Related papers: Characterizing 3-sets in Union-Closed Families

Two of the pillars of combinatorics are the notion of choosing an arbitrary subset of a set with $n$ elements (which can be done in $2^n$ ways), and the notion of choosing a $k$-element subset of a set with $n$ elements (which can be done…

Let F be a family of subsets of an n-element set not containing four distinct members such that A union B is contained in C intersect D. It is proved that the maximum size of F under this condition is equal to the sum of the two largest…

A family $\cF\subseteq 2^{[n]}$ of sets is said to be $l$-trace $k$-Sperner if for any $l$-subset $L \subset [n]$ the family $\cF|_L=\{F|_L:F \in \cF\}=\{F \cap L: F \in \cF\}$ is $k$-Sperner, i.e. does not contain any chain of length…

A family $\mathcal{F}$ on ground set $\{1,2,\ldots, n\}$ is maximal $k$-wise intersecting if every collection of $k$ sets in $\mathcal{F}$ has non-empty intersection, and no other set can be added to $\mathcal{F}$ while maintaining this…

A family $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ is called a $t$-intersecting family if $|F\cap G| \geq t$ for any two members $F, G \in \mathcal{F}$ and for some positive integer $t$. If $t=1$, then we call the family $\mathcal{F}$…

Intersecting families and blocking sets feature prominently in extremal combinatorics. We examine the following generalization of an intersecting family investigated by Hajnal, Rothschild, and others. If $s \geq 1$, $k \geq 2$, and $u \geq…

A clutter is \emph{$k$-wise intersecting} if every $k$ members have a common element, yet no element belongs to all members. We conjecture that, for some integer $k\geq 4$, every $k$-wise intersecting clutter is non-ideal. As evidence for…

Let $\mathcal{S}$ be a family of sets with VC-codensity less than $2$. We prove that, if $\mathcal{S}$ has the $(\omega, 2)$-property (for any infinitely many sets in $\mathcal{S}$, at least $2$ among them intersect), then $\mathcal{S}$ can…

A family of $k$-element subsets of an $n$-element set is called 3-wise intersecting if any three members in the family have non-empty intersection. We determine the maximum size of such families exactly or asymptotically. One of our results…

A subset $A$ of $[n] = \{1, \dots, n\}$ is $k$-separated if, when the elements of $[n]$ are considered on a circle, between any two elements of $A$ there are at least $k$ elements of $[n]$ that are not in $A$. A family $\mathcal{A}$ of sets…

A well-known theorem of Sperner describes the largest collections of subsets of an $n$-element set none of which contains another set from the collection. Generalising this result, Erd\H{o}s characterised the largest families of subsets of…

Two families $\mathcal{A}$ and $\mathcal{B}$ of sets are said to be cross-intersecting if each member of $\mathcal{A}$ intersects each member of $\mathcal{B}$. For any two integers $n$ and $k$ with $0 \leq k \leq n$, let ${[n] \choose \leq…

Given a connected graph $G=(V,E)$ and a crossing family $\mathcal{C}$ over ground set $V$ such that $|\delta_G(U)|\geq 2$ for every $U\in \mathcal{C}$, we prove there exists a strong orientation of $G$ for $\mathcal{C}$, i.e., an…

Let $r \geq 2$, $n$ and $k$ be integers satisfying $k \leq \frac{r-1}{r}n$. In the original arXiv version of this note we suggested a conjecture that the family of all $k$-subsets of an $n$-set cannot be partitioned into fewer than $\lceil…

It is well known that an intersecting family of subsets of an n-element set can contain at most 2^(n-1) sets. It is natural to wonder how `close' to intersecting a family of size greater than 2^(n-1) can be. Katona, Katona and Katona…

Let $K$ be a compact convex set in $\mathbb{R}^2$ and let $\mathcal{F}_1, \mathcal{F}_2, \mathcal{F}_3$ be finite families of translates of $K$ such that $A \cap B \neq \emptyset$ for every $A \in \mathcal{F}_i$ and $B \in \mathcal{F}_j$…

Suppose that $\mathscr{F}$ is a finite union-closed family of sets with $\cup_{A\in \mathscr{F}}A=\{1,2,\ldots,m\}$ and $m\geq 2$. Fix $i\in \{1,2,\ldots,m\}$ and denote $\mathscr{G}:=\{A\backslash \{i\}: A\in \mathscr{F}\}$. For $j\in…

How large can a family \cal A \subset \cal P [n] be if it does not contain A,B with |A\setminus B| = 1? Our aim in this paper is to show that any such family has size at most \frac{2+o(1)}{n} \binom {n}{\lfloor n/2\rfloor }. This is tight…

It is a well-known conjecture, sometimes attributed to Frankl, that for any family of sets which is closed under the union operation, there is some element which is contained in at least half of the sets. Gilmer was the first to prove a…

A family of subsets of the set {1,2,...,n} is said to be unbalanced if the convex hull of its characteristic vectors misses the diagonal in the n-cube.The purpose of this article is to develop the combinatorics of maximal unbalanced…