This book is of interest to mathematicians and computer scientists working in finite mathematics and combinatorics. It presents a breakthrough method for analyzing complex summations. Beautifully written, the book contains practical applications as well as conceptual developments that will have applications in other areas of mathematics. From the table of contents: * Proof Machines * Tightening the Target * The Hypergeometric Database * The Five Basic Algorithms: Sister Celine's Method, Gosper&'s Algorithm, Zeilberger's Algorithm, The WZ Phenomenon, Algorithm Hyper * Epilogue: An Operator Algebra Viewpoint * The WWW Sites and the Software (Maple and Mathematica) Each chapter contains an introduction to the subject and ends with a set of exercises.

Strongly regular graphs lie at the intersection of statistical design, group theory, finite geometry, information and coding theory, and extremal combinatorics. This monograph collects all the major known results together for the first time in book form, creating an invaluable text that researchers in algebraic combinatorics and related areas will refer to for years to come. The book covers the theory of strongly regular graphs, polar graphs, rank 3 graphs associated to buildings and Fischer groups, cyclotomic graphs, two-weight codes and graphs related to combinatorial configurations such as Latin squares, quasi-symmetric designs and spherical designs. It gives the complete classification of rank 3 graphs, including some new constructions. More than 100 graphs are treated individually. Some unified and streamlined proofs are featured, along with original material including a new approach to the (affine) half spin graphs of rank 5 hyperbolic polar spaces.

Paul Erdos published more papers during his lifetime than any other mathematician, especially in discrete mathematics. He had a nose for beautiful, simply-stated problems with solutions that have far-reaching consequences across mathematics. This captivating book, written for students, provides an easy-to-understand introduction to discrete mathematics by presenting questions that intrigued Erdos, along with his brilliant ways of working toward their answers. It includes young Erdos's proof of Bertrand's postulate, the Erdos-Szekeres Happy End Theorem, De Bruijn-Erdos theorem, Erdos-Rado delta-systems, Erdos-Ko-Rado theorem, Erdos-Stone theorem, the Erdos-Renyi-Sos Friendship Theorem, Erdos-Renyi random graphs, the Chvatal-Erdos theorem on Hamilton cycles, and other results of Erdos, as well as results related to his work, such as Ramsey's theorem or Deza's theorem on weak delta-systems. Its appendix covers topics normally missing from introductory courses. Filled with personal anecdotes about Erdos, this book offers a behind-the-scenes look at interactions with the legendary collaborator.

Paul Erdos published more papers during his lifetime than any other mathematician, especially in discrete mathematics. He had a nose for beautiful, simply-stated problems with solutions that have far-reaching consequences across mathematics. This captivating book, written for students, provides an easy-to-understand introduction to discrete mathematics by presenting questions that intrigued Erdos, along with his brilliant ways of working toward their answers. It includes young Erdos's proof of Bertrand's postulate, the Erdos-Szekeres Happy End Theorem, De Bruijn-Erdos theorem, Erdos-Rado delta-systems, Erdos-Ko-Rado theorem, Erdos-Stone theorem, the Erdos-Renyi-Sos Friendship Theorem, Erdos-Renyi random graphs, the Chvatal-Erdos theorem on Hamilton cycles, and other results of Erdos, as well as results related to his work, such as Ramsey's theorem or Deza's theorem on weak delta-systems. Its appendix covers topics normally missing from introductory courses. Filled with personal anecdotes about Erdos, this book offers a behind-the-scenes look at interactions with the legendary collaborator.

On the one side, Industrial competitiveness today means shorter product lifecycles, increased product variety, and shorter times to market and customized tangible products and services. To face these challenges, the manufacturing industry is forced to move from traditional management, control, and automation approaches towards industrial cyber-physical systems. On the other side, several emergent engineering approaches and related Information-Communication-Control-Technologies, such as Multi-Agent-Systems, Service-Oriented Architecture, Plug-and-Produce Systems, Cloud and Fog Technologies, Big Data and Analytics, among others, have been researched during the last years. The confluence of those results with the latest developments in Industrial Digitalization, Systems-of-Cyber-Physical-Systems Engineering, Internet-of-Things, Internet-of-Services, and Industry 4.0 is opening a new broad spectrum of innovation possibilities. The PERFoRM (Production-harmonizEd-Reconfiguration of Flexible Robots and Machinery) approach is one of them. It teaches the reader what it means when production machines and systems are digitalized and migrated into Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems and what happens when they are networked and start collaborating with each other and with the human, using the internet. After a Technology Trend Screening and beyond a comprehensive state-of-the-art analysis about Industrial Digitalization and Industry 4.0-compliant solutions, the book introduces methods, architectures, and technologies applicable in real industrial use cases, explained for a broad audience of researchers, practitioners, and industrialists.

