion of a correct ear-decomposition and an improved ear-decomposition is defined, and it is mentioned that any \(3\)-edge-connected graph has both types of decompositions (with a proof for the first claim). The paper ends with the proof of a linear algebra generalization of Robbins' theorem [cf. \textit{H. E. Robbins}, Am. Math. Mon. 46, 281-283 (1939; Zbl 0021.35703)] stating that any \(2\)-edge-connected graph has a strongly connected orientation. This is a result of \textit{P. Greenberg} and \textit{M. Loebl} [J. Algebr. Comb. 5, No. 2, 117-125 (1996; Zbl 0852.05058)].