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Brualdi and Ma found a connection between involutions of length $n$ with $k$ descents and symmetric $k\times k$ matrices with non-negative integer entries summing to $n$ and having no row or column of zeros. From their main theorem they…

Given a definite nonnegative matrix $A \in M_n (C)$, we study the minimal index of A: $I(A) = \max \{\lambda \ge 0 : A\circ B \ge \lambda B$ for all $0\le B\}$, where $A\circ B$ denotes the Hadamard product $(A\circ B)_{ij} = A_{ij}…

Let $r$ be a positive integer, and let $A$ be a nonempty finite set of at least two integers. We let $\tilde{C}_r(A)$ denote the {\em asymptotic $r$-covering number} of $A$, that is, the smallest integer value of $l$ for which, for all…

We consider the symmetric group $S_n$-module of the polynomial ring with $m$ sets of $n$ commuting variables and $m'$ sets of $n$ anti-commuting variables and show that the multiplicity of an irreducible indexed by the partition $\lambda$…

A set of proper subgroups is a covering for a group if its union is the whole group. The minimal number of subgroups needed to cover $G$ is called the covering number of $G$, denoted by $\sigma(G)$. Determining $\sigma(G)$ is an open…

For positive integers $s$ and $L \geq 3$, Berkovich and Uncu (Ann. Comb. $23$ ($2019$) $263$--$284$) conjectured an inequality between the sizes of two closely related sets of partitions whose parts lie in the interval $\{s, \ldots, L+s\}$.…

For any prime $p$, let $y(p)$ denote the smallest integer $y$ such that every reduced residue class $\pmod p$ is represented by the product of some subset of $\{1,\dots,y\}$. It is easy to see that $y(p)$ is at least as large as the…

Given $f \in \mathbb{Z}[x]$ and $n \in \mathbb{Z^{+}}$, the $\emph{discriminator}$ $D_f(n)$ is the smallest positive integer $m$ such that $f(1), \ldots, f(n)$ are distinct mod $m$. In a recent paper, Z.-W. Sun proved that $D_f(n) =…

In this note we prove that minimal networks enjoy minimizing properties for the length functional. A minimal network is, roughly speaking, a subset of $\mathbb{R}^2$ composed of straight segments joining at triple junctions forming angles…

Group testing is a long studied problem in combinatorics: A small set of $r$ ill people should be identified out of the whole ($n$ people) by using only queries (tests) of the form "Does set X contain an ill human?". In this paper we…

The main result of this paper is the proof of the simultaneous consistency, modulo a weakly compact cardinal, of the equality $2^{< \mathfrak{c}} = \mathfrak{c}$ with the following property (*) of partitions of pairs of $\mathfrak{c}$:…

Let $\lambda$, $\mu$, $\lambda'$, $\mu'$ be partitions. The conjecture of Lam, Postnikov and Pylyavskyy states that, if $\lambda+\mu = \lambda' + \mu'$, and $\min(\lambda_i-\lambda_j, \mu_i-\mu_j) \leq \lambda'_i - \lambda'_j \leq…

In 2002, Andrews, Lewis, and Lovejoy introduced the combinatorial objects which they called \emph{partitions with designated summands}. These are built by taking unrestricted integer partitions and designating exactly one of each occurrence…

For a set $A\subseteq \mathbb{N}$ and $n\in \mathbb{N}$, let $R_A(n)$ denote the number of ordered pairs $(a,a')\in A\times A$ such that $a+a'=n$. The celebrated Erd\H{o}s-Tur\'an conjecture says that, if $R_A(n)\ge 1$ for all sufficiently…

In this paper, we study various classes of partition functions such as those related to the parity of the number of parts, to differences of partition numbers, and to partitions with a repeated smallest part. We establish identities…

We give a closed formula for the number of partitions $\lambda$ of $n$ such that the corresponding irreducible representation $V_\lambda$ of $S_n$ has non-trivial determinant. We determine how many of these partitions are self-conjugate and…

Let $\phi(k)$ be the minimum number of vertices in a non-$k$-choosable $k$-chromatic graph. The Ohba conjecture, confirmed by Noel, Reed and Wu, asserts that $\phi(k) \ge 2k+2$. This bound is tight if $k$ is even. If $k$ is odd, then it is…

Given a sequence of distinct positive integers $v_1,v_2,\ldots$ and any positive integer $n$, the discriminator $D_v(n)$ is defined as the smallest positive integer $m$ such $v_1,\ldots,v_n$ are pairwise incongruent modulo $m$. We consider…

The graph removal lemma is a fundamental result in extremal graph theory which says that for every fixed graph $H$ and $\varepsilon > 0$, if an $n$-vertex graph $G$ contains $\varepsilon n^2$ edge-disjoint copies of $H$ then $G$ contains…

In the classical combinatorial (adaptive) group testing problem, one is given two integers \(d\) and \(n\), where \(0\le d\le n\), and a population of \(n\) items, exactly \(d\) of which are known to be defective. The question is to devise…