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Abstract The purpose of this paper is to introduce and study the following graph-theoretic paradigm. Let$$ \begin{align*}T_Kf(x)=\int K(x,y) f(y) d\mu(y),\end{align*} $$where$$f: X \to {\Bbb R}$$,Xa set, finite or infinite, andKand$$\mu $$denote a suitable kernel and a measure, respectively. Given a connected ordered graphGonnvertices, consider the multi-linear form$$ \begin{align*}\Lambda_G(f_1,f_2, \dots, f_n)=\int_{x^1, \dots, x^n \in X} \ \prod_{(i,j) \in {\mathcal E}(G)} K(x^i,x^j) \prod_{l=1}^n f_l(x^l) d\mu(x^l),\end{align*} $$where$${\mathcal E}(G)$$is the edge set ofG. Define$$\Lambda _G(p_1, \ldots , p_n)$$as the smallest constant$$C>0$$such that the inequality(0.1)$$ \begin{align} \Lambda_G(f_1, \dots, f_n) \leq C \prod_{i=1}^n {||f_i||}_{L^{p_i}(X, \mu)} \end{align} $$holds for all nonnegative real-valued functions$$f_i$$,$$1\le i\le n$$, onX. The basic question is, how does the structure ofGand the mapping properties of the operator$$T_K$$influence the sharp exponents in (0.1). In this paper, this question is investigated mainly in the case$$X={\Bbb F}_q^d$$, thed-dimensional vector space over the field withqelements,$$K(x^i,x^j)$$is the indicator function of the sphere evaluated at$$x^i-x^j$$, and connected graphsGwith at most four vertices.