Thomassen [6] conjectured that if I is a set of k−1 arcs in a k-strong tournament T, then T−I has a Hamiltonian cycle. This conjecture was proved by Fraisse and Thomassen [3]. We prove the following stronger result. Let T=(V, A) be a k-strong tournament on n vertices and let X1, X2, [ctdot ], Xl be a partition of the vertex set V of T such that [mid ]X1[mid ][les ][mid ]X2[mid ] [les ][ctdot ][les ][mid ]Xl[mid ]. If k[ges ][sum ] l−1i=1[lfloor ] [mid ]Xi[mid ]/2[rfloor ]+[mid ]Xl[mid ], then T−∪li=1 {xy∈A[ratio ]x, y∈Xi} has a Hamiltonian cycle. The bound on k is sharp.

A tournament T on a set V of n players is an orientation of the edges of the complete graph Kn on V; T will be called a random tournament if the directions of these edges are determined by a sequence {Yj[ratio ]j = 1, …, (n2)} of independent coin flips. If (y, x) is an edge in a (random) tournament, we say that y beats x. A set A ⊂ V, |A| = k, is said to be beaten if there exists a player y ∉ A such that y beats x for each x ∈ A. If such a y does not exist, we say that A is unbeaten. A (random) tournament on V is said to have property Sk if each k-element subset of V is beaten. In this paper, we use the Stein–Chen method to show that the probability distribution of the number W0 of unbeaten k-subsets of V can be well-approximated by that of a Poisson random variable with the same mean; an improved condition for the existence of tournaments with property Sk is derived as a corollary. A multivariate version of this result is proved next: with Wj representing the number of k-subsets that are beaten by precisely j external vertices, j = 0, 1, …, b, it is shown that the joint distribution of (W0, W1, …, Wb) can be approximated by a multidimensional Poisson vector with independent components, provided that b is not too large.

An intersecting system of type (∃, ∀, k, n) is a collection [ ]={[Fscr ]1, ..., [Fscr ]m} of pairwise disjoint families of k-subsets of an n-element set satisfying the following condition. For every ordered pair [Fscr ]i and [Fscr ]j of distinct members of [ ] there exists an A∈[Fscr ]i that intersects every B∈[Fscr ]j. Let In (∃, ∀, k) denote the maximum possible cardinality of an intersecting system of type (∃, ∀, k, n). Ahlswede, Cai and Zhang conjectured that for every k≥1, there exists an n0(k) so that In (∃, ∀, k)=(n−1/k−1) for all n>n0(k). Here we show that this is true for k≤3, but false for all k≥8. We also prove some related results.

A graph G is called an H-type graph for some graph H if there is a mapping from V(G) to V(H) preserving edges. In this paper, we shall prove that: (1) every triangle-free graph G of order n with χ(G)[les ]3 and δ(G)>n/3 is of Fd-type for some d[ges ]1, where Fd is a certain d-regular triangle-free Hamiltonian Cayley graph of order 3d−1, (2) every triangle-free graph G of order n with χ(G)[ges ]4 and δ(G)>n/3 contains the Mycielski graph (see Figure 2) as a subgraph.

A sharper form of the Szarek–Talagrand ‘isomorphic’ version of the Sauer–Shelah lemma is proved. Also we prove an analogous ‘isomorphic’ version of the Karpovsky–Milman lemma, which is a generalization of that due to Sauer and Shelah.

The Gaussian algorithm for lattice reduction in dimension 2 is analysed under its standard version. It is found that, when applied to random inputs in a continuous model, the complexity is constant on average, its probability distribution decays geometrically, and the dynamics are characterized by a conditional invariant measure. The proofs make use of connections between lattice reduction, continued fractions, continuants, and functional operators. Analysis in the discrete model and detailed numerical data are also presented.

Let [Mscr ]n,k(S) be the set of n-edge k-vertex rooted maps in some class on the surface S. Let P be a planar map in the class. We develop a method for showing that almost all maps in [Mscr ]n,k(S) contain many copies of P. One consequence of this is that almost all maps in [Mscr ]n,k(S) have no symmetries. The classes considered include c-connected maps (c [les ] 3) and certain families of degree restricted maps.

We determine lower bounds for the number of random binary vectors, chosen uniformly from vectors of weight k, needed to obtain a dependent set.

Problems associated with m-ary trees have been studied by computer scientists and combinatorialists. It is well known that a simple generalization of the Catalan numbers counts the number of m-ary trees on n nodes. In this paper we consider τm, n, the number of m-ary search trees on n keys, a quantity that arises in studying the space of m-ary search trees under the uniform probability model. We prove an exact formula for τm, n, both by analytic and by combinatorial means. We use uniform local approximations for sums of i.i.d. random variables to study the asymptotic development of τm, n for fixed m as n→∞.

