MATH 580 / CS 571

COMBINATORIAL MATHEMATICS, Fall 2005

Summary of Lectures

This page contains a summary of the lectures so far in this course for Fall 2005. It lists only the topics discussed in each lecture. The text provides extensive discussion and additional material, so no additional notes are provided here. The order and coverage of topics is similar to Fall 2004, so that can be used as a rough guide to upcoming material.

Lec 1, 8/24 Wed, Sec 1.1: Course overview, general principles of enumeration, counting of words & subsets, binomial theorem. (Leftover to Lec 2: multisets and compositions.)
Lec 2, 8/26 Fri, Sec 1.2: Lattice paths, basic identities, extended binomial coefficient, summing initial values of polynomials, Delannoy numbers.
Lec 3, 8/29 Mon, Sec 1.3: Counting graphs and trees, multinomial coefficients (trees by degrees, Fermat's Little Theorem), Ballot problem, central binomial convolution.
Lec 4, 8/31 Wed, Sec 1.3-2.1: Catalan numbers (Cycle Lemma, bijections, recurrence), Recurrences (regions among lines, Fibonacci numbers and 1,2-lists).

Lec 5, 9/2 Fri, Sec 2.1-2: Derangements, recurrences in two variables (distribution problems, Delannoy numbers), characteristic equation method (through Fibonacci solution).
Lec 6, 9/7 Wed, Sec 2.2: Characteristic equation method (repeated roots, inhomogeneous), generating function method (linear constant coefficients, Catalan). (Catalan solution left to Friday's class.)
Lec 7, 9/10 Fri, Sec 2.3-3.1: Substitution method (Tower of Hanoi, derangements, Stirling's approximation), generating functions (sum/product operations, multisets).

Lec 8, 9/12 Mon, Sec 3.1: Generating functions (restricted multisets, subsets (two variables)), permutation statistics (OGFs by #inversions, #cycles), Eulerian numbers (Worpitzky's Identity by barred permutations, A(n,k) formula by substitution).
Lec 9, 9/14 Wed, Sec 3.2: Generating function manipulations (differentiation, evaluation at special values, shifting index, summing initial coefficients), summation by convolutions, Snake Oil method.
Lec 10, 9/16 Fri, Sec 3.3: Exponential generating functions. Products of EGFs (words), examples and applications of EGFs (flags on poles, restricted words, Stirling numbers, binomial inversion, derangements).
Lec 11, 9/19 Mon, Sec 3.3-4: The Exponential Formula (graphs, partitions, permutations, recurrence), Lagrange Inversion Formula (statement and application to trees), partitions of integers (basic generating functions).
Lec 12, 9/21 Wed, Sec 3.4: Asymptotic number of partitions, Combinatorics of partitions (Ferrers diagrams, conjugation, Fallon's Identity, classes of triangles, Euler's Identity).

Lec 13, 9/23 Fri, Sec 4.1: Inclusion-exclusion (basic formula and totient application), inclusion-exclusion applications (Stirling numbers, Eulerian numbers, identities, derangements),
Lec 14, 9/26 Mon, Sec 4.1: Permutations with restricted positions (rook polynomials), OGF by number of properties, probleme des menages (brief summary). Signed involutions (inclusion-exclusion formula, partitions into distinct odd parts (skipped), path systems in digraphs, application to disjoint-path systems of lattice paths and rhombus tilings).
Lec 15, 9/28 Wed, Sec 4.2: Examples for counting under symmetry, Lagrange's Theorem, Burnside's Lemma, cycle indices, symmetries of cube, pattern inventory.
Lec 16, 10/1 Fri, Sec 4.2-3: Applications of pattern inventory (Polya's Theorem) to isomorphism classes of graphs and to crowns, Young tableaux (brief presentation of Hook-length formula, RSK correspondence, and consequences of RSK correspondence).

Chapter 5, First Concepts for Graphs, for background reading
Lec 17, 10/3 Mon, Sec 6.1: Bipartite Matching (Hall's Theorem, Marriage Theorem, Birkhoff-von Neumann Theorem, transveral with "large" minimum (ranchers/farmers), Ore's min/max formula, Konig-Egervary Theorem.
Lec 18, 10/5 Wed, Sec 6.2: Brief treatment of Gallai's Theorem and Konig's Other Theorem (Sec 6.1). General Matching (Augmenting paths, Berge-Tutte Formula, Tutte's 1-Factor Theorem, application of Tutte's Theorem to regular graphs.

