The study of combinatorial isoperimetric problems exploits similarities between discrete optimization problems and the classical continuous setting. Based on his many years of teaching experience, Larry Harper focuses on global methods of problem solving. His text will enable graduate students and researchers to quickly reach the most current state of research in this topic. Harper includes numerous worked examples, exercises and material about applications to computer science.

Combinatorics, a subject dealing with ways of arranging and distributing objects, involves ideas from geometry, algebra, and analysis. The breadth of the theory is matched by that of its applications, which include topics as diverse as codes, circuit design and algorithm complexity. It has thus become an essential tool in many scientific fields. In this second edition the authors have made the text as comprehensive as possible, dealing in a unified manner with such topics as graph theory, extremal problems, designs, colorings, and codes. The depth and breadth of the coverage make the book a unique guide to the whole of the subject. It is ideal for courses on combinatorical mathematics at the advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate level, and working mathematicians and scientists will also find it a valuable introduction and reference.

A graph complex is a finite family of graphs closed under deletion of edges. Graph complexes show up naturally in many different areas of mathematics. Identifying each graph with its edge set, one may view a graph complex as a simplicial complex and hence interpret it as a geometric object. This volume examines topological properties of graph complexes, focusing on homotopy type and homology. Many of the proofs are based on Robin Forman's discrete version of Morse theory.

Like the intriguing Fibonacci and Lucas numbers, Catalan numbers are also ubiquitous. "They have the same delightful propensity for popping up unexpectedly, particularly in combinatorial problems," Martin Gardner wrote in Scientific American. "Indeed, the Catalan sequence is probably the most frequently encountered sequence that is still obscure enough to cause mathematicians lacking access to Sloane's Handbook of Integer Sequences to expend inordinate amounts of energy re-discovering formulas that were worked out long ago," he continued. As Gardner noted, many mathematicians may know the abc's of Catalan sequence, but not many are familiar with the myriad of their unexpected occurrences, applications, and properties; they crop up in chess boards, computer programming, and even train tracks. This book presents a clear and comprehensive introduction to one of the truly fascinating topics in mathematics. Catalan numbers are named after the Belgian mathematician Eugene Charles Catalan (1814-1894), who "discovered" them in 1838, though he was not the first person to discover them. The great Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707-1763) "discovered" them around 1756, but even before then and though his work was not known to the outside world, Chinese mathematician Antu Ming (1692?-1763) first discovered Catalan numbers about 1730. A great source of fun for both amateurs and mathematicians, they can be used by teachers and professors to generate excitement among students for exploration and intellectual curiosity and to sharpen a variety of mathematical skills and tools, such as pattern recognition, conjecturing, proof-techniques, and problem-solving techniques. This book is not intended for mathematicians only but for a much larger audience, including high school students, math and science teachers, computer scientists, and those amateurs with a modicum of mathematical curiosity. An invaluable resource book, it contains an intriguing array of applications to computer science, abstract algebra, combinatorics, geometry, graph theory, chess, and world series.

The British Combinatorial Conference attracts a large following from the U.K. and international research community. Held at the University of Wales, Bangor, in 2003, the speakers included renowned experts on topics currently attracting significant research interest, as well as less traditional areas such as the combinatorics of protecting digital content. All the contributions are survey papers presenting an overview of the state of the art in a particular area.

This text is a self-contained study of expander graphs, specifically, their explicit construction. Expander graphs are highly connected but sparse, and while being of interest within combinatorics and graph theory, they can also be applied to computer science and engineering. Only a knowledge of elementary algebra, analysis and combinatorics is required because the authors provide the necessary background from graph theory, number theory, group theory and representation theory. Thus the text can be used as a brief introduction to these subjects and their synthesis in modern mathematics.

This text is a self-contained study of expander graphs, specifically, their explicit construction. Expander graphs are highly connected but sparse, and while being of interest within combinatorics and graph theory, they can also be applied to computer science and engineering. Only a knowledge of elementary algebra, analysis and combinatorics is required because the authors provide the necessary background from graph theory, number theory, group theory and representation theory. Thus the text can be used as a brief introduction to these subjects and their synthesis in modern mathematics.

Abstract regular polytopes stand at the end of more than two millennia of geometrical research, which began with regular polygons and polyhedra. The rapid development of the subject in the past twenty years has resulted in a rich new theory featuring an attractive interplay of mathematical areas, including geometry, combinatorics, group theory and topology. This is the first comprehensive, up-to-date account of the subject and its ramifications. It meets a critical need for such a text, because no book has been published in this area since Coxeter's "Regular Polytopes" (1948) and "Regular Complex Polytopes" (1974).

