Shattering, Graph Orientations, and Connectivity

We present a connection between two seemingly disparate fields: VC-theory and graph theory. This connection yields natural correspondences between fundamental concepts in VC-theory, such as shattering and VC-dimension, and well-studied concepts of graph theory related to connectivity, combinatorial optimization, forbidden subgraphs, and others.In one direction, we use this connection to derive results in graph theory. Our main tool is a generalization of the Sauer-Shelah Lemma (Pajor, 1985; Bollobás and Radcliffe, 1995; Dress, 1997; Holzman and Aharoni). Using this tool we obtain a series of inequalities and equalities related to properties of orientations of a graph. Some of these results appear to be new, for others we give new and simple proofs.In the other direction, we present new illustrative examples of shattering-extremal systems - a class of set-systems in VC-theory whose understanding is considered by some authors to be incomplete Bollobás and Radcliffe, 1995; Greco, 1998; Rónyai and Mészáros, 2011). These examples are derived from properties of orientations related to distances and flows in networks.