Related papers: Maximal antichains of minimum size
Given a graph $G$ and an integer $k$, Max Min FVS asks whether there exists a minimal set of vertices of size at least $k$ whose deletion destroys all cycles. We present several results that improve upon the state of the art of the…
We examine the open problem of finding the shortest string that contains each of the n! permutations of n symbols as contiguous substrings (i.e., the shortest superpermutation on n symbols). It has been conjectured that the shortest…
The \emph{maximal $k$-edge-connected subgraphs} problem is a classical graph clustering problem studied since the 70's. Surprisingly, no non-trivial technique for this problem in weighted graphs is known: a very straightforward…
A set of vertices in a graph is a Hamiltonian subset if it induces a subgraph containing a Hamiltonian cycle. Kim, Liu, Sharifzadeh and Staden proved that among all graphs with minimum degree $d$, $K_{d+1}$ minimises the number of…
The spread of a graph $G$ is the difference between the largest and smallest eigenvalue of the adjacency matrix of $G$. In this paper, we consider the family of graphs which contain no $K_{s,t}$-minor. We show that for any $t\geq s \geq 2$…
We find the maximum number of maximal independent sets in two families of graphs: all graphs with $n$ vertices and at most $r$ cycles, and all such graphs that are also connected. In addition, we characterize the extremal graphs.
We consider the rank reduction problem for matroids: Given a matroid M and an integer k, find a minimum size subset of elements of M whose removal reduces the rank of M by at least k. When M is a graphical matroid this problem is the…
A signed graph is a graph with a function that assigns a label of positive or negative to each edge. The sign of a circle is the product of the signs of its edges; a graph is balanced if all of its circles are positive. A set of edges whose…
Two families $\mathcal{A}$ and $\mathcal{B}$ of sets are said to be cross-$t$-intersecting if each set in $\mathcal{A}$ intersects each set in $\mathcal{B}$ in at least $t$ elements. An active problem in extremal set theory is to determine…
A set system $\mathcal{F}$ is $t$-\textit{intersecting}, if the size of the intersection of every pair of its elements has size at least $t$. A set system $\mathcal{F}$ is $k$-\textit{Sperner}, if it does not contain a chain of length…
An antichain of subsets is a set of subsets such that no subset in the antichain is a proper subset of any other subset in the antichain. The Dedekind number counts the total number of antichains of subsets of an n-element set. This paper…
An isolating set of a graph is a set of vertices $S$ such that, if $S$ and its neighborhood is removed, only isolated vertices remain; and the isolation number is the minimum size of such a set. It is known that for every connected graph…
A (v,k,t) covering design, or covering, is a family of k-subsets, called blocks, chosen from a v-set, such that each t-subset is contained in at least one of the blocks. The number of blocks is the covering's size}, and the minimum size of…
A total dominating set of a graph $G=(V,E)$ is a subset $D \subseteq V$ such that every vertex in $V$ is adjacent to some vertex in $D$. Finding a total dominating set of minimum size is NP-hard on planar graphs and W[2]-complete on general…
A sunflower is a collection of distinct sets such that the intersection of any two of them is the same as the common intersection $C$ of all of them, and $|C|$ is smaller than each of the sets. A longstanding conjecture due to Erd\H{o}s and…
For a family $\mathcal{F}$ of graphs, let $ex(n,\mathcal{F})$ denote the maximum number of edges in an $n$-vertex graph which contains none of the members of $\mathcal{F}$ as a subgraph. A longstanding problem in extremal graph theory asks…
A $k$-uniform family of subsets of $[n]$ is intersecting if it does not contain a disjoint pair of sets. The study of intersecting families is central to extremal set theory, dating back to the seminal Erd\H{o}s-Ko-Rado theorem of 1961 that…
Given a finite abelian group $G$ and a subset $J\subset G$ with $0\in J$, let $D_{G}(J,N)$ be the maximum size of $A\subset G^{N}$ such that the difference set $A-A$ and $J^{N}$ have no non-trivial intersection. Recently, this extremal…
The component size of a graph is the maximum number of edges in any connected component of the graph. Given a graph $G$ and two integers $k$ and $c$, $(k,c)$-Decomposition is the problem of deciding whether $G$ admits an edge partition into…
A family of subsets of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ is said to be {\em antipodal} if it is closed under taking complements. We prove a best-possible isoperimetric inequality for antipodal families of subsets of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$. Our inequality…