Any chart with at most one crossing is a ribbon chart (Q972505)

The authors' short abstract says that they show the result from the title. This is indeed true, and the exact result is the following: Any \(n\)-chart with at most one crossing is a ribbon chart. The statement is short, but not its proof. An analogous statement for \(n=4\) has preceded this result and was obtained by the first author of this paper and \textit{A. Hirota}, [Osaka J. Math. 43, No.~2, 413--430 (2006; Zbl 1124.57009)]. Let us approach the main terms of this statement. Shortly, an \(n\)-chart is an oriented labeled graph in a disk with vertices of degree 1,4, or 6 called black, crossings and white vertices, respectively. The edges are labeled by \(\{1,2,\dots, n-1\}\) according to rules in the paper. One locally modifies an \(n\)-chart to another by so called \(C\)-moves, given in the paper. A ribbon chart is a chart which is \(C\)-move equivalent to a chart without white vertices i.e. without vertices of degree 6. Such graphs have come from description of surface braids of braid index \(n\) in 4-dimensional space.