Lec 19, 10/7 Fri, Sec 7.1: Petersen's 2-Factor Theorem (via Eulerian circuit and Hall's Theorem) (Sec 6.2). (Vertex) connectivity definitions, superadditivity of connectivity under cartesian product, Harary graphs, edge-connectivity definitions, Whitney's Theorem (statement only), edge-connectivity for diameter 2 (Plesnik).
Lec 20, 10/10 Mon, Sec 7.2: k-Connected Graphs (Independent x,y-paths, linkage and blocking sets, Pym's Theorem, Menger's Theorems (8 versions), Ford-Fulkerson CSDR, Expansion and Fan Lemmas, cycles through specified vertices).
Lec 21, 10/12 Wed, Sec 7.3: Hamiltonian cycles (necessary condition, Ore & Dirac conditions, closure, statement of Chvatal condition, Chvatal example).

Lec 22, 10/14 Fri, Sec 7.3-8.1: Spanning cycles (Chvatal-Erdos Theorem, statement of Lu's Theorem), circumference (brief sketch of Bondy's Lemma, application to Fan's Theorem), vertex coloring (examples, easy bounds, greedy coloring, degree bounds, Minty's Theorem).
Lec 23, 10/17 Mon, Sec 8.1-2: chromatic number (interval graphs, Triangle-free graphs & Mycielski's construction), color-critical graphs (minimum degree, edge-connectivity), list coloring (examples and degree-choosability).
Lec 24, 10/19 Wed, Sec 8.2-3: List extension of Brooks' Theorem, edge-coloring (complete graphs, Petersen graph, bipartite graphs),
Lec 25, 10/21 Fri, Sec 8.3-4: Anderson-Goldberg generalization of Vizing's Theorem, perfect graphs (examples, Perfect Graph Theorem).

Lec 26, 10/24 Mon, Sec 9.1: planar graphs and their duals, cycles vs bonds, bipartite = dual Eulerian, Euler's Formula and edge bound.
Lec 27, 10/26 Wed, Sec 9.2-3: Kuratowski's Theorem (brief sketch of proof via convex embeddings), coloring of planar graphs (6CT, 5CT, 5-list-coloring, Kempe).
Lec 28, 10/28 Fri, Sec 9.3: Discharging (approach to 4CT, list edge-coloring of planar graphs), Tait's Theorem, Grinberg's Theorem,

Lec 29, 10/31 Mon, Sec 10.1-2: Applications of pigeonhole principle (divisible pairs, paths in cubes, domino tilings, monotone sublists, increasing trails), Ramsey's Theorem.
Lec 30, 11/2 Wed, Sec 10.2: Applications of Ramsey's Theorem (convex m-gons, table storage), Ramsey numbers, graph Ramsey theory (tree vs complete graph).
Lec 31, 11/4 Fri, Sec 10.3-12.1: Ramsey theory (Schur, Van der Waerden Theorem statement and example), partially ordered sets (definitions and examples, Dilworth's Theorem, equivalence of Dilworth and Konig-Egervary).

Lec 32, 11/7 Mon, Sec 12.1-2: Dilworth's Theorem (proof by Perfect Graph Theorem, statement of generalizations), graded posets, (symmetric chain decompositions for subsets and products, bracketing decomposition, application of monotone Boolean functions).
Lec 33, 11/9Wed, Sec 12.3: LYM posets (Sperner's Theorem via LYM, equivalence with regular covering and normalized matching, LYM and symmetric unimodal rank-sizes => symmetric chain decomposition).

Lec 34, 11/11 Fri, Sec 14.1: existence arguments (Ramsey number, 2-colorability of k-uniform hypergraphs), pigeonhole property of expectation (linearity and indicator variables, Caro-Wei bound on independence number, application of Caro-Wei to Turan's Theorem).
Lec 35, 11/14 Mon, Sec 14.2: Deletion method (Ramsey numbers, dominating sets, sketch for large girth and chromatic number), Local Lemma (symmetric version, Ramsey number application).
Lec 36, 11/16 Wed, Sec 14.2-3: List coloring by Local Lemma, random graph models, almost-always properties, connectedness of the random graph. Markov's Inequality, diameter 2, threshold functions.
Lec 37, 11/18 Fri, Sec 14.3-4 Second moment method, disappearance of isolated vertices. threshold for appearance of balanced graphs, comments on graph evolution, connectivity/cliques/coloring of random graphs.

Lec 38, 11/28 Mon, Sec 17.1: Latin squares (orthogonal families, Moore-MacNeish construction), block designs (examples, elementary constraints on parameters).
Lec 39, 11/30 Wed, Sec 17.1-2: Fisher's Inequality, discussion of Bruck-Chowla-Ryser, Hadamard matrices (restriction on order, relation to designs & coding).
Lec 40, 12/02 Fri, Sec 17.2: projective planes (elementary properties, relation to designs and Latin squares, application to extremal problems).

Lec 41, 12/05 Mon, Sec 17.2, 18.1: difference sets and multipliers, matroid examples.
Lec 42, 12/07 Mon, Sec 18.1: Matroid axiomatics and duality.
Lec 43, 12/10 Fri, Sec 18.1-2: Matroid minors, Whitney's characterization of planar graphs by abstract duals, matroid intersection and its applications (brief!).