Proof. The medial graph M(G) of a plane graph G is obtained as follows.
For each edge e of G insert a vertex m(e) in M(G). Join two vertices of M(G)
if the corresponding edges are face-adjacent. Clearly, M(G) is also plane graph.
Observe that every proper vertex-coloring of M(G) corresponds to a facial 2-
acyclic edge-coloring of G. By the Four Color Theorem, M(G) has a proper
vertex-coloring with at most 4 colors. Hence, a′
f2(G) ≤ 4 for any 2-connected plane graph G.