Let \cal A be a family of subsets of an n-set such that \cal A does not contain distinct sets A and B with |A\B| = 2|B\A|. How large can \cal A be? Our aim in this note is to determine the maximum size of such an \cal A. This answers a question of Kalai. We also give some related results and conjectures.
Let $p$ and $q$ be two nonnegative integers with $p+q>0$ and $n>0$. We call $\mathcal{F} \subset \mathcal{P}([n])$ a \textit{(p,q)-tilted Sperner family with patterns on [n]} if there are no distinct $F,G \in \mathcal{F}$ with: $$(i) \ \ p|F \setminus G|=q|G \setminus F|, \ \textrm{and}$$ $$(ii) \ f > g \ \textrm{for all} \ f \in F \setminus G \ \textrm{and} \ g \in G \setminus F.$$ Long (\cite{L}) proved that the cardinality of a (1,2)-tilted Sperner family with patterns on $[n]$ is $$O(e^{120\sqrt{\log n}}\ \frac{2^n}{\sqrt{n}}).$$ We improve and generalize this result, and prove that the ca…
A family $\cF \subseteq 2^{[n]}$ saturates the monotone decreasing property $\cP$ if $\cF$ satisfies $\cP$ and one cannot add any set to $\cF$ such that property $\cP$ is still satisfied by the resulting family. We address the problem of finding the minimum size of a family saturating the $k$-Sperner property and the minimum size of a family that saturates the Sperner property and that consists only of $l$-sets and $(l+1)$-sets.
Aydinian et al. [J. Combinatorial Theory A 118(2)(2011), 702-725] substituted the usual BLYM inequality for L-Sperner families with a set of M inequalities for $(m_1,m_2,...,m_M;L_1,L_2,...,L_M)$ type M-part Sperner families and showed that if all inequalities hold with equality, then the family is homogeneous. Aydinian et al. [Australasian J. Comb. 48(2010), 133-141] observed that all inequalities hold with equality if and only if the transversal of the Sperner family corresponds to a simple mixed orthogonal array with constraint M, strength M-1, using $m_i+1$ symbols in the $i^{\text{th}}$ c…
Two sets $\mathscr{A}$ and $\mathscr{B}$ are said to be cross-intersecting if $X\cap Y\neq\emptyset$ for all $X\in\mathscr{A}$ and $Y\in\mathscr{B}$. Given two cross-intersecting Sperner families (or antichains) $\mathscr{A}$ and $\mathscr{B}$ of $\mathbb{N}_n$, we prove that $|\mathscr{A}|+|\mathscr{B}|\le 2{{n}\choose{\lceil{n/2}\rceil}}$ if $n$ is odd, and $|\mathscr{A}|+|\mathscr{B}|\le {{n}\choose{n/2}}+{{n}\choose{(n/2)+1}}$ if $n$ is even. Furthermore, all extremal and almost-extremal families for $\mathscr{A}$ and $\mathscr{B}$ are determined.
A reconstruction problem is formulated for Sperner systems, and infinite families of nonreconstructible Sperner systems are presented. This has an application to a reconstruction problem for functions of several arguments and identification minors. Sperner systems being representations of certain monotone functions, infinite families of nonreconstructible functions are thus obtained. The clones of Boolean functions are completely classified in regard to reconstructibility.
Given a graph G, let Q(G) denote the collection of all independent (edge-free) sets of vertices in G. We consider the problem of determining the size of a largest antichain in Q(G). When G is the edge-less graph, this problem is resolved by Sperner's Theorem. In this paper, we focus on the case where G is the path of length n-1, proving the size of a maximal antichain is of the same order as the size of a largest layer of Q(G).