Active student engagement is key to this classroom-tested combinatorics text, boasting 1200+ carefully designed problems, ten mini-projects, section warm-up problems, and chapter opening problems. The author - an award-winning teacher - writes in a conversational style, keeping the reader in mind on every page. Students will stay motivated through glimpses into current research trends and open problems as well as the history and global origins of the subject. All essential topics are covered, including Ramsey theory, enumerative combinatorics including Stirling numbers, partitions of integers, the inclusion-exclusion principle, generating functions, introductory graph theory, and partially ordered sets. Some significant results are presented as sets of guided problems, leading readers to discover them on their own. More than 140 problems have complete solutions and over 250 have hints in the back, making this book ideal for self-study. Ideal for a one semester upper undergraduate course, prerequisites include the calculus sequence and familiarity with proofs.

Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs) are natural computational problems that appear in many areas of theoretical computer science. Exploring which CSPs are solvable in polynomial time and which are NP-hard reveals a surprising link with central questions in universal algebra. This monograph presents a self-contained introduction to the universal-algebraic approach to complexity classification, treating both finite and infinite-domain CSPs. It includes the required background from logic and combinatorics, particularly model theory and Ramsey theory, and explains the recently discovered link between Ramsey theory and topological dynamics and its implications for CSPs. The book will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in theoretical computer science and to mathematicians in logic, combinatorics, and dynamics who wish to learn about the applications of their work in complexity theory.

This book introduces novel techniques and algorithms necessary to support the formation of social networks. Concepts such as link prediction, graph patterns, recommendation systems based on user reputation, strategic partner selection, collaborative systems and network formation based on 'social brokers' are presented. Chapters cover a wide range of models and algorithms, including graph models and a personalized PageRank model. Extensive experiments and scenarios using real world datasets from GitHub, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and the European Union ICT research collaborations serve to enhance reader understanding of the material with clear applications. Each chapter concludes with an analysis and detailed summary. Social Network-Based Recommender Systems is designed as a reference for professionals and researchers working in social network analysis and companies working on recommender systems. Advanced-level students studying computer science, statistics or mathematics will also find this books useful as a secondary text.

Written for mathematicians working with the theory of graph spectra, this (primarily theoretical) book presents relevant results considering the spectral properties of regular graphs. The book begins with a short introduction including necessary terminology and notation. The author then proceeds with basic properties, specific subclasses of regular graphs (like distance-regular graphs, strongly regular graphs, various designs or expanders) and determining particular regular graphs. Each chapter contains detailed proofs, discussions, comparisons, examples, exercises and also indicates possible applications. Finally, the author also includes some conjectures and open problems to promote further research. Contents Spectral properties Particular types of regular graph Determinations of regular graphs Expanders Distance matrix of regular graphs

Written by experts in their respective fields, this collection of pedagogic surveys provides detailed insight and background into five separate areas at the forefront of modern research in orthogonal polynomials and special functions at a level suited to graduate students. A broad range of topics are introduced including exceptional orthogonal polynomials, q-series, applications of spectral theory to special functions, elliptic hypergeometric functions, and combinatorics of orthogonal polynomials. Exercises, examples and some open problems are provided. The volume is derived from lectures presented at the OPSF-S6 Summer School at the University of Maryland, and has been carefully edited to provide a coherent and consistent entry point for graduate students and newcomers.

Discrete probability theory and the theory of algorithms have become close partners over the last ten years, though the roots of this partnership go back much longer. The papers in this volume address the latest developments in this active field. They are from the IMA Workshops "Probability and Algorithms" and "The Finite Markov Chain Renaissance." They represent the current thinking of many of the world's leading experts in the field.

Researchers and graduate students in probability, computer science, combinatorics, and optimization theory will all be interested in this collection of articles. The techniques developed and surveyed in this volume are still undergoing rapid development, and many of the articles of the collection offer an expositionally pleasant entree into a research area of growing importance.

The second edition of this well-received textbook is devoted to Combinatorics and Graph Theory, which are cornerstones of Discrete Mathematics. Every section begins with simple model problems. Following their detailed analysis, the reader is led through the derivation of definitions, concepts, and methods for solving typical problems. Theorems then are formulated, proved, and illustrated by more problems of increasing difficulty.

