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We study a combinatorial game derived from a problem in the German National Mathematics Competition. In this game, two players take turns removing numbers from a finite set of natural numbers, aiming to satisfy a certain divisibility…
A multiparty computation protocol is described in which the parties can generate different probability events that is based on the sharing of a single anonymized random number, and also perform oblivious transfer. A method to verify the…
The double Dixie cup problem of D.J. Newman and L. Shepp is a well-known variant of the coupon collector problem, where the object of study is the number of coupons that a collector has to buy in order to complete m sets of all N existing…
In this paper, we consider the problem of making skeptical inferences for the multi-label ranking problem. We assume that our uncertainty is described by a convex set of probabilities (i.e. a credal set), defined over the set of labels.…
We consider the computational complexity of a problem modeling bribery in the context of voting systems. In the scenario of Swap Bribery, each voter assigns a certain price for swapping the positions of two consecutive candidates in his…
We present a natural, combinatorial problem whose solution is given by the meta-Fibonacci recurrence relation $a(n) = \sum_{i=1}^p a(n-i+1 - a(n-i))$, where $p$ is prime. This combinatorial problem is less general than those given in [3]…
We model the joint distribution of choice probabilities and decision times in binary choice tasks as the solution to a problem of optimal sequential sampling, where the agent is uncertain of the utility of each action and pays a constant…
With this work we aim to show how Mathematica can be a useful tool to investigate properties of combinatorial structures. Specifically, we will face enumeration problems on independent subsets of powers of paths and cycles, trying to…
The compound decision problem for a vector of independent Poisson random variables with possibly different means has half a century old solution. However, it appears that the classical solution needs smoothing adjustment even when there are…
A birthday surprise is the event that, given k uniformly random samples from a sample space of size n, at least two of them are identical. We show that Bernoulli numbers can be used to derive arbitrarily exact bounds on the probability of a…
The prime number problem falls within the realm of number theory, specifically elementary number theory. Current research approaches have unnecessarily complicated this matter. In contrast to more advanced mathematical tools, the methods of…
A permutation $\pi$ contains a pattern $\sigma$ if and only if there is a subsequence in $\pi$ with its letters are in the same relative order as those in $\sigma$. Partially ordered patterns (POPs) provide a convenient way to denote…
Given a combinatorial structure, a ``twin'' is a pair of disjoint substructures which are isomorphic (or look the same in some sense). In recent years, there have been many problems about finding large twins in various combinatorial…
We propose a model of two-way selection system. It appears in the processes like choosing a mate between men and women, making contracts between job hunters and recruiters, and trading between buyers and sellers. In this paper, we propose a…
We consider the group of permutations of the vertices of a lattice. A random walk is generated by unit steps that each interchange two nearest neighbor vertices of the lattice. We study the heat equation on the permutation group, using the…
In this paper, we present approximation algorithms for combinatorial optimization problems under probabilistic constraints. Specifically, we focus on stochastic variants of two important combinatorial optimization problems: the k-center…
Combinatorial/probabilistic models for cross-country dual-meets are proposed. The first model assumes that all runners are equally likely to finish in any possible order. The second model assumes that each team is selected from a large…
The Sleeping Beauty problem is a probability riddle with no definite solution for more than two decades and its solution is of great interest in many fields of knowledge. There are two main competing solutions to the problem: the halfer…
Set disjointness is a central problem in communication complexity. Here Alice and Bob each receive a subset of an n-element universe, and they need to decide whether their inputs intersect or not. The communication complexity of this…
Probabilistic puzzles can be confusing, partly because they are formulated in natural languages - full of unclarities and ambiguities - and partly because there is no widely accepted and intuitive formal language to express them. We propose…