We consider a «Maker-Breaker’ version of the Ramsey Graph Game, RG(n), and present a winning strategy for Maker requiring at most (n − 3)2n−1 + n + 1 moves. This is the fastest winning strategy known so far. We also demonstrate how the ideas presented can be used to develop winning strategies for some related combinatorial games.

We provide a characterization of upper locally distributive lattices (ULD-lattices) in terms of edge colourings of their cover graphs. In many instances where a set of combinatorial objects carries the order structure of a lattice, this characterization yields a slick proof of distributivity or UL-distributivity. This is exemplified by proving a distributive lattice structure on Δ-bonds with invariant circular flow-difference. This instance generalizes several previously studied lattice structures, in particular, c-orientations (Propp), α-orientations of planar graphs (Felsner, resp. de Mendez) and planar flows (Khuller, Naor and Klein). The characterization also applies to other instances, e.g., to chip-firing games.

Let G be a planar graph without 6-cycles. We investigate structural properties of G and show that G is edge-(Δ(G) + 1)-choosable when its maximum degree Δ(G) is not 5. We also study the 3-degeneracy property of G.

For a fixed permutation τ, let $\mathcal{S}_N(\tau)$ be the set of permutations on N elements that avoid the pattern τ. Madras and Liu (2010) conjectured that $\lim_{N\rightarrow\infty}\frac{|\mathcal{S}_{N+1}(\tau)|}{ |\mathcal{S}_N(\tau)|}$ exists; if it does, it must equal the Stanley–Wilf limit. We prove the conjecture for every permutation τ of length 5 or less, as well as for some longer cases (including 704 of the 720 permutations of length 6). We also consider permutations drawn at random from $\mathcal{S}_N(\tau)$, and we investigate properties of their graphs (viewing permutations as functions on {1,. . .,N}) scaled down to the unit square [0,1]2. We prove exact large deviation results for these graphs when τ has length 3; it follows, for example, that it is exponentially unlikely for a random 312-avoiding permutation to have points above the diagonal strip |y−x| < ε, but not unlikely to have points below the strip. For general τ, we show that some neighbourhood of the upper left corner of [0,1]2 is exponentially unlikely to contain a point of the graph if and only if τ starts with its largest element. For patterns such as τ=4231 we establish that this neighbourhood can be extended along the sides of [0,1]2 to come arbitrarily close to the corner points (0,0) and (1,1), as simulations had suggested.

We show that the Poisson–Dirichlet distribution is the distribution of points in a scale-invariant Poisson process, conditioned on the event that the sum T of the locations of the points in (0,1] is 1. This extends to a similar result, rescaling the locations by T, and conditioning on the event that T[les ]1. Restricting both processes to (0, β] for 0<β[les ]1, we give an explicit formula for the total variation distance between their distributions. Connections between various representations of the Poisson–Dirichlet process are discussed.

In this paper we extend a classical theorem of Corrádi and Hajnal into the setting of sparse random graphs. We show that if p(n) ≫ (log n/n)1/2, then asymptotically almost surely every subgraph of G(n, p) with minimum degree at least (2/3 + o(1))np contains a triangle packing that covers all but at most O(p−2) vertices. Moreover, the assumption on p is optimal up to the (log n)1/2 factor and the presence of the set of O(p−2) uncovered vertices is indispensable. The main ingredient in the proof, which might be of independent interest, is an embedding theorem which says that if one imposes certain natural regularity conditions on all three pairs in a balanced 3-partite graph, then this graph contains a perfect triangle packing.

We consider a stochastic process based on the iterated prisoner's dilemma game. During the game, each of n players has a state, either cooperate or defect. The players are connected by an ‘interaction graph’. During each step of the process, an edge of the graph is chosen uniformly at random and the states of the players connected by the edge are modified according to the Pavlov strategy. The process converges to a unique absorbing state in which all players cooperate. We prove two conjectures of Kittock: the convergence rate is exponential in n when the interaction graph is a complete graph, and it is polynomial in n when the interaction graph is a cycle. In fact, we show that the rate is O(n log n) in the latter case.

