Related papers: Piercing the chessboard

The minimum $k$-enclosing ball problem seeks the ball with smallest radius that contains at least~$k$ of~$m$ given points in a general $n$-dimensional Euclidean space. This problem is NP-hard. We present a branch-and-bound algorithm on the…

The Hadwiger-Debrunner number $HD_d(p,q)$ is the minimal size of a piercing set that can always be guaranteed for a family of compact convex sets in $\mathbb{R}^d$ that satisfies the $(p,q)$ property. Hadwiger and Debrunner showed that…

Let $G$ be a complete edge-weighted graph on $n$ vertices. To each subset of vertices of $G$ assign the cost of the minimum spanning tree of the subset as its weight. Suppose that $n$ is a multiple of some fixed positive integer $k$. The…

Many real-world machine learning problems involve inherently hierarchical data, yet traditional approaches rely on Euclidean metrics that fail to capture the discrete, branching nature of hierarchical relationships. We present a theoretical…

In this paper we study the number $M_{m,n}$ of ways to place nonattacking pawns on an $m\times n$ chessboard. We find an upper bound for $M_{m,n}$ and analyse its asymptotic behavior. It turns out that $\lim_{m,n\to\infty}(M_{m,n})^{1/mn}$…

A chessboard has the property that every row and every column has as many white squares as black squares. In this mostly methodological note, we address the problem of counting such rectangular arrays with a fixed (numeric) number of rows,…

A graph is near-planar if it can be obtained from a planar graph by adding an edge. We show the surprising fact that it is NP-hard to compute the crossing number of near-planar graphs. A graph is 1-planar if it has a drawing where every…

Given a set $P$ of $n$ points in the plane, its separability is the minimum number of lines needed to separate all its pairs of points from each other. We show that the minimum number of lines needed to separate $n$ points, picked randomly…

We prove an incidence theorem for points and planes in the projective space $\mathbb P^3$ over any field $\mathbb F$, whose characteristic $p\neq 2.$ An incidence is viewed as an intersection along a line of a pair of two-planes from two…

A family of sets has the $(p, q)$ property if among any $p$ members of it some $q$ intersect. It is shown that if a finite family of compact convex sets in $\R^2$ has the $(p+1,2)$ property then it is pierced by $\lfloor \frac{p}{2} \rfloor…

Motivated by the classical Hilbert's Sixteenth Problem, we extend some main developments obtained for Hilbert's number in the polynomial setting to the piecewise polynomial context. Specifically, we study the growth of the maximum number of…

Let $n(k_1, k_2)$ be the least integer $n$ such that there exists a graph on $n$ vertices in which every vertex is contained in both a clique of size $k_1$ and an independent set of size $k_2$. Recently, Feige and Pauzner showed that ${n(k,…

1. We first show a lower bound of 2N/3-1 for the connected minimum queen domination (or cover) problem on the NXN chessboard - the upper bound is only 2 higher at most and is easy to show. 2. We then define the k-colored connected minimum…

For a graph $G$, let $c_k(G)$ be the number of spanning trees of $G$ with maximum degree at most $k$. For $k \ge 3$, it is proved that every connected $n$-vertex $r$-regular graph $G$ with $r \ge \frac{n}{k+1}$ satisfies $$ c_k(G)^{1/n} \ge…

The point placement problem is to determine the positions of a set of $n$ distinct points, P = {p1, p2, p3, ..., pn}, on a line uniquely, up to translation and reflection, from the fewest possible distance queries between pairs of points.…

We give a series of new lower bounds on the minimum number of vertices required by a graph to contain every graph of a given family as induced subgraph. In particular, we show that this induced-universal graph for $n$-vertex planar graphs…

New bounds on the number of similar or directly similar copies of a pattern within a finite subset of the line or the plane are proved. The number of equilateral triangles whose vertices all lie within an $n$-point subset of the plane is…

Let $p_1,\ldots,p_n$ be a set of points in the unit square and let $T_1,\ldots,T_n$ be a set of $\delta$-tubes such that $T_j$ passes through $p_j$. We prove a lower bound for the number of incidences between the points and tubes under a…

Suppose that a polygon $P$ is given as an array containing the vertices in counterclockwise order. We analyze how many vertices (including the index of each of these vertices) we need to know before we can bound $P$, i.e., report a bounded…

We prove two results concerning percolation on general graphs. - We establish the converse of the classical Peierls argument: if the critical parameter for (uniform) percolation satisfies $p_c<1$, then the number of minimal cutsets of size…