Related papers: A Note on a Picture-Hanging Puzzle
Let G be a graph. Consider two nonadjacent vertices x and y that have a common neighbor. Folding G with respect to x and y is the operation which identifies x and y. After a maximal series of foldings the graph is a disjoint union of…
Given a graph on $n$ vertices and an assignment of colours to the edges, a rainbow Hamilton cycle is a cycle of length $n$ visiting each vertex once and with pairwise different colours on the edges. Similarly (for even $n$) a rainbow…
The Gap-Hamming-Distance problem arose in the context of proving space lower bounds for a number of key problems in the data stream model. In this problem, Alice and Bob have to decide whether the Hamming distance between their $n$-bit…
This paper establishes the exact comparison complexity of finding an element repeated $n$ times in a $2n$-element array containing $n+1$ distinct values, under the equality-comparison model with $O(1)$ extra space. We present a simple…
Let Gamma be a group generated by two positive multi-twists. We give some sufficient conditions for Gamma to be free or have no `unexpectedly reducible' elements. For a group Gamma generated by two Dehn twists, we classify the elements in…
According to the honing theory of creativity, creative thought works not on individually considered, discrete, predefined representations but on a contextually-elicited amalgam of items which exist in a state of potentiality and may not be…
The foldings of a connected graph $G$ are defined as follows. First, $G$ is a folding of itself. Let $G'$ be a graph obtained from $G$ by identifying two vertices at distance 2 in $G$. Then every folding of $G'$ is a folding of $G$. The…
We consider apictorial edge-matching puzzles, in which the goal is to arrange a collection of puzzle pieces with colored edges so that the colors match along the edges of adjacent pieces. We devise an algebraic representation for this…
We prove that any finite abelian group $G$ contains a collection of not too many subsets with a special structure, so that for every subset $A$ of $G$ with a small doubling, there is a member $F$ of the collection that is fully contained in…
We study the following combinatorial problem. Given a set of $n$ y-monotone curves, which we call wires, a tangle determines the order of the wires on a number of horizontal layers such that any two consecutive layers differ only in swaps…
Let $G$ be a non-trivial torsion free group and $t$ be an unknown. In this paper we consider three equations (over $G$) of arbitrary length and show that they have a solution (over $G$) provided two relations among their coefficients hold.…
We show that for a fixed free group F and an arbitrary finitely generated subgroup H (as given above) we can perform the Stalling's folding process in time O(N log^*(N)), where N is the sum of the word lengths of the given generators of H.
One cannot pull an open, curved string along itself. This fact is clearly reflected in the unwrapping motion of a string or chain as it is dragged around an object, and implies strong consequences for slender structures in passive…
A word is level if each letter appears in it the same number of times, plus or minus 1. We give a complete characterization of the lengths for which level ternary circular square-free words exist. Key words: combinatorics on words, circular…
An $(n,R)$-covering sequence is a cyclic sequence whose consecutive $n$-tuples form a code of length $n$ and covering radius $R$. Using several construction methods improvements of the upper bounds on the length of such sequences for $n…
Consider a finite sequence of permutations of the elements 1,...,n, with the property that each element changes its position by at most 1 from any permutation to the next. We call such a sequence a tangle, and we define a move of element i…
The Colouring problem is that of deciding, given a graph $G$ and an integer $k$, whether $G$ admits a (proper) $k$-colouring. For all graphs $H$ up to five vertices, we classify the computational complexity of Colouring for…
A hedge graph is a graph whose edge set has been partitioned into groups called hedges. Here we consider a generalization of the well-known \textsc{Cluster Deletion} problem, named \textsc{Hedge Cluster Deletion}. The task is to compute the…
The normal covering number $\gamma(G)$ of a finite, non-cyclic group $G$ is the minimum number of proper subgroups such that each element of $G$ lies in some conjugate of one of these subgroups. We find lower bounds linear in $n$ for…
We describe a linear-time algorithm that finds a planar drawing of every graph of a simple line or pseudoline arrangement within a grid of area O(n^{7/6}). No known input causes our algorithm to use area \Omega(n^{1+\epsilon}) for any…