Existence of 3‐chromatic Steiner quadruple systems

A Steiner quadruple system of order v (briefly SQS (v)) is a pair (X, ), where X is a v‐element set and is a set of 4‐element subsets of X (called blocks or quadruples), such that each 3‐element subset of X is contained in a unique block of . The chromatic number of an SQS(v)(X, ) is the smallest m for which there is a map such that for all , where . The system (X, ) is equitably m‐chromatic if there is a proper coloring with minimal m for which the numbers differ from each other by at most 1. Linek and Mendelsohn showed that an equitably 3‐chromatic SQS(v) exists for v ≡ 4, 8, 10 (mod 12), v ≥ 16. In this article we show that an equitably 3‐chromatic SQS(v) exists for v ≡ 2 (mod 12) with v > 2. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 15: 469–477, 2007     

On (ε,k)‐min‐wise independent permutations

A family of permutations of [n] = {1,2,…,n} is (ε,k)‐min‐wise independent if for every nonempty subset X of at most k elements of [n], and for any x ∈ X, the probability that in a random element π of , π(x) is the minimum element of π(X), deviates from 1/∣X∣ by at most ε/∣X∣. This notion can be defined for the uniform case, when the elements of are picked according to a uniform distribution, or for the more general, biased case, in which the elements of are chosen according to a given distribution D. It is known that this notion is a useful tool for indexing replicated documents on the web. We show that even in the more general, biased case, for all admissible k and ε and all large n, the size of must satisfy as well as This improves the best known previous estimates even for the uniform case. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2007     

On an online random k‐SAT model

Given n Boolean variables x₁,…,x_n, a k‐clause is a disjunction of k literals, where a literal is a variable or its negation. Suppose random k‐clauses are generated one at a time and an online algorithm accepts or rejects each clause as it is generated. Our goal is to accept as many randomly generated k‐clauses as possible with the condition that it must be possible to satisfy every clause that is accepted. When cn random k‐clauses on n variables are given, a natural online algorithm known as Online‐Lazy accepts an expected (1 ? )cn + a_kn clauses for some constant a_k. If these clauses are given offline, it is possible to do much better, (1 ? )cn + Ω( )n can be accepted whp . The question of closing the gap between a_k and Ω( ) for the online version remained open. This article shows that for any k ≥ 1, any online algorithm will accept less than (1 ? )cn + (ln 2)n k‐clauses whp , closing the gap between the constant and Ω( ). Furthermore we show that this bound is asymptotically tight as k → ∞. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2008     

Infinite games in the Cantor space and subsystems of second order arithmetic

In this paper we study the determinacy strength of infinite games in the Cantor space and compare them with their counterparts in the Baire space. We show the following theorems: 1. RCA₀ ? ‐Det* ? ‐Det* ? WKL₀. 2. RCA₀ ? ( )2‐Det* ? ACA₀. 3. RCA₀ ? ‐Det* ? ‐Det* ? ‐Det ? ‐Det ? ATR₀. 4. For 1 < k < ω, RCA₀ ? ( )_k ‐Det* ? ( )_{k –1}‐Det. 5. RCA₀ ? ‐Det* ? ‐Det. Here, Det* (respectively Det) stands for the determinacy of infinite games in the Cantor space (respectively the Baire space), and ( )_k is the collection of formulas built from formulas by applying the difference operator k – 1 times. (© 2007 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Regular representations of finite groups as automorphism groups of k‐tournaments

It was shown by Babai and Imrich [2] that every finite group of odd order except and admits a regular representation as the automorphism group of a tournament. Here, we show that for k ≥ 3, every finite group whose order is relatively prime to and strictly larger than k admits a regular representation as the automorphism group of a k‐tournament. Our constructions are elementary, suggesting that the problem is significantly simpler for k‐tournaments than for binary tournaments. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 41: 238–248, 2002     

Upper bounds on the general covering number Cλ(v,k, t,m)

A collection of k‐subsets (called blocks) of a v‐set X (v) = {1, 2,…, v} (with elements called points) is called a t‐(v, k, m, λ) covering if for every m‐subset M of X (v) there is a subcollection of with such that every block K ∈ has at least t points in common with M. It is required that v ≥ k ≥ t and v ≥ m ≥ t. The minimum number of blocks in a t‐(v, k, m, λ) covering is denoted by C_λ(v, k, t, m). We present some constructions producing the best known upper bounds on C_λ(v, k, t, m) for k = 6, a parameter of interest to lottery players. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