Combinatorics on words, or finite sequences, is a field that grew from the disparate mathematics branches of group theory and probability. In recent times, it has gained recognition as an independent theory and has found substantial applications in computer science automata theory and linguistics. This volume is the first to present a thorough treatment of this theory and includes discussions of Thue's square free words, Van der Waerden's theorem, and Ramsey's theorem. This volume is an accessible text for undergraduate and graduate level students in mathematics and computer science as well as specialists in all branches of applied mathematics.

Combinatorial Algebra: Syntax and Semantics provides comprehensive account of many areas of combinatorial algebra. It contains self-contained proofs of more than 20 fundamental results, both classical and modern. This includes Golod-Shafarevich and Olshanskii's solutions of Burnside problems, Shirshov's solution of Kurosh's problem for PI rings, Belov's solution of Specht's problem for varieties of rings, Grigorchuk's solution of Milnor's problem, Bass-Guivarc'h theorem about growth of nilpotent groups, Kleiman's solution of Hanna Neumann's problem for varieties of groups, Adian's solution of von Neumann-Day's problem, Trahtman's solution of the road coloring problem of Adler, Goodwyn and Weiss. The book emphasize several ``universal" tools, such as trees, subshifts, uniformly recurrent words, diagrams and automata. With over 350 exercises at various levels of difficulty and with hints for the more difficult problems, this book can be used as a textbook, and aims to reach a wide and diversified audience. No prerequisites beyond standard courses in linear and abstract algebra are required. The broad appeal of this textbook extends to a variety of student levels: from advanced high-schoolers to undergraduates and graduate students, including those in search of a Ph.D. thesis who will benefit from the "Further reading and open problems" sections at the end of Chapters 2 -5. The book can also be used for self-study, engaging those beyond t he classroom setting: researchers, instructors, students, virtually anyone who wishes to learn and better understand this important area of mathematics.

This volume provides accessible and self-contained research problems designed for undergraduate student projects, and simultaneously promotes the development of sustainable undergraduate research programs. The chapters in this work span a variety of topical areas of pure and applied mathematics and mathematics education. Each chapter gives a self-contained introduction on a research topic with an emphasis on the specific tools and knowledge needed to create and maintain fruitful research programs for undergraduates. Some of the topics discussed include:* Disease modeling* Tropical curves and surfaces* Numerical semigroups* Mathematics EducationThis volume will primarily appeal to undergraduate students interested in pursuing research projects and faculty members seeking to mentor them. It may also aid students and faculty participating in independent studies and capstone projects.

This book contains papers presented at the Workshop on the Analysis of Large-scale, High-Dimensional, and Multi-Variate Data Using Topology and Statistics, held in Le Barp, France, June 2013. It features the work of some of the most prominent and recognized leaders in the field who examine challenges as well as detail solutions to the analysis of extreme scale data. The book presents new methods that leverage the mutual strengths of both topological and statistical techniques to support the management, analysis, and visualization of complex data. It covers both theory and application and provides readers with an overview of important key concepts and the latest research trends. Coverage in the book includes multi-variate and/or high-dimensional analysis techniques, feature-based statistical methods, combinatorial algorithms, scalable statistics algorithms, scalar and vector field topology, and multi-scale representations. In addition, the book details algorithms that are broadly applicable and can be used by application scientists to glean insight from a wide range of complex data sets.

This volume contains eight survey articles based on the invited lectures given at the 27th British Combinatorial Conference, held at the University of Birmingham in July 2019. This biennial conference is a well-established international event, with speakers from around the world. The volume provides an up-to-date overview of current research in several areas of combinatorics, including graph theory, cryptography, matroids, incidence geometries and graph limits. Each article is clearly written and assumes little prior knowledge on the part of the reader. The authors are some of the world's foremost researchers in their fields, and here they summarise existing results and give a unique preview of cutting-edge developments. The book provides a valuable survey of the present state of knowledge in combinatorics, and will be useful to researchers and advanced graduate students, primarily in mathematics but also in computer science and statistics.

Algorithmic Aspects of Graph Connectivity is the first comprehensive book on this central notion in graph and network theory, emphasizing its algorithmic aspects. Because of its wide applications in the fields of communication, transportation, and production, graph connectivity has made tremendous algorithmic progress under the influence of the theory of complexity and algorithms in modern computer science. The book contains various definitions of connectivity, including edge-connectivity and vertex-connectivity, and their ramifications, as well as related topics such as flows and cuts. The authors thoroughly discuss new concepts and algorithms that allow for quicker and more efficient computing, such as maximum adjacency ordering of vertices. Covering both basic definitions and advanced topics, this book can be used as a textbook in graduate courses in mathematical sciences, such as discrete mathematics, combinatorics, and operations research, and as a reference book for specialists in discrete mathematics and its applications.

