On the Simplest Inverse Problem for Sums of Sets in Several Dimensions

d -dimensional sets having the smallest cardinality of the sum set. Let be a finite d-dimensional set such that . If , then K consists of d parallel arithmetic progressions with the same common difference. We also establish the structure of K in the remaining cases . Received: February 5, 1996/Revised: November 20, 1997     

On Small Blocking Sets

Received: August 5, 1997     

On Subsets with Small Product in Torsion-Free Groups

G be a nonabelian torsion-free group. Let C be a finite generating subset of G such that . We prove that, for all subsets B of G with , we have . In particular, a finite subset X with cardinality satisfies the inequality if and only if there are elements , such that the following two conditions hold: (i) . (ii) where . Received: October 13, 1997/Revised: Revised August 18, 1998     

An Upper Bound for d-dimensional Difference Sets

Let be the maximal positive number for which the inequality holds for every finite set of affine dimension . What can one say about ? The exact value of is known only for d = 1, 2 and 3. It is shown that , for every . This disproves a conjecture of Ruzsa. Some further related questions are posed and discussed. Received March 27, 2000     

On Large Systems of Sets with No Large Weak Δ-subsystems

weak Δ-system if the cardinality of the intersection of any two sets is the same. We elaborate a construction by R?dl and Thoma [9] and show that for large n, there exists a family ℱ of subsets of without weak Δ-systems of size 3 with . Received: October 1, 1997     

On the Support Size of Null Designs of Finite Ranked Posets

t -designs of the lattice of subspaces of a vector space over a finite field. The lower bound we find gives the tight bound for many important posets including the Boolean algebra, the lattice of subspaces of a vector space over a finite field, whereas the idea of the proofs of the main theorems makes it possible to prove that the lower bounds in the main theorems are not tight for some posets. Received: November 7, 1995     

Perfect Matchings in ε-Regular Graphs and the Blow-Up Lemma

G on vertex set , , with density d>2ε and all vertex degrees not too far from d, has about as many perfect matchings as a corresponding random bipartite graph, i.e. about . In this paper we utilize that result to prove that with probability quickly approaching one, a perfect matching drawn randomly from G is spread evenly, in the sense that for any large subsets of vertices and , the number of edges of the matching spanned between S and T is close to |S||T|/n (c.f. Lemma 1). As an application we give an alternative proof of the Blow-up Lemma of Komlós, Sárk?zy and Szemerédi [10]. Received: December 5, 1997     

Maximizing the Möbius Function of a Poset and the Sum of the Betti Numbers of the Order Complex

Received: February 28, 1995/Revised: Revised October 30, 1998     

Concentration of Multivariate Polynomials and Its Applications

are independent random variables which take values either 0 or 1, and Y is a multi-variable polynomial in 's with positive coefficients. We give a condition which guarantees that Y concentrates strongly around its mean even when several variables could have a large effect on Y. Some applications will be discussed. Received March 29, 1999     

Morse Theory and Evasiveness

M   is a non-contractible subcomplex of a simplex S then M is evasive. In this paper we make this result quantitative, and show that the more non-contractible M is, the more evasive M is. Recall that M is evasive if for every decision tree algorithm A there is a face of S that requires that one examines all vertices of S (in the order determined by A) before one is able to determine whether or not lies in M. We call such faces evaders of A. M is nonevasive if and only if there is a decision tree algorithm A with no evaders. A main result of this paper is that for any decision tree algorithm A, there is a CW complex M', homotopy equivalent to M, such that the number of cells in M' is precisely

The Clique Complex and Hypergraph Matching

The width of a hypergraph is the minimal for which there exist such that for any , for some . The matching width of is the minimal such that for any matching there exist such that for any , for some . The following extension of the Aharoni-Haxell matching Theorem [3] is proved: Let be a family of hypergraphs such that for each either or , then there exists a matching such that for all . This is a consequence of a more general result on colored cliques in graphs. The proofs are topological and use the Nerve Theorem. Received June 14, 1999     

Superpolynomial Size Set-systems with Restricted Intersections mod 6 and Explicit Ramsey Graphs