One can define the independence polynomial of a graph G as follows. Let ik(G) denote the number of independent sets of size k of G, where i0(G)=1. Then the independence polynomial of G is I(G,x)=∑k=0n(−1)kik(G)xk. In this paper we give a new proof of the fact that the root of I(G,x) having the smallest modulus is unique and is real.

We are interested in a function f(p) that represents the probability that a random subset of edges of a Δ-regular graph G contains half the edges of some cycle of G. f(p) is also the probability that a codeword is corrupted beyond recognition when words of the cycle code of G are submitted to the binary symmetric channel. We derive a precise upper bound on the largest p for which f(p) can vanish when the number of edges of G goes to infinity. To this end, we introduce the notion of fractional percolation on trees, and calculate the related critical probabilities.

A collection H of integers is called an affine d-cube if there exist d+1 positive integers x0,x1,…, xd so that

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We address both density and Ramsey-type questions for affine d-cubes. Regarding density results, upper bounds are found for the size of the largest subset of {1,2,…,n} not containing an affine d-cube. In 1892 Hilbert published the first Ramsey-type result for affine d-cubes by showing that, for any positive integers r and d, there exists a least number n=h(d,r) so that, for any r-colouring of {1,2,…,n}, there is a monochromatic affine d-cube. Improvements for upper and lower bounds on h(d,r) are given for d>2.

The two-type Richardson model describes the growth of two competing infections on $\mathbb{Z}^d$. At time 0 two disjoint finite sets $\xi_1,\xi_2\subset \mathbb{Z}^d$ are infected with type 1 and type 2 infection respectively. An uninfected site then becomes type 1 (2) infected at a rate proportional to the number of type 1 (2) infected nearest neighbours and once infected it remains so forever. The main result in this paper is, loosely speaking, that the choice of the initial sets $\xi_1$ and $\xi_2$ is irrelevant in deciding whether or not the event of mutual unbounded growth for the two infection types has positive probability.

We introduce a family of one-dimensional geometric growth models, constructed iteratively by locally optimizing the trade-offs between two competing metrics, and show that this family is equivalent to a family of preferential attachment random graph models with upper cut-offs. This is the first explanation of how preferential attachment can arise from a more basic underlying mechanism of local competition. We rigorously determine the degree distribution for the family of random graph models, showing that it obeys a power law up to a finite threshold and decays exponentially above this threshold.

We also rigorously analyse a generalized version of our graph process, with two natural parameters, one corresponding to the cut-off and the other a ‘fertility’ parameter. We prove that the general model has a power-law degree distribution up to a cut-off, and establish monotonicity of the power as a function of the two parameters. Limiting cases of the general model include the standard preferential attachment model without cut-off and the uniform attachment model.

We determine the asymptotic behaviour of the number of Eulerian circuits in a complete graph of odd order. One corollary of our result is the following. If a maximum random walk, constrained to use each edge at most once, is taken on Kn, then the probability that all the edges are eventually used is asymptotic to e3/4n−½. Some similar results are obtained about Eulerian circuits and spanning trees in random regular tournaments. We also give exact values for up to 21 nodes.

Consider the integer lattice L = ℤ2. For some m [ges ] 4, let us colour each column of this lattice independently and uniformly with one of m colours. We do the same for the rows, independently of the columns. A point of L will be called blocked if its row and column have the same colour. We say that this random configuration percolates if there is a path in L starting at the origin, consisting of rightward and upward unit steps, avoiding the blocked points. As a problem arising in distributed computing, it has been conjectured that for m [ges ] 4 the configuration percolates with positive probability. This question remains open, but we prove that the probability that there is percolation to distance n but not to infinity is not exponentially small in n. This narrows the range of methods available for proving the conjecture.