This book constitutes the revised selected papers of the 44th International Workshop on Graph-Theoretic Concepts in Computer Science, WG 2018, held in Cottbus, Germany, in June 2018. The 30 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 66 submissions. They cover a wide range of areas, aiming at connecting theory and applications by demonstrating how graph-theoretic concepts can be applied in various areas of computer science. Another focus is on presenting recent results and on identifying and exploring promising directions of future research.

Partition functions arise in combinatorics and related problems of statistical physics as they encode in a succinct way the combinatorial structure of complicated systems. The main focus of the book is on efficient ways to compute (approximate) various partition functions, such as permanents, hafnians and their higher-dimensional versions, graph and hypergraph matching polynomials, the independence polynomial of a graph and partition functions enumerating 0-1 and integer points in polyhedra, which allows one to make algorithmic advances in otherwise intractable problems. The book unifies various, often quite recent, results scattered in the literature, concentrating on the three main approaches: scaling, interpolation and correlation decay. The prerequisites include moderate amounts of real and complex analysis and linear algebra, making the book accessible to advanced math and physics undergraduates.

Discrete mathematics has been rising in prominence in the past fifty years, both as a tool with practical applications and as a source of new and interesting mathematics. The topics in discrete mathematics have become so well developed that it is easy to forget that common threads connect the different areas, and it is through discovering and using these connections that progress is often made. For over fifty years, Ron Graham has been able to illuminate some of these connections and has helped to bring the field of discrete mathematics to where it is today. To celebrate his contribution, this volume brings together many of the best researchers working in discrete mathematics, including Fan Chung, Erik D. Demaine, Persi Diaconis, Peter Frankl, Alfred W. Hales, Jeffrey C. Lagarias, Allen Knutson, Janos Pach, Carl Pomerance, N. J. A. Sloane, and of course, Ron Graham himself.

Discrete mathematics has now established its place in most undergraduate mathematics courses. This textbook provides a concise, readable and accessible introduction to a number of topics in this area, such as enumeration, graph theory, Latin squares and designs. It is aimed at second-year undergraduate mathematics students, and provides them with many of the basic techniques, ideas and results. It contains many worked examples, and each chapter ends with a large number of exercises, with hints or solutions provided for most of them. As well as including standard topics such as binomial coefficients, recurrence, the inclusion-exclusion principle, trees, Hamiltonian and Eulerian graphs, Latin squares and finite projective planes, the text also includes material on the ménage problem, magic squares, Catalan and Stirling numbers, and tournament schedules.

This book surveys the mathematical and computational properties of finite sets of points in the plane, covering recent breakthroughs on important problems in discrete geometry, and listing many open problems. It unifies these mathematical and computational views using forbidden configurations, which are patterns that cannot appear in sets with a given property, and explores the implications of this unified view. Written with minimal prerequisites and featuring plenty of figures, this engaging book will be of interest to undergraduate students and researchers in mathematics and computer science. Most topics are introduced with a related puzzle or brain-teaser. The topics range from abstract issues of collinearity, convexity, and general position to more applied areas including robust statistical estimation and network visualization, with connections to related areas of mathematics including number theory, graph theory, and the theory of permutation patterns. Pseudocode is included for many algorithms that compute properties of point sets.

Permutation groups, their fundamental theory and applications are discussed in this introductory book. It focuses on those groups that are most useful for studying symmetric structures such as graphs, codes and designs. Modern treatments of the O'Nan-Scott theory are presented not only for primitive permutation groups but also for the larger families of quasiprimitive and innately transitive groups, including several classes of infinite permutation groups. Their precision is sharpened by the introduction of a cartesian decomposition concept. This facilitates reduction arguments for primitive groups analogous to those, using orbits and partitions, that reduce problems about general permutation groups to primitive groups. The results are particularly powerful for finite groups, where the finite simple group classification is invoked. Applications are given in algebra and combinatorics to group actions that preserve cartesian product structures. Students and researchers with an interest in mathematical symmetry will find the book enjoyable and useful.

This book collects the scientific contributions of a group of leading experts who took part in the INdAM Meeting held in Cortona in September 2014. With combinatorial techniques as the central theme, it focuses on recent developments in configuration spaces from various perspectives. It also discusses their applications in areas ranging from representation theory, toric geometry and geometric group theory to applied algebraic topology.