A note on kernels and Sperner’s Lemma

Abstract

The kernel-solvability of perfect graphs was first proved by Boros and Gurvich, and later Aharoni and Holzman gave a shorter proof. Both proofs were based on Scarf’s Lemma. In this note we show that a very simple proof can be given using a polyhedral version of Sperner’s Lemma. In addition, we extend the Boros–Gurvich theorem to h -perfect graphs and to a more general setting.