On k‐detour subgraphs of hypercubes

A spanning subgraph G of a graph H is a k‐detour subgraph of H if for each pair of vertices , the distance, , between x and y in G exceeds that in H by at most k. Such subgraphs sometimes also are called additive spanners. In this article, we study k‐detour subgraphs of the n‐dimensional cube, , with few edges or with moderate maximum degree. Let denote the minimum possible maximum degree of a k‐detour subgraph of . The main result is that for every and On the other hand, for each fixed even and large n, there exists a k‐detour subgraph of with average degree at most . © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 57: 55–64, 2008     

A randomized on–line algorithm for the k–server problem on a line

The k–server problem is one of the most important and well‐studied problems in the area of on–line computation. Its importance stems from the fact that it models many practical problems like multi‐level memory paging encountered in operating systems, weighted caching used in the management of web caches, head motion planning of multi‐headed disks, and robot motion planning. In this paper, we investigate its randomized version for which Θ(log k)–competitiveness is conjectured and yet hardly any <k competitive algorithms are known, even for the simplest of metric spaces of O(k) size. We present a –competitive randomized k–server algorithm against an oblivious adversary when the underlying metric space is given by n equally spaced points on a line . This algorithm is <k competitive for . Thus, it provides a super–linear bound for n with o(k)–competitiveness for the first time and improves the best results known so far for the range on . © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2006     

Circuits through prescribed vertices in k‐connected k‐regular graphs

We show that every set of vertices in a k‐connected k‐regular graph belongs to some circuit. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Graph Theory 39: 145–163, 2002     

On the Eigenvalues of Half‐Linear Boundary Value Problems

We consider the half‐linear boundary value problem where and the weight function q is assumed to change sign. We prove the existence of two sequences , of eigenvalues and derive asymptotic estimates for as .     

Small degree out‐branchings

Using a suitable orientation, we give a short proof of a strengthening of a result of Czumaj and Strothmann 4 : Every 2‐edge‐connected graph G contains a spanning tree T with the property that for every vertex v. As an analogue of this result in the directed case, we prove that every 2‐arc‐strong digraph D has an out‐branching B such that . A corollary of this is that every k‐arc‐strong digraph D has an out‐branching B such that , where . We conjecture that in this case would be the right (and best possible) answer. If true, this would again imply a strengthening of a result from 4 concerning spanning trees with small degrees in k‐connected graphs when k ≥ 2. We prove that for acyclic digraphs the existence of an out‐branching satisfying prescribed bounds on the out‐degrees of each vertex can be checked in polynomial time. A corollary of this is that the existence of arc‐disjoint branchings , , where the first is an out‐branching rooted at s and the second an in‐branching rooted at t, can be checked in polynomial time for the class of acyclic digraphs © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 42: 297–307, 2003     

The quasi‐randomness of hypergraph cut properties

Let satisfy and suppose a k‐uniform hypergraph on n vertices satisfies the following property; in any partition of its vertices into k sets of sizes , the number of edges intersecting is (asymptotically) the number one would expect to find in a random k‐uniform hypergraph. Can we then infer that H is quasi‐random? We show that the answer is negative if and only if . This resolves an open problem raised in 1991 by Chung and Graham [J AMS 4 (1991), 151–196]. While hypergraphs satisfying the property corresponding to are not necessarily quasi‐random, we manage to find a characterization of the hypergraphs satisfying this property. Somewhat surprisingly, it turns out that (essentially) there is a unique non quasi‐random hypergraph satisfying this property. The proofs combine probabilistic and algebraic arguments with results from the theory of association schemes. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2011     

Tauberian theorem for m‐spherical transforms on the Heisenberg group

In this paper we prove a Tauberian type theorem for the space L ( H _n ). This theorem gives sufficient conditions for a L ( H _n ) submodule J ? L ( H _n ) to make up all of L ( H _n ). As a consequence of this theorem, we are able to improve previous results on the Pompeiu problem with moments on the Heisenberg group for the space L^∞( H _n ). In connection with the Pompeiu problem, given the vanishing of integrals ∫ z ^m L _g f ( z , 0) dσ ( z ) = 0 for all g ∈ H _n and i = 1, 2 for appropriate radii r₁ and r₂, we now have the (improved) conclusion f ≡ 0, where = · · · and form the standard basis for T^(0,1)( H _n ). (© 2007 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

An improvement on H design

An H(m, g, 4, 3) is a triple , where X is a set of mg points, is a partition of X into m disjoint sets of size g, and is a set of 4‐element transverses of , such that each 3‐element transverse of is contained in exactly one of them. Such a design was introduced by Hanani 2 , who used it to study Steiner quadruple systems. Mills showed that for , an H(m, g, 4, 3) exists if and only if mg is even and is divisible by 3, and that for , an H(5, g, 4, 3) exists if g is divisible by 4 or 6 10 . In this article, we shall show that an H(5, g, 4, 3) exists if g is even, and . © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 17: 25–35, 2009     