We study the Lovász number $\vartheta$ along with two related SDP relaxations $\vartheta_{1/2}$, $\vartheta_2$ of the independence number and the corresponding relaxations $\bar\vartheta$, $\bar\vartheta_{1/2}$, $\bar\vartheta_2$ of the chromatic number on random graphs $G_{n,p}$. We prove that $\vartheta,\vartheta_{1/2},\vartheta_2(G_{n,p})$ are concentrated about their means, and that $\bar\vartheta,\bar\vartheta_{1/2},\bar\vartheta_2(G_{n,p})$ in the case $p<n^{-1/2-\varepsilon}$ are concentrated in intervals of constant length. Moreover, extending a result of Juhász [28], we estimate the probable value of $\vartheta,\vartheta_{1/2},\vartheta_2(G_{n,p})$ for edge probabilities $c_0/n\leq p\leq 1-c_0/n$, where $c_0>0$ is a constant. As an application, we give improved algorithms for approximating the independence number of $G_{n,p}$ and for deciding $k$-colourability in polynomial expected time.

We analyse classes of planar graphs with respect to various properties such as polynomial-time solvability of the dominating set problem or boundedness of the tree-width. A helpful tool to address this question is the notion of boundary classes. The main result of the paper is that for many important properties there are exactly two boundary classes of planar graphs.

The space of permutation pseudographs is a probabilistic model of 2-regular pseudographs on n vertices, where a pseudograph is produced by choosing a permutation σ of {1,2,…, n} uniformly at random and taking the n edges {i,σ(i)}. We prove several contiguity results involving permutation pseudographs (contiguity is a kind of asymptotic equivalence of sequences of probability spaces). Namely, we show that a random 4-regular pseudograph is contiguous with the sum of two permutation pseudographs, the sum of a permutation pseudograph and a random Hamilton cycle, and the sum of a permutation pseudograph and a random 2-regular pseudograph. (The sum of two random pseudograph spaces is defined by choosing a pseudograph from each space independently and taking the union of the edges of the two pseudographs.) All these results are proved simultaneously by working in a general setting, where each cycle of the permutation is given a nonnegative constant multiplicative weight. A further contiguity result is proved involving the union of a weighted permutation pseudograph and a random regular graph of arbitrary degree. All corresponding results for simple graphs are obtained as corollaries.

A simple first moment argument shows that in a randomly chosen $k$-SAT formula with $m$ clauses over $n$ boolean variables, the fraction of satisfiable clauses is $1-2^{-k}+o(1)$ as $m/n\rightarrow\infty$ almost surely. In this paper, we deal with the corresponding algorithmic strong refutation problem: given a random $k$-SAT formula, can we find a certificate that the fraction of satisfiable clauses is $1-2^{-k}+o(1)$ in polynomial time? We present heuristics based on spectral techniques that in the case $k=3$ and $m\geq\ln(n)^6n^{3/2}$, and in the case $k=4$ and $m\geq Cn^2$, find such certificates almost surely. In addition, we present heuristics for bounding the independence number (resp. the chromatic number) of random $k$-uniform hypergraphs from above (resp. from below) for $k=3,4$.

Let k and ℓ be positive integers. With a graph G, we associate the quantity ck,ℓ(G), the number of k-colourings of the edge set of G with no monochromatic matching of size ℓ. Consider the function ck,ℓ: given by ck,ℓ(n) = max {ck,ℓ(G): |V(G)| = n}, the maximum of ck,ℓ(G) over all graphs G on n vertices. In this paper, we determine ck,ℓ(n) and the corresponding extremal graphs for all large n and all fixed values of k and ℓ.

Let A be a set of N matrices. Let g(A) ≔ |A + A| + |A · A|, where A + A = {a1 + a2 ∣ ai ∈ A} and A · A = {a1a2 ∣ ai ∈ A} are the sum set and product set. We prove that if the determinant of the difference of any two distinct matrices in A is nonzero, then g(A) cannot be bounded below by cN for any constant c. We also prove that if A is a set of d × d symmetric matrices, then there exists ϵ = ϵ(d)>0 such that g(A)>N1+ϵ. For the first result, we use the bound on the number of factorizations in a generalized progression. For the symmetric case, we use a technical proposition which provides an affine space V containing a large subset E of A, with the property that if an algebraic property holds for a large subset of E, then it holds for V. Then we show that the system a2 : a ∈ V is commutative, allowing us to decompose as eigenspaces simultaneously, so we can finish the proof with induction and a variant of the Erdős–Szemerédi argument.