Related papers: Approximation by juntas in the symmetric group, an…

Let $n$, $s$ and $k$ be positive integers. For distinct $i,j\in\mathbb{Z}_n$, define $||i,j||_n$ to be the distance between $i$ and $j$ when the elements of $\mathbb{Z}_n$ are written in a circle. So \[ ||i,j||_n=\min\{(i-j)\bmod…

Let $G$ be a finite group and recall that the Frattini subgroup ${\rm Frat}(G)$ is the intersection of all the maximal subgroups of $G$. In this paper, we investigate the intersection number of $G$, denoted $\alpha(G)$, which is the minimal…

Let $k\ge d\ge 3$ be fixed. Let $\mathcal{F}$ be a $k$-uniform family on $[n]$. Then $\mathcal{F}$ is $(d,s)$-conditionally intersecting if it does not contain $d$ sets with union of size at most $s$ and empty intersection. Answering a…

We call a family $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of $[n]$ $s$-saturated if it contains no $s$ pairwise disjoint sets, and moreover no set can be added to $\mathcal{F}$ while preserving this property (here $[n] = \{1,\ldots,n\}$). More than 40…

Let $k$, $t$ and $m$ be positive integers. A $k$-multiset of $[m]$ is a collection of $k$ elements of $[m]$ with repetition and without ordering. We use $\left(\binom {[m]}{k}\right)$ to denote all the $k$-multisets of $[m]$. Two multiset…

A permutation $\pi \in \mathbb{S}_n$ is $k$-balanced if every permutation of order $k$ occurs in $\pi$ equally often, through order-isomorphism. In this paper, we explicitly construct $k$-balanced permutations for $k \le 3$, and every $n$…

Let $\mathcal{F}$ and $\mathcal{G}$ be two $t$-uniform families of subsets over $[k] = \{1,2,...,k\}$, where $|\mathcal{F}| = |\mathcal{G}|$, and let $C$ be the adjacency matrix of the bipartite graph whose vertices are the subsets in…

Let S be an nXn real symmetric matrix with spectral decomposition S=Q^T Lambda Q, where Q is an orthogonal matrix and Lambda is diagonal with simple spectrum {lambda_1,..., lambda_n}. Also let O_S e R_S be the orbits by conjugation of S by,…

We shall be interested in the following Erdos-Ko-Rado-type question. Fix some subset B of [n]. How large a family A of subsets of [n] can we find such that the intersection of any two sets in A contains a cyclic translate (modulo n) of B?…

Let $S_n$ and $S_{n,k}$ be, respectively, the number of subsets and $k$-subsets of $\mathbb{N}_n=\{1,\ldots,n\}$ such that no two subset elements differ by an element of the set $\mathcal{Q}$, the largest element of which is $q$. We prove a…

A collection of families $(\mathcal{F}_{1}, \mathcal{F}_{2} , \cdots , \mathcal{F}_{k}) \in \mathcal{P}([n])^k$ is cross-Sperner if there is no pair $i \not= j$ for which some $F_i \in \mathcal{F}_i$ is comparable to some $F_j \in…

This article concerns two conjectures of M. P. Murthy. For Murthy's conjecture on complete intersections, the major breakthrough has still been the result proved by Mohan Kumar in 1978. In this article we improve "Mohan Kumar's bound" when…

We study the problem of determining the size of the largest intersecting $P$-free family for a given partially ordered set (poset) $P$. In particular, we find the exact size of the largest intersecting $B$-free family where $B$ is the…

We study $t$-intersecting and $t$-cross-intersecting families of $k$-dimensional subspaces in finite vector spaces of dimension $n$. We show that all large $t$-intersecting families admit a governing low-dimensional structure for $n \ge…

A long standing conjecture of Richter and Thomassen states that the total number of intersection points between any $n$ simple closed Jordan curves in the plane, so that any pair of them intersect and no three curves pass through the same…

Let $s$ denote West's stack-sorting map. A permutation is called $t-\textit{sorted}$ if it is of the form $s^t(\mu)$ for some permutation $\mu$. We prove that the maximum number of descents that a $t$-sorted permutation of length $n$ can…

Given a set of permutations Pi, let S_n(Pi) denote the set of permutations in the symmetric group S_n that avoid every element of Pi in the sense of pattern avoidance. Given a subset S of {1,...,n-1}, let F_S be the fundamental…

Three lines are concurrent if they intersect at a single point. In this paper I prove that if $F$ is a bounded family of compact connected sets in the plane, such that every three sets in $F$ can be pierced by a single line, then there…

Ellis and the third author showed, verifying a conjecture of Frankl, that any $3$-wise intersecting family of subsets of $\{1,2,\dots,n\}$ admitting a transitive automorphism group has cardinality $o(2^n)$, while a construction of Frankl…

A $k$-partition of an $n$-set $X$ is a collection of $k$ pairwise disjoint non-empty subsets whose union is $X$. A family of $k$-partitions of $X$ is called $t$-intersecting if any two of its members share at least $t$ blocks. A…