Successor levels of the Jensen hierarchy

I prove that there is a recursive function T that does the following: Let X be transitive and rudimentarily closed, and let X ′ be the closure of X ∪ {X } under rudimentary functions. Given a Σ₀‐formula φ (x) and a code c for a rudimentary function f, T (φ, c, ) is a Σ_ω ‐formula such that for any ∈ X, X ′ ? φ [f ( )] iff X ? T (φ, c, )[ ]. I make this precise and show relativized versions of this. As an application, I prove that under certain conditions, if Y is the Σ_ω extender ultrapower of X with respect to some extender F that also is an extender on X ′, then the closure of Y ∪ {Y } under rudimentary functions is the Σ₀ extender ultrapower of X′ with respect to F, and the ultrapower embeddings agree on X. (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Spanning k‐arc‐strong subdigraphs with few arcs in k‐arc‐strong tournaments

Given a k‐arc‐strong tournament T, we estimate the minimum number of arcs possible in a k‐arc‐strong spanning subdigraph of T. We give a construction which shows that for each k ≥ 2, there are tournaments T on n vertices such that every k‐arc‐strong spanning subdigraph of T contains at least arcs. In fact, the tournaments in our construction have the property that every spanning subdigraph with minimum in‐ and out‐degree at least k has arcs. This is best possible since it can be shown that every k‐arc‐strong tournament contains a spanning subdigraph with minimum in‐ and out‐degree at least k and no more than arcs. As our main result we prove that every k‐arc‐strong tournament contains a spanning k‐arc‐strong subdigraph with no more than arcs. We conjecture that for every k‐arc‐strong tournament T, the minimum number of arcs in a k‐arc‐strong spanning subdigraph of T is equal to the minimum number of arcs in a spanning subdigraph of T with the property that every vertex has in‐ and out‐degree at least k. We also discuss the implications of our results on related problems and conjectures. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 46: 265–284, 2004     

Ore‐type degree conditions for a graph to be H‐linked

Given a fixed multigraph H with V(H) = {h₁,…, h_m}, we say that a graph G is H‐linked if for every choice of m vertices v₁, …, _vm in G, there exists a subdivision of H in G such that for every i, v_i is the branch vertex representing h_i. This generalizes the notion of k‐linked graphs (as well as some other notions). For a family of graphs, a graph G is ‐linked if G is H‐linked for every . In this article, we estimate the minimum integer r = r(n, k, d) such that each n‐vertex graph with is ‐linked, where is the family of simple graphs with k edges and minimum degree at least . © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 58: 14–26, 2008     

Explicit sparse almost‐universal graphs for ${\bf {{\cal G}(n, {k \over n})}}$

For any integer n, let be a probability distribution on the family of graphs on n vertices (where every such graph has nonzero probability associated with it). A graph Γ is ‐almost‐universal if Γ satisifies the following: If G is chosen according to the probability distribution , then G is isomorphic to a subgraph of Γ with probability 1 ‐ . For any p ∈ [0,1], let (n,p) denote the probability distribution on the family of graphs on n vertices, where two vertices u and v form an edge with probability p, and the events {u and v form an edge}; u,v ∈ V (G) are mutually independent. For k ≥ 4 and n sufficiently large we construct a ‐almost‐universal‐graph on n vertices and with O(n)polylog(n) edges, where q = ? ? for such k ≤ 6, and where q = ? ? for k ≥ 7. The number of edges is close to the lower bound of Ω( ) for the number of edges in a universal graph for the family of graphs with n vertices and maximum degree k. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2010     

The generalized Randić index of trees

The generalized Randi?; index of a tree T is the sum over the edges of T of where is the degree of the vertex x in T. For all , we find the minimal constant such that for all trees on at least 3 vertices, , where is the number of vertices of T. For example, when . This bound is sharp up to the additive constant—for infinitely many n we give examples of trees T on n vertices with . More generally, fix and define , where is the number of leaves of T. We determine the best constant such that for all trees on at least 3 vertices, . Using these results one can determine (up to terms) the maximal Randi?; index of a tree with a specified number of vertices and leaves. Our methods also yield bounds when the maximum degree of the tree is restricted. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 56: 270–286, 2007     

A limiting distribution for the number of cuts needed to isolate the root of a random recursive tree

Let X_n be the number of cuts needed to isolate the root in a random recursive tree with n vertices. We provide a weak convergence result for X_n. The basic observation for its proof is that the probability distributions of are recursively defined by , where D_n is a discrete random variable with ? , which is independent of . This distributional recursion was not studied previously in the sense of weak convergence. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2009