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Let A be a class of objects, equipped with an integer size such that for all n the number a(n) of objects of size n is finite. We are interested in the case where the generating fucntion sum_n a(n) t^n is rational, or more generally…
A jump is a pair of consecutive elements in an extension of a poset which are incomparable in the original poset. The arboreal jump number is an NP-hard problem that aims to find an arboreal extension of a given poset with minimum number of…
In the Bin Packing problem one is given $n$ items with weights $w_1,\ldots,w_n$ and $m$ bins with capacities $c_1,\ldots,c_m$. The goal is to find a partition of the items into sets $S_1,\ldots,S_m$ such that $w(S_j) \leq c_j$ for every bin…
A variant of the well-known Set Covering Problem is studied in this paper, where subsets of a collection have to be selected, and pairwise conflicts among subsets of items exist. The selection of each subset has a cost, and the inclusion of…
We introduce a class of normal play partizan games, called Complementary Subtraction. Let $A$ denote your favorite set of positive integers. This is Left's subtraction set, whereas Right subtracts numbers not in $A$. The Golden Nugget…
In this article we propose a probabilistic framework in order to study the fair division of a divisible good, e.g., a cake, between n players. Our framework follows the same idea than the ''Full independence model'' used in the study of…
We study a robust extensible bin packing problem with budgeted uncertainty, under a budgeted uncertainty model where item sizes are defined to lie in the intersection of a box with a one-norm ball. We propose a scenario generation algorithm…
Let $n\in\mathbb{Z}^+$. In [8] we ask the question whether any sequence of $n$ consecutive integers greater than $n^2$ and smaller than $(n+1)^2$ contains at least one prime number, and we show that this is actually the case for every…
We say that $d$ is an exponential unitary divisor of $n=p_1^{a_1}... p_r^{a_r}>1$ if $d=p_1^{b_1}... p_r^{b_r}$, where $b_i$ is a unitary divisor of $a_i$, i.e., $b_i\mid a_i$ and $(b_i,a_i/b_i)=1$ for every $i\in \{1,2,...,r\}$. We survey…
We make an application of ideas from partition theory to a problem in multiplicative number theory. We propose a deterministic model of prime number distribution, from first principles related to properties of integer partitions, that…
Following Cayley, MacMahon, and Sylvester, define a non-unitary partition to be an integer partition with no part equal to one, and let $\nu(n)$ denote the number of non-unitary partitions of size $n$. In a 2021 paper, the sixth author…
We consider the allocation of $m$ balls into $n$ bins with incomplete information. In the classical Two-Choice process a ball first queries the load of two randomly chosen bins and is then placed in the least loaded bin. In our setting,…
The Bin Packing Problem is one of the most important optimization problems. In recent years, due to its NP-hard nature, several approximation algorithms have been presented. It is proved that the best algorithm for the Bin Packing Problem…
We indulge in what mathematicians call frivolous activities. In Arithmetic Billiards, a ball is bouncing around in a rectangle. In Parity Checkers we place checkers on a checkerboard under certain parity constraints. Both activities turn…
We revisit the problem of rigorously and deterministically finding elements of large order in the multiplicative group of integers modulo a natural number $N$. Solving this problem is an essential step in several recent deterministic…
Inspired by a mathematical riddle involving fuses, we define the "fusible numbers" as follows: $0$ is fusible, and whenever $x,y$ are fusible with $|y-x|<1$, the number $(x+y+1)/2$ is also fusible. We prove that the set of fusible numbers,…
We study several consequences of the packing problem, a conjecture from combinatorial optimization, using algebraic invariants of square-free monomial ideals. While the packing problem is currently unresolved, we successfully settle the…
We present a new generalization of the bin covering problem that is known to be a strongly NP-hard problem. In our generalization there is a positive constant $\Delta$, and we are given a set of items each of which has a positive size. We…
In this paper we study the problem of detecting prime numbers between all consecutive cubes. Firstly, we use a large computation to show that there is always a prime between $n^3$ and $(n+1)^3$ for $n^3\leq 1.649\cdot 10^{40}$. In addition,…
In the classical combinatorial (adaptive) group testing problem, one is given two integers \(d\) and \(n\), where \(0\le d\le n\), and a population of \(n\) items, exactly \(d\) of which are known to be defective. The question is to devise…