Related papers: On Bounding Problems on Totally Ordered Commutativ…
Consider families of $k$-subsets (or blocks) on a ground set of size $v$. Recall that if all $t$-subsets occur with the same frequency $\lambda$, one obtains a $t$-design with index $\lambda$. On the other hand, if all $t$-subsets occur…
A family of subsets $\mathcal{F} \subseteq \mathcal{P}(\{1, 2, \ldots, n\})$ has the disparate union property if any two disjoint subfamilies $\mathcal{F}_1, \mathcal{F}_2 \subseteq \mathcal{F}$ have distinct unions $\bigcup \mathcal{F}_1…
Let $H$ be a multiplicatively written monoid. Given $k\in{\bf N}^+$, we denote by $\mathscr U_k$ the set of all $\ell\in{\bf N}^+$ such that $a_1\cdots a_k=b_1\cdots b_\ell$ for some atoms $a_1,\ldots,a_k,b_1,\ldots,b_\ell\in H$. The sets…
Let $G$ be a group. A ring $R$ is called a graded ring (or $G$-graded ring) if there exist additive subgroups $R_{\alpha }$ of $R$ indexed by the elements $\alpha \in G$ such that $R=\bigoplus_{\alpha \in G}R_{\alpha }$ and $R_{\alpha…
Two $G$-sets ($G$ a finite group) are called linearly equivalent over a commutative ring $k$ if the permutation representations $k[X]$ and $k[Y]$ are isomorphic as modules over the group algebra $kG$. Pairs of linearly equivalent…
We use algebraic techniques to study homological filling functions of groups and their subgroups. If $G$ is a group admitting a finite $(n+1)$--dimensional $K(G,1)$ and $H \leq G$ is of type $F_{n+1}$, then the $n^{th}$--homological filling…
In the monotone integer dualization problem, we are given two sets of vectors in an integer box such that no vector in the first set is dominated by a vector in the second. The question is to check if the two sets of vectors cover the…
Let $\mathcal{ORD}_{n}$ be the semigroup consisting of all oriented and order-decreasing full transformations on the finite chain $X_{n}=\{ 1<\cdots<n \}$, and for $1\leq r\leq n-1$, let $$\mathcal{ORD}(n,r) =\{\alpha \in…
A family $\mathcal{F}\subset 2^G$ of subsets of an abelian group $G$ is a Sidon system if the sumsets $A+B$ with $A,B\in \mathcal{F}$ are pairwise distinct. Cilleruelo, Serra and the author previously proved that the maximum size $F_k(n)$…
The completeness of the group classification of systems of two linear second-order ordinary differential equations with constant coefficients is delineated in the paper. The new cases extend what has been done in the literature. These cases…
We consider a minimizing variant of the well-known \emph{No-Three-In-Line Problem}, the \emph{Geometric Dominating Set Problem}: What is the smallest number of points in an $n\times n$~grid such that every grid point lies on a common line…
Let G be a group which is hyperbolic relative to a collection of subgroups A, and it is also hyperbolic relative to a collection of subgroups B. Suppose that the collection A contains B. We characterize, for subgroups of G, when…
We show that for a subset $A$ of the cyclic group of prime order $p>3$, if the sumset $A+A-2A$ is not the whole group, then $|A|\le \frac27\,p$. Besides combinatorial arguments, we utilize a general technique involving linear programming.
Let $G$ be the alternating group of degree $n$. Let $\omega(G)$ be the maximal size of a subset $S$ of $G$ such that $\langle x,y \rangle = G$ whenever $x,y \in S$ and $x \neq y$ and let $\sigma(G)$ be the minimal size of a family of proper…
For a set $A$ of $k$ elements from an additive abelian group $G$ and a positive integer $r \leq k$, we consider the set of elements of $G$ that can be written as a sum of $h$ elements of $A$ with at least $r$ distinct elements. We denote…
A reconstruction problem is formulated for multisets over commutative groupoids. The cards of a multiset are obtained by replacing a pair of its elements by their sum. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the reconstructibility of…
Let N be a normal subgroup of a finite group G. Let N\le H\le G such that N has a complement in H and (|N|,|G:H|)=1. If N is abelian, a theorem of Gasch\"utz asserts that N has a complement in G as well. Brandis has asked whether the…
Given a group G, we construct, in a canonical way, an inverse semigroup S(G) associated to G. The actions of S(G) are shown to be in one-to-one correspondence with the partial actions of G, both in the case of actions on a set, and that of…
We describe a class (called regular) of invariant generalized complex structures on a real semisimple Lie group G. The problem reduces to the description of admissible pairs (\gk, \omega), where \gk is an appropriate regular subalgebra of…
In this paper, we introduce and study the numerical semigroups generated by $\{a_1, a_2, \ldots \} \subset \mathbb{N}$ such that $a_1$ is the repunit number in base $b > 1$ of length $n > 1$ and $a_i - a_{i-1} = a\, b^{i-2},$ for every $i…