On Bipartite and Multipartite Clique Problems

In this paper, we introduce the maximum edge biclique problem in bipartite graphs and the edge/node weighted multipartite clique problem in multipartite graphs. Our motivation for studying these problems came from abstractions of real manufacturing problems in the computer industry and from formal concept analysis. We show that the weighted version and four variants of the unweighted version of the biclique problem are NP-complete. For random bipartite graphs, we show that the size of the maximum balanced biclique is considerably smaller than the size of the maximum edge cardinality biclique, thus highlighting the difference between the two problems. For multipartite graphs, we consider three versions each for the edge and node weighted problems which differ in the structure of the multipartite clique (MPC) required. We show that all the edge weighted versions are NP-complete in general. We also provide a special case in which edge weighted versions are polynomially solvable.  2001 Elsevier Science