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the First International Symposium On Combinatorics, Algorithms, Probabilistic and Experimental Methodologies, ESCAPE 2007, held in Hangzhou, China in April 2007.

The 46 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 362 submissions. The papers address practical large data processing problems with different, and eventually converging, methodologies from major important disciplines such as computer science, combinatorics, and statistics. The symposium provides an interdisciplinary forum for researchers across their discipline boundaries to exchange their approaches, to search for ideas, methodologies, and tool boxes, to find better, faster and more accurate solutions thus fostering innovative ideas as well as to develop research agenda of common interest.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 14th International Symposium on Graph Drawing, GD 2006, held in Karlsruhe, Germany. The 33 revised full papers and 5 revised short papers presented together with 2 invited talks, 1 system demo, 2 poster papers address all current aspects in graph drawing, ranging from foundational and methodological issues to applications for various classes of graphs in a variety of fields.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 7th China-Japan Conference on Discrete Geometry, Combinatorics and Graph Theory, CJCDGCGT 2005, held in Tianjin, China, as well as in Xi'an, China, in November 2005. The 30 revised full papers address all current issues in discrete algorithmic geometry, combinatorics and graph theory.

This book is based on two series of lectures given at a summer school on algebraic combinatorics at the Sophus Lie Centre in Nordfjordeid, Norway, in June 2003, one by Peter Orlik on hyperplane arrangements, and the other one by Volkmar Welker on free resolutions. Both topics are essential parts of current research in a variety of mathematical fields, and the present book makes these sophisticated tools available for graduate students.

Unique in its approach, Models of Network Reliability: Analysis, Combinatorics, and Monte Carlo provides a brief introduction to Monte Carlo methods along with a concise exposition of reliability theory ideas. From there, the text investigates a collection of principal network reliability models, such as terminal connectivity for networks with unreliable edges and/or nodes, network lifetime distribution in the process of its destruction, network stationary behavior for renewable components, importance measures of network elements, reliability gradient, and network optimal reliability synthesis. Solutions to most principal network reliability problems-including medium-sized computer networks-are presented in the form of efficient Monte Carlo algorithms and illustrated with numerical examples and tables. Written by reliability experts with significant teaching experience, this reader-friendly text is an excellent resource for software engineering, operations research, industrial engineering, and reliability engineering students, researchers, and engineers. Stressing intuitive explanations and providing detailed proofs of difficult statements, this self-contained resource includes a wealth of end-of-chapter exercises, numerical examples, tables, and offers a solutions manual-making it ideal for self-study and practical use.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 15th International Symposium on Graph Drawing, GD 2007, held in Sydney, Australia, September 24-26, 2007.

The 27 full papers and 9 short papers presented together with 2 invited talks, and a report on the graph drawing contest were carefully selected from 74 initial submissions. All current aspects in graph drawing are addressed ranging from foundational and methodological issues to applications for various classes of graphs in a variety of fields.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 32nd International Workshop on Graph-Theoretic Concepts in Computer Science, WG 2006, held in Bergen, Norway in June 2006.

The 30 revised full papers presented together with 1 invited paper were carefully selected from 91 submissions. The papers address all aspects of graph-theoretic concepts in computer science such as structural graph theory, sequential, parallel, and distributed graph and network algorithms and their complexity, graph grammars and graph rewriting systems, graph-based modeling, graph-drawing and layout, diagram methods, and graph-theoretical applications in various fields.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Graph Transformations, ICGT 2006. The book presents 28 revised full papers together with 3 invited lectures. All current aspects in graph drawing are addressed including graph theory and graph algorithms, theoretic and semantic aspects, modeling, tool issues and more. Also includes accounts of a tutorial on foundations and applications of graph transformations, and of ICGT Conference satellite events.

The design of code and cipher systems has undergone major changes in modern times. Powerful personal computers have resulted in an explosion of e-banking, e-commerce and e-mail, and as a consequence the encryption of communications to ensure security has become a matter of public interest and importance. This book describes and analyzes many cipher systems ranging from the earliest and elementary to the most recent and sophisticated, such as RSA and DES, as well as wartime machines such as the ENIGMA and Hagelin, and ciphers used by spies. Security issues and possible methods of attack are discussed and illustrated by examples. The design of many systems involves advanced mathematical concepts and this is explained in detail in a major appendix. This book will appeal to anyone interested in codes and ciphers as used by private individuals, spies, governments and industry throughout history and right up to the present day.

