Related papers: Constraint Satisfaction Programming for the No-thr…

In 1976 Martin Gardner posed the following problem: ``What is the smallest number of [queens] you can put on an [$n \times n$ chessboard] such that no [queen] can be added without creating three in a row, a column, or a diagonal?'' The work…

A triple of vertices in a graph is a \emph{frustrated triangle} if it induces an odd number of edges. We study the set $F_n\subset[0,\binom{n}{3}]$ of possible number of frustrated triangles $f(G)$ in a graph $G$ on $n$ vertices. We prove…

We study interactions between Skolem Arithmetic and certain classes of Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs). We revisit results of Glass er et al. in the context of CSPs and settle the major open question from that paper, finding a…

We build on a recently proposed method for explaining solutions of constraint satisfaction problems. An explanation here is a sequence of simple inference steps, where the simplicity of an inference step is measured by the number and types…

In the General Position Subset Selection (GPSS) problem, the goal is to find the largest possible subset of a set of points such that no three of its members are collinear. If $s_{\mathrm{GPSS}}$ is the size of the optimal solution,…

We consider worst case time bounds for NP-complete problems including 3-SAT, 3-coloring, 3-edge-coloring, and 3-list-coloring. Our algorithms are based on a constraint satisfaction (CSP) formulation of these problems; 3-SAT is equivalent to…

Compared with constraint satisfaction problems, counting problems have received less attention. In this paper, we survey research works on the problems of counting the number of solutions to constraints. The constraints may take various…

Let $\tau_{m,n}$ denote the maximal number of points on the discrete torus (discrete toric grid) of sizes $m \times n$ with no three collinear points. The value $\tau_{m,n}$ is known for the case where $\gcd(m,n)$ is prime. It is also known…

We show that the lines of every arrangement of $n$ lines in the plane can be colored with $O(\sqrt{n/ \log n})$ colors such that no face of the arrangement is monochromatic. This improves a bound of Bose et al. \cite{BCC12} by a…

What is the maximum number of points that can be selected from an $n \times n$ square lattice such that no $k+1$ of them are in a line? This has been asked more than $100$ years ago for $k=2$ and it remained wide open ever since. In this…

The classical no-three-in-line problem is to find the maximum number of points that can be placed in the $n \times n$ grid so that no three points lie on a line. Given a set $S$ of points in an Euclidean plane, the General Position Subset…

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…

Given a set of points in the plane, the \textsc{General Position Subset Selection} problem is that of finding a maximum-size subset of points in general position, i.e., with no three points collinear. The problem is known to be ${\rm…

Let $S$ be a set of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^3$, no three collinear and not all coplanar. If at most $n-k$ are coplanar and $n$ is sufficiently large, the total number of planes determined is at least $1 + k…

We study hyperplane covering problems for finite grid-like structures in $\mathbb{R}^d$. We call a set $\mathcal{C}$ of points in $\mathbb{R}^2$ a conical grid if the line $y = a_i$ intersects $\mathcal{C}$ in exactly $i$ points, for some…

To any fixed, finite relational structure, $\mathbb{D}$, there is an associated decision problem, CSP$(\mathbb{D})$, which is a restricted version of the constraint satisfaction problem. In [8], the so called "algebraic approach" to the…

In Martin Gardner's October, 1976 Mathematical Games column in Scientific American, he posed the following problem: "What is the smallest number of [queens] you can put on a board of side n such that no [queen] can be added without creating…

We study the maximal number of triangulations that a planar set of $n$ points can have, and show that it is at most $30^n$. This new bound is achieved by a careful optimization of the charging scheme of Sharir and Welzl (2006), which has…

We prove that any planar graph on $n$ vertices has less than $O(5{.}2852^n)$ spanning trees. Under the restriction that the planar graph is 3-connected and contains no triangle and no quadrilateral the number of its spanning trees is less…

For every $k>3$, we give a construction of planar point sets with many collinear $k$-tuples and no collinear $(k+1)$-tuples. We show that there are $n_0=n_0(k)$ and $c=c(k)$ such that if $n\geq n_0$, then there exists a set of $n$ points in…