On induced-universal graphs for the class of bounded-degree graphs

For a family F of graphs, a graph U is said to be F-induced-universal if every graph of F is an induced subgraph of U. We give a construction for an induced-universal graph for the family of graphs on n vertices with degree at most k. For k even, our induced-universal graph has O(n^k^/^2) vertices and for k odd it has O(n^@?^k^/^2^@?^-^1^/^klog^2^+^2^/^kn) vertices. This construction improves a result of Butler by a multiplicative constant factor for the even case and by almost a multiplicative n^1^/^k factor for the odd case. We also construct induced-universal graphs for the class of oriented graphs with bounded incoming and outgoing degree, slightly improving another result of Butler.