The design of code and cipher systems has undergone major changes in modern times. Powerful personal computers have resulted in an explosion of e-banking, e-commerce and e-mail, and as a consequence the encryption of communications to ensure security has become a matter of public interest and importance. This book describes and analyzes many cipher systems ranging from the earliest and elementary to the most recent and sophisticated, such as RSA and DES, as well as wartime machines such as the ENIGMA and Hagelin, and ciphers used by spies. Security issues and possible methods of attack are discussed and illustrated by examples. The design of many systems involves advanced mathematical concepts and this is explained in detail in a major appendix. This book will appeal to anyone interested in codes and ciphers as used by private individuals, spies, governments and industry throughout history and right up to the present day.

From specialists in the field, you will learn about interesting connections and recent developments in the field of graph theory by looking in particular at Cartesian products-arguably the most important of the four standard graph products. Many new results in this area appear for the first time in print in this book. Written in an accessible way, this book can be used for personal study in advanced applications of graph theory or for an advanced graph theory course.

Local Newforms for GSp(4) describes a theory of new- and oldforms for representations of GSp(4) over a non-archimedean local field. This theory considers vectors fixed by the paramodular groups, and singles out certain vectors that encode canonical information, such as L-factors and epsilon-factors, through their Hecke and Atkin-Lehner eigenvalues. While there are analogies to the GL(2) case, this theory is novel and unanticipated by the existing framework of conjectures. An appendix includes extensive tables about the results and the representation theory of GSp(4).

This is a new edition of the now classic text. The already extensive treatment given in the first edition has been heavily revised by the author. The addition of two new sections, numerous new results and 150 references means that this represents an up-to-date and comprehensive account of random graph theory. The theory estimates the number of graphs of a given degree that exhibit certain properties. It not only has numerous combinatorial applications, but also serves as a model for the probabilistic treatment of more complicated random structures. This book, written by an acknowledged expert in the field, can be used by mathematicians, computer scientists and electrical engineers, as well as people working in biomathematics. It is self contained, and with numerous exercises in each chapter, is ideal for advanced courses or self study.

This is a new edition of the now classic text. The already extensive treatment given in the first edition has been heavily revised by the author. The addition of two new sections, numerous new results and 150 references means that this represents an up-to-date and comprehensive account of random graph theory. The theory estimates the number of graphs of a given degree that exhibit certain properties. It not only has numerous combinatorial applications, but also serves as a model for the probabilistic treatment of more complicated random structures. This book, written by an acknowledged expert in the field, can be used by mathematicians, computer scientists and electrical engineers, as well as people working in biomathematics. It is self contained, and with numerous exercises in each chapter, is ideal for advanced courses or self study.

This volume contains the proceedings of the 18th British Combinatorial Conference. This meeting, held every two years is now a key event for mathematicians working in combinatorics throughout the world. The papers contained here are from the invited speakers and are thus of a quality fitting for the event. This book will be a valuable reference for researchers in a variety of branches of combinatorics. However, graduate students will find much here that will be of use for future directions in their research.

Analytics is the application of mathematical and statistical concepts to large data sets so as to distil insights that offer the owner some options for action and competitive advantage or value. This makes it the most desirable and valuable part of big data science. Driven by the increased data capture from digital platforms, commercial fields are becoming data rich and analytics is growing in many sectors. This book presents analytics within a framework of mathematical theory and concepts building upon firm theory and foundations of probability theory, graphs and networks, random matrices, linear algebra, optimization, forecasting, discrete dynamical systems, and more. Following on from the theoretical considerations, applications are given to data from commercially relevant interests: supermarket baskets; loyalty cards; mobile phone call records; smart meters; 'omic' data; sales promotions; social media; and microblogging. Each chapter tackles a topic in analytics: social networks and digital marketing; forecasting; clustering and segmentation; inverse problems; Markov models of behavioural changes; multiple hypothesis testing and decision-making; and so on. Chapters start with background mathematical theory explained with a strong narrative and then give way to practical considerations and then to exemplar applications. Exercises (and solutions), external data resources, and suggestions for project work are given. The book includes an appendix giving a crash course in Bayesian reasoning, for both ease and completeness.

Volume of geometric objects plays an important role in applied and theoretical mathematics. This is particularly true in the relatively new branch of discrete geometry, where volume is often used to find new topics for research. Volumetric Discrete Geometry demonstrates the recent aspects of volume, introduces problems related to it, and presents methods to apply it to other geometric problems. Part I of the text consists of survey chapters of selected topics on volume and is suitable for advanced undergraduate students. Part II has chapters of selected proofs of theorems stated in Part I and is oriented for graduate level students wishing to learn about the latest research on the topic. Chapters can be studied independently from each other. Provides a list of 30 open problems to promote research Features more than 60 research exercises Ideally suited for researchers and students of combinatorics, geometry and discrete mathematics