A distributed algorithm for ear decomposition

A distributed algorithm for finding an ear decomposition of an asynchronous communication network with n nodes and m links is presented. At the completion of the algorithm either the ears are correctly labeled or the nodes are informed that there exists no ear decomposition. First we present a novel algorithm to check the existence of an ear decomposition which uses O(m) messages. We also present two other algorithms, one which is time-optimal and the other which is message-optimal to determine the actual ears and their corresponding numbers after determining the existence of an ear decomposition.<
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