Let D1 and D2 be two dice with k and l integer faces, respectively, where k and l are two positive integers. The game Gn consists of tossing each die n times and summing the resulting faces. The die with the higher total wins the game. We examine the question of which die wins game Gn more often, for large values of n. We also give an example of a set of three dice which is non-transitive in game Gn for infinitely many values of n.

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.

It is shown that if n>n0(d) then any d-regular graph G=(V, E) on n vertices contains a set of u=[lfloor ]n/2[rfloor ] vertices which is joined by at most (d/2−c√d)u edges to the rest of the graph, where c>0 is some absolute constant. This is tight, up to the value of c.

In this paper we show that the list chromatic index of the complete graph Kn is at most n. This proves the list-chromatic conjecture for complete graphs of odd order. We also prove the asymptotic result that for a simple graph with maximum degree d the list chromatic index exceeds d by at most [Oscr ](d2/3√log d).

It is proved that the smallest cardinality among the maximal irredundant sets in an n–vertex graph with maximum degree Δ([ges ]2) is at least 2n/3Δ. This substantially improves a bound by Bollobás and Cockayne [1]. The class of graphs which attain this bound is characterised.

Let G=(V, E) be a simple connected graph of order [mid ]V[mid ]=n[ges ]2 and minimum degree δ, and let 2[les ]s[les ]n. We define two parameters, the s-average distance μs(G) and the s-average nearest neighbour distance Λs(G), with respect to each of which V contains an extremal subset X of order s with vertices ‘as spread out as possible’ in G. We compute the exact values of both parameters when G is the cycle Cn, and show how to obtain the corresponding optimal arrangements of X. Sharp upper and lower bounds are then established for Λs(G), as functions of s, n and δ, and the extremal graphs described.

Lemke and Kleitman [2] showed that, given a positive integer d and d (necessarily non-distinct) divisors of da1, …, ad there exists a subset Q ⊆ {1, …, d} such that d = [sum ]i∈Qai answering a conjecture of Erdo″s and Lemke. Here we extend this result, showing that, provided [sum ]p|d1/p [les ] 1 (where the sum is taken over all primes p), there is some collection from a1, …, ad which both sum to d and which can themselves be ordered so that each element divides its successor in the order. Furthermore, we shall show that the condition on the prime divisors is in some sense also necessary.

We study the fraction of time that a Markov chain spends in a given subset of states. We give an exponential bound on the probability that it exceeds its expectation by a constant factor. Our bound depends on the mixing properties of the chain, and is asymptotically optimal for a certain class of Markov chains. It beats the best previously known results in this direction. We present an application to the leader election problem.

This paper is concerned with the analysis of locally time-synchronized slot systems for broadcast in packet radio networks. Local synchronization has been proposed in practice as less expensive than global synchronization over very wide areas, or over mobile networks. In the case of two locally coordinated groups of stations, under the assumption that the phase shift on the clocks between the two groups is random, it is shown that the probability of no collision is maximized when occupied slots within each group are chosen consecutively, regardless of the number of total slots, or the number of occupied slots in either group.

Suppose that [Cscr ]={cij[ratio ]i, j[ges ]1} is a collection of i.i.d. nonnegative continuous random variables and suppose T is a rooted, directed tree on vertices labelled 1,2,[ctdot ],n. Then the ‘cost’ of T is defined to be c(T)=[sum ] (i,j)∈Tcij, where (i, j) denotes the directed edge from i to j in the tree T. Let Tn denote the ‘optimal’ tree, i.e. c(Tn) =min{c(T)[ratio ]T is a directed, rooted tree in with n vertices}. We establish general conditions on the asymptotic behaviour of the moments of the order statistics of the variables c11, c12, [ctdot ], cin which guarantee the existence of sequences {an}, {bn}, and {dn} such that b−1n (c(Tn)−an) →N(0, 1) in distribution, d−1nc(Tn)→1 in probability, and d−1nE(c(Tn))→1 as n→∞, and we explicitly determine these sequences. The proofs of the main results rely upon the properties of general random mappings of the set {1, 2, [ctdot ], n} into itself. Our results complement and extend those obtained by McDiarmid [9] for optimal branchings in a complete directed graph.

Considering strings over a finite alphabet [Ascr ], say that a string is w-avoiding if it does not contain w as a substring. It is known that the number aw(n) of w-avoiding strings of length n depends only on the autocorrelation of w as defined by Guibas–Odlyzko. We give a simple criterion on the autocorrelations of w and w′ for determining whether aw(n) > aw′(n) for all large enough n.