Related papers: How to drive our families mad

Given a union-closed family $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of the universe $[n]$, with $\mathcal{F}$ not equal to the power set of $[n]$, a new subset $A$ can be added to it such that the resulting family remains union-closed. We construct a new…

The Frankl conjecture, also known as the union-closed sets conjecture, states that in any finite non-empty union-closed family, there exists an element in at least half of the sets. From an optimization point of view, one could instead…

We mainly investigate model of set theory with restricted choice, e.g., ZF + DC + "the family of countable subsets of lambda is well ordered for every lambda" (really local version for a given lambda). In this frame much of pcf theory can…

We show relative to strong hypotheses that patterns of compact cardinals in the universe, where a compact cardinal is one which is either strongly compact or supercompact, can be virtually arbitrary. Specifically, we prove if V is a model…

A family $\mathcal{F}\subseteq\mathcal{P}(n)$ is an $(a,b)$-town$\pmod k$ if all sets in it have cardinality $a\pmod k$ and all pairwise intersections in it have cardinality $b\pmod k$. For $k=2$ the maximal size of such a family is known…

In this paper, we determine the largest family $\mathcal F \subset 2^{[n]}$ without $s$ pairwise disjoint sets, provided $n=ms+c$ for positive integers $m,c$, and $s \geq s_0(m, c)$. This result can be seen as a non-uniform analogue of the…

Recall that in a laminar family, any two sets are either disjoint or contained one in the other. Here, a parametrized weakening of this condition is introduced. Let us say that a set system $\mathcal{F} \subseteq 2^X$ is $t$-laminar if $A,B…

A classic theorem in combinatorial design theory is Fisher's inequality, which states that a family $\mathcal F$ of subsets of $[n]$ with all pairwise intersections of size $\lambda$ can have at most $n$ non-empty sets. One may weaken the…

A family $\mathcal F\subset {[n]\choose k}$ is $U(s,q)$ of for any $F_1,\ldots, F_s\in \mathcal F$ we have $|F_1\cup\ldots\cup F_s|\le q$. This notion generalizes the property of a family to be $t$-intersecting and to have matching number…

We prove that ZF+DC+"There are no mad families" is equiconsistent with ZFC.

Let $X$ be an $n$-element set, where $n$ is even. We refute a conjecture of J. Gordon and Y. Teplitskaya, according to which, for every maximal intersecting family $\mathcal{F}$ of $\frac{n}2$-element subsets of $X$, one can partition $X$…

While maximal independent families can be constructed from ZFC via Zorn's lemma, the presence of a maximal $\sigma$-independent family already gives an inner model with a measurable cardinal, and Kunen has shown that from a measurable…

We explicitly construct infinite families of MSTD (more sums than differences) sets. There are enough of these sets to prove that there exists a constant C such that at least C / r^4 of the 2^r subsets of {1,...,r} are MSTD sets; thus our…

For a given graph consider a pair of disjoint matchings the union of which contains as many edges as possible. Furthermore, consider the relation of the cardinalities of a maximum matching and the largest matching in those pairs. It is…

We say that a family $\mathcal F$ of $k$-element sets is a {\it $j$-junta} if there is a set $J$ of size $j$ such that, for any $F$, its presence in $\mathcal F$ depends on its intersection with $J$ only. Approximating arbitrary families by…

We study higher analogues of the classical independence number on $\omega$. For $\kappa$ regular uncountable, we denote by $i(\kappa)$ the minimal size of a maximal $\kappa$-independent family. We establish ZFC relations between $i(\kappa)$…

Let $n$ be any positive integer and $\mathcal{F}$ be a family of subsets of $[n]$. A family $\mathcal{F}'$ is said to be $D$-\emph{secting} for $\mathcal{F}$ if for every $A \in \mathcal{F}$, there exists a subset $A' \in \mathcal{F}'$ such…

A structure ${\mathbb Y}$ of a relational language $L$ is called almost chainable iff there are a finite set $F \subset Y$ and a linear order $<$ on the set $Y\setminus F$ such that for each partial automorphism $\varphi$ (i.e., local…

The relations M(kappa,lambda,mu)->B [resp. B(sigma)] meaning that if A subset [kappa]^lambda with |A|=kappa is mu-almost disjoint then A has property B [resp. has a sigma-transversal] had been introduced and studied under GCH by Erdos and…

A family of sets $\mathcal{A}$ is union-closed if it is finite and nonempty with member sets that are all finite and distinct (at least one of which is nonempty) and it satisfies the property $X, Y \in \mathcal{A} \implies X \cup Y \in…