Dedicated to the memory of Paul Erdős We construct a system of subsets of a set of n elements such that the size of each set is divisible by 6 but their pairwise intersections are not divisible by 6. The result generalizes to all non-prime-power moduli m in place of m=6. This result is in sharp contrast with results of Frankl and Wilson (1981) for prime power moduli and gives strong negative answers to questions by Frankl and Wilson (1981) and Babai and Frankl (1992). We use our set-system to give an explicit Ramsey-graph construction, reproducing the logarithmic order of magnitude of the best previously known construction due to Frankl and Wilson (1981). Our construction uses certain mod m polynomials, discovered by Barrington, Beigel and Rudich (1994). Received January 15, 1996/Revised August 2, 1999     

NOTE Spectral Characterization of Tree-Width-Two Graphs

) of a graph G, similar in spirit to his now-classical invariant . He showed that is minor-monotone and is related to the tree-width la(G) of G: and, moreover, , i.e. G is a forest. We show that and give the corresponding forbidden-minor and ear-decomposition characterizations. Received October 9, 1997/Revised July 27, 1999     

Quick Approximation to Matrices and Applications

m ×n matrix A with entries between say −1 and 1, and an error parameter ε between 0 and 1, we find a matrix D (implicitly) which is the sum of simple rank 1 matrices so that the sum of entries of any submatrix (among the ) of (A−D) is at most εmn in absolute value. Our algorithm takes time dependent only on ε and the allowed probability of failure (not on m, n). We draw on two lines of research to develop the algorithms: one is built around the fundamental Regularity Lemma of Szemerédi in Graph Theory and the constructive version of Alon, Duke, Leffman, R?dl and Yuster. The second one is from the papers of Arora, Karger and Karpinski, Fernandez de la Vega and most directly Goldwasser, Goldreich and Ron who develop approximation algorithms for a set of graph problems, typical of which is the maximum cut problem. From our matrix approximation, the above graph algorithms and the Regularity Lemma and several other results follow in a simple way. We generalize our approximations to multi-dimensional arrays and from that derive approximation algorithms for all dense Max-SNP problems. Received: July 25, 1997     

Separation of the Monotone NC Hierarchy

, for the monotone depth of functions in monotone-P. As a result we achieve the separation of the following classes. 1. monotone-NC ≠ monotone-P. 2. For every i≥1, monotone-≠ monotone-. 3. More generally: For any integer function D(n), up to (for some ε>0), we give an explicit example of a monotone Boolean function, that can be computed by polynomial size monotone Boolean circuits of depth D(n), but that cannot be computed by any (fan-in 2) monotone Boolean circuits of depth less than Const·D(n) (for some constant Const). Only a separation of monotone- from monotone- was previously known. Our argument is more general: we define a new class of communication complexity search problems, referred to below as DART games, and we prove a tight lower bound for the communication complexity of every member of this class. As a result we get lower bounds for the monotone depth of many functions. In particular, we get the following bounds: 1.  For st-connectivity, we get a tight lower bound of . That is, we get a new proof for Karchmer–Wigderson's theorem, as an immediate corollary of our general result. 2.  For the k-clique function, with , we get a tight lower bound of Ω(k log n). This lower bound was previously known for k≤ log n [1]. For larger k, however, only a bound of Ω(k) was previously known. Received: December 19, 1997     

The Distance-regular Graphs with Intersection Number and with an Eigenvalue

and with an eigenvalue . Received: October 2, 1995/Revised: Revised November 26, 1997     

VC-Dimension of Sets of Permutations

VC-dimension of a set of permutations to be the maximal k such that there exist distinct that appear in A in all possible linear orders, that is, every linear order of is equivalent to the standard order of for at least one permutation . In other words, the VC-dimension of A is the maximal k such that for some the restriction of A to contains all possible linear orders. This is analogous to the VC-dimension of a set of strings. Our main result is that there exists a universal constant C such that any set of permutations with VC-dimension 2 is of size . This is analogous to Sauer's lemma for the case of VC-dimension 2. One corollary of our main result is that any acyclic set of linear orders of is of size , (a set A of linear orders on is called acyclic if no 3 elements appear in A in all 3 orders (i,j,k), (k,i,j) and (j,k,i)). The size of the largest acyclic set of linear orders has interested researchers for many years because it is the largest number of linear orders of n alternatives such that the following is always satisfied: if each one of a set of voters chooses one of these orders as his preference then the majority relation between each two alternatives is transitive. Received August 6, 1998