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Strassen's asymptotic rank conjecture [Progr. Math. 120 (1994)] claims a strong submultiplicative upper bound on the rank of a three-tensor obtained as an iterated Kronecker product of a constant-size base tensor. The conjecture, if true,…

A set of $N$ permutations of $\{1,2,\ldots,v\}$ is $t$-suitable, if each symbol precedes each subset of $t-1$ others in at least one permutation. The extremal problem of determining the smallest size $N$ of such sets for given $v$ and $t$…

It has been conjectured that whenever an optimal covering array exists there is also a uniform covering array with the same parameters and this is true for all known optimal covering arrays. When used as a test suite, the application…

Recurrences of the form \begin{equation*} T(n,k) = (\alpha n+\beta k +\gamma) \ T(n-1,k) + (\alpha'n+\beta'k+\gamma')\ T(n-1,k-1)+\delta_{n,0}\delta_{k,0}. \end{equation*} show up as the recurrence for many well-studied combinatorial…

In this paper we study $k$-noncrossing, canonical RNA pseudoknot structures with minimum arc-length $\ge 4$. Let ${\sf T}_{k,\sigma}^{[4]} (n)$ denote the number of these structures. We derive exact enumeration results by computing the…

Let $V$ be an $n$-dimensional vector space over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$. Suppose that $\mathscr{F}$ is an intersecting family of $m$-dimensional subspaces of $V$. The covering number of $\mathscr{F}$ is the minimum dimension of a…

We consider the general problem of the Longest Common Subsequence (LCS) on weighted sequences. Weighted sequences are an extension of classical strings, where in each position every letter of the alphabet may occur with some probability.…

A $t-\a$ covering array is an $m\times n$ matrix, with entries from an alphabet of size $\alpha$, such that for any choice of $t$ rows, and any ordered string of $t$ letters of the alphabet, there exists a column such that the "values" of…

The convexity number of a set $X \subset \mathbb{R}^2$ is the minimum number of convex subsets required to cover it. We study the following question: what is the largest possible convexity number $f(n)$ of $\mathbb{R}^2 \setminus S$, where…

Nested counter systems (NCS) are a generalization of counter systems to higher-order counters. Here, a higher-order counter is allowed to have other (lower-order) counters as elements, instead of just a number. Such systems can be viewed as…

Let $G$ be a finite cyclic group of order $n \ge 2$. Every sequence $S$ over $G$ can be written in the form $S=(n_1g)\cdot ... \cdot (n_lg)$ where $g\in G$ and $n_1,..., n_l \in [1,\ord(g)]$, and the index $\ind (S)$ of $S$ is defined as…

In this paper we enumerate $k$-noncrossing RNA pseudoknot structures with given minimum stack-length. We show that the numbers of $k$-noncrossing structures without isolated base pairs are significantly smaller than the number of all…

Let $\mathcal{X}$ be a set of $(h-1)$-dimensional subspaces of $\mathrm{PG}(kh-1,q)$ with the property that every hyperplane contains at most $t$ elements of $\mathcal{X}$. We prove the upper bound $|\mathcal{X}| \leq (t-k+2)q^h + t$, and…

Let S_n be the set of all permutations on [n]:={1,2,....,n}. We denote by kappa_n the smallest cardinality of a subset A of S_{n+1} that "covers" S_n, in the sense that each pi in S_n may be found as an order-isomorphic subsequence of some…

Stanley, building on work of Stern, defined an array of numbers by the recurrence $s(n, 2k) = s(n-1, k)$, $s(n, 2k+1) = s(n-1, k) + s(n-1, k+1)$. Stanley showed that, for each positive integer $r$, the sequence $s_n^r:= \sum_k s(n,k)^r$…

We find 101,052 new extreme divisors on $\bar{M}_{0,7}$ (in 31 $S_7$-orbits) and millions of extreme nef curves over characteristic 0. Over characteristic 2, we identify two more $S_7$-orbits of extreme divisors, and prove…

A suffixient set is a novel combinatorial object that captures the essential information of repetitive strings in a way that, provided with a random access mechanism, supports various forms of pattern matching. In this paper, we study the…

We study covering numbers of subsets of the symmetric group $S_n$ that exhibit closure under conjugation, known as \emph{normal} sets. We show that for any $\epsilon>0$, there exists $n_0$ such that if $n>n_0$ and $A$ is a normal subset of…

In this paper we show that many snarks have shortest cycle covers of length $\frac{4}{3}m+c$ for a constant $c$, where $m$ is the number of edges in the graph, in agreement with the conjecture that all snarks have shortest cycle covers of…

We obtain new linear programming (LP) and constructive bounds for the covering radius of binary orthogonal arrays of strength $2k$. Our LP bounds develop in two alternative scenarios. First, if a point $y \in F_2^n$, where the covering…