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Feldman and Karlin conjectured that the number of isolated fixed points for deterministic models of viability selection and recombination among n possible haplotypes has an upper bound of 2^n - 1. Here a proof is provided. The upper bound…

What is the maximum number of holes that a polyomino with $n$ tiles can enclose? Call this number $f(n)$. We show that if $n_k = \left( 2^{2k+1} + 3 \cdot 2^{k+1}+4 \right) / 3$ and $h_k = \left( 2^{2k}-1 \right) /3$, then $f(n_k) = h_k$…

The Clar number of a fullerene is the maximum number of independent resonant hexagons in the fullerene. It is known that the Clar number of a fullerene with n vertices is bounded above by [n/6]-2. We find that there are no fullerenes whose…

A Cullen number is a number of the form $m2^m+1$, where $m$ is a positive integer. In 2004, Luca and St\u anic\u a proved, among other things, that the largest Fibonacci number in the Cullen sequence is $F_4=3$. Actually, they searched for…

Let $\{u_n\}_n$ be a non-degenerate linear recurrence sequence of integers with Binet's formula given by $u_n= \sum_{i=1}^{m} P_i(n)\alpha_i^n.$ Assume $\max_i \vert \alpha_i \vert >1$. In 1977, Loxton and Van der Poorten conjectured that…

We use Grothendieck's dessins d'enfant to show that if $P$ and $Q$ are two real polynomials, any real function of the form $x^\alpha(1-x)^{\beta} P - Q$, has at most $\deg P +\deg Q + 2$ roots in the interval $]0,~1[$. As a consequence, we…

Let G be a group generated by $r$ elements $g_1,g_2,..., g_r.$ Among the reduced words in $g_1,g_2,..., g_r$ of length $n$ some, say $\gamma_n,$ represent the identity element of the group $G.$ It has been shown in a combinatorial way that…

For a fixed integer $e \geqslant 3$ and $n$ large enough, we show that the number of congruence classes modulo $2^e$ of characteristic polynomials of $n \times n$ symmetric $\{\pm 1\}$-matrices with constant diagonal is equal to…

Let $m_n(G)$ denote the number of maximal subgroups of $G$ of index $n$. An upper bound is given for the degree of maximal subgroup growth of all polycyclic metabelian groups $G$ (i.e., for $\limsup \frac{\log m_n(G)}{\log n}$, the degree…

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…

A planar Tangle is a smooth simple closed curve piecewise defined by quadrants of circles with constant curvature. We can enumerate Tangles by counting their dual graphs, which consist of a certain family of polysticks. The number of…

Karlin's (1982) Theorem 5.2 shows that linear systems alternating between growth and mixing phases have lower asymptotic growth with greater mixing. Here this result is extended to linear differential equations that combine site-specific…

We show that the $n$-point, genus-$g$ correlation functions of topological recursion on any regular spectral curve with simple ramifications grow at most like $(2g - 2 + n)!$ as $g \rightarrow \infty$, which is the expected growth rate.…

We consider maximum packings of edge-disjoint $4$-cliques in the complete graph $K_n$. When $n \equiv 1$ or $4 \pmod{12}$, these are simply block designs. In other congruence classes, there are necessarily uncovered edges; we examine the…

In this paper, we propose new lower and upper bounds on the linear extension complexity of regular $n$-gons. Our bounds are based on the equivalence between the computation of (i) an extended formulation of size $r$ of a polytope $P$, and…

The growth-rate function for a minor-closed class $\mathcal{M}$ of matroids is the function $h$ where, for each non-negative integer $r$, $h(r)$ is the maximum number of elements of a simple matroid in $\mathcal{M}$ with rank at most $r$.…

Let $G$ be a 3-partite graph with $k$ vertices in each part and suppose that between any two parts, there is no cycle of length four. Fischer and Matou\u{s}ek asked for the maximum number of triangles in such a graph. A simple construction…

We prove the existence of complex polynomials $p(z)$ of degree $n$ and $q(z)$ of degree $m<n$ such that the harmonic polynomial $ p(z) + \overline{q(z)}$ has at least $\lceil n \sqrt{m} \rceil$ many zeros. This provides an array of new…

We consider the problem of determining $m_n$, the number of matroids on $n$ elements. The best known lower bound on $m_n$ is due to Knuth (1974) who showed that $\log \log m_n$ is at least $n-3/2\log n-1$. On the other hand, Piff (1973)…

Consider the set of those binary words with no non-empty factors of the form $xxx^R$. Du, Mousavi, Schaeffer, and Shallit asked whether this set of words grows polynomially or exponentially with length. In this paper, we demonstrate the…