Related papers: Maximal 2-dimensional binary words of bounded degr…

Let $\mb w$ be a morphic word over a finite alphabet $\Sigma$, and let $\Delta$ be a nonempty subset of $\Sigma$. We study the behavior of maximal blocks consisting only of letters from $\Delta$ in $\mb w$, and prove the following: let…

We derive tight expressions for the maximum number of $k$-faces, $0\le{}k\le{}d-1$, of the Minkowski sum, $P_1\oplus{}P_2$, of two $d$-dimensional convex polytopes $P_1$ and $P_2$, as a function of the number of vertices of the polytopes.…

It is shown that the maximum size $A_2(8,6;4)$ of a binary subspace code of packet length $v=8$, minimum subspace distance $d=4$, and constant dimension $k=4$ is at most $272$. In Finite Geometry terms, the maximum number of solids in…

Let $A_q$ be a $q$-letter alphabet and $w$ be a right infinite word on this alphabet. A subword of $w$ is a block of consecutive letters of $w$. The subword complexity function of $w$ assigns to each positive integer $n$ the number $f_w(n)$…

A square is a word of the form $xx$ for a non-empty word $x$. Brlek and Li [Comb. Theory, 2025] proved that the number of distinct squares in a word $w$ of length $n$ is at most $n - \sigma$, where $\sigma$ is the number of letters used in…

We consider the problem of finding $A_2(n,\{d_1,d_2\})$ defined as the maximal size of a binary (non-linear) code of length $n$ with two distances $d_1$ and $d_2$. Binary codes with distances $d$ and $d+2$ of size…

Let p be a maximal palindrome in a Sturmian word s=ul_1pl_2v so that p is a palindrome and l_1pl_2 is not for letters l_1 and l_2. Let {\alpha}(p,p') be a morphism mapping letters a and b respectively to a^pb and a^p'b, |p-p'|=1. In this…

A square is the concatenation of a nonempty word with itself. A word has period p if its letters at distance p match. The exponent of a nonempty word is the quotient of its length over its smallest period. In this article we give a proof of…

We consider the number of occurrences of subwords (non-consecutive sub-sequences) in a given word. We first define the notion of subword entropy of a given word that measures the maximal number of occurrences among all possible subwords. We…

Enumerating the number of times one word occurs in another is a much-studied combinatorial subject. By utilizing a method that we call ``lexicographic extreme referencing'', we provide a formula for computing occurrences of one binary word…

For positive integers $w$ and $k$, two vectors $A$ and $B$ from $\mathbb{Z}^w$ are called $k$-crossing if there are two coordinates $i$ and $j$ such that $A[i]-B[i]\geq k$ and $B[j]-A[j]\geq k$. What is the maximum size of a family of…

Let $\Gamma$ denote a distance-regular graph. The maximum size of codewords with minimum distance at least $d$ is denoted by $A(\Gamma,d)$. Let $\square_n$ denote the folded $n$-cube $H(n,2)$. We give an upper bound on $A(\square_n,d)$…

Two finite words $u,v$ are 2-binomially equivalent if, for all words $x$ of length at most 2, the number of occurrences of $x$ as a (scattered) subword of $u$ is equal to the number of occurrences of $x$ in $v$. This notion is a refinement…

In this paper, we consider the problem of constructing optimal average-length binary codes under the constraint that each codeword must contain at most $D$ ones, where $D$ is a given input parameter. We provide an $O(n^2D)$-time complexity…

Any finite word $w$ of length $n$ contains at most $n+1$ distinct palindromic factors. If the bound $n+1$ is reached, the word $w$ is called rich. The number of rich words of length $n$ over an alphabet of cardinality $q$ is denoted…

If $w=u\alpha$ for $\alpha\in \Sigma=\{1,2\}$ and $u\in \Sigma^*$, then $w$ is said to be a \textit{simple right extension}of $u$ and denoted by $u\prec w$. Let $k$ be a positive integer and $P^k(\epsilon)$ denote the set of all…

We exhibit a recurrence on the number of discrete line segments joining two integer points in the plane using an encoding of such segments as balanced words of given length and height over the two-letter alphabet $\{0,1\}$. We give…

A set X of partial words over a finite alphabet A is called unavoidable if every two-sided infinite word over A has a factor compatible with an element of X. Unlike the case of a set of words without holes, the problem of deciding whether…

We prove that every concatenation of $10$ or more binary squares contains an overlap. The bound $10$ is best possible. In contrast, over a ternary alphabet, there are infinitely long overlap-free words that consist of a concatenation of…

Counting the types of squares rather than their occurrences, we consider the problem of bounding the number of distinct squares in a string. Fraenkel and Simpson showed in 1998 that a string of length n contains at most 2n distinct squares.…