In an earlier work we described Gröbner bases of the ideal of polynomials over a field, which vanish on the set of characteristic vectors $\mathbf{v} \in \{0,1\}^n$ of the complete $d$ unifom set family over the ground set $[n]$. In particular, it turns out that the standard monomials of the above ideal are {\em ballot monomials}. We give here a partial extension of the latter fact. We prove that the lexicographic standard monomials for linear Sperner systems are also ballot monomials. A set family is a linear Sperner system if the characteristic vectors satisfy a linear equation $a_1v_1+\cdot…
A pair of families $(\cF,\cG)$ is said to be \emph{cross-Sperner} if there exists no pair of sets $F \in \cF, G \in \cG$ with $F \subseteq G$ or $G \subseteq F$. There are two ways to measure the size of the pair $(\cF,\cG)$: with the sum $|\cF|+|\cG|$ or with the product $|\cF|\cdot |\cG|$. We show that if $\cF, \cG \subseteq 2^{[n]}$, then $|\cF||\cG| \le 2^{2n-4}$ and $|\cF|+|\cG|$ is maximal if $\cF$ or $\cG$ consists of exactly one set of size $\lceil n/2 \rceil$ provided the size of the ground set $n$ is large enough and both $\cF$ and $\cG$ are non-empty.
We say that a set system $\mathcal{F}\subseteq 2^{[n]}$ shatters a given set $S\subseteq [n]$ if $2^S= \{F~\cap~S:~F~\in~\mathcal{F}\}$. The Sauer-Shelah lemma states that in general, a set system $\mathcal{F}$ shatters at least $|\mathcal{F}|$ sets. Here we concentrate on the case of equality. A set system is called \emph{shattering-extremal} if it shatters exactly $|\mathcal{F}|$ sets. A conjecture of Rónyai and the second author and of Litman and Moran states that if a family is shattering-extremal then one can add a set to it and the resulting family is still shattering-extremal. Here we p…
A family $\cF\subseteq 2^{[n]}$ of sets is said to be $l$-trace $k$-Sperner if for any $l$-subset $L \subset [n]$ the family $\cF|_L=\{F|_L:F \in \cF\}=\{F \cap L: F \in \cF\}$ is $k$-Sperner, i.e. does not contain any chain of length $k+1$. The maximum size that an $l$-trace $k$-Sperner family $\cF \subseteq 2^{[n]}$ can have is denoted by $f(n,k,l)$. For pairs of integers $l<k$, if in a family $\cG$ every pair of sets satisfies $||G_1|-|G_2||<k-l$, then $\cG$ possesses the $(n-l)$-trace $k$-Sperner property. Among such families, the largest one is $\cF_0=\{F\in 2^{[n]}: \lfloor \frac{n-(k-l)…
Balanced Sperner families via the topological Tverberg theorem
Research Center for Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Sciences, Shandong University(山东大学数学交叉科学研究中心);Frontiers Science Center for Nonlinear Expectations, Ministry of Education(教育部非线性期望前沿科学中心);School of Mathematical Sciences, Zhejiang University(浙江大学数学科学学院)
A central result in extremal set theory is the celebrated theorem of Sperner from 1928, which gives the size of the largest family of subsets of [n] not containing a 2-chain. Erdos extended this theorem to determine the largest family without a k-chain. Erdos and Katona, followed by Kleitman, asked how many chains must appear in families with sizes larger than the corresponding extremal bounds. In 1966, Kleitman resolved this question for 2-chains, showing that the number of such chains is minimized by taking sets as close to the middle level as possible. Moreover, he conjectured the extremal …
A family of sets $\mathcal{F} \subseteq 2^{[n]}$ is defined to be $l$-trace $k$-Sperner if for any $l$-subset $L$ of $[n]$ the family of traces $\mathcal{F}|_L=\{F \cap L: F \in \mathcal{F}\}$ does not contain any chain of length $k+1$. In this paper we prove that for any positive integers $l',k$ with $l'<k$ if $\mathcal{F}$ is $(n-l')$-trace $k$-Sperner, then $|\mathcal{F}| \le (k-l'+o(1))\binom{n}{\lfloor n/2\rfloor}$ and this bound is asymptotically tight.
A collection of families $(\mathcal{F}_{1}, \mathcal{F}_{2} , \cdots , \mathcal{F}_{k}) \in \mathcal{P}([n])^k$ is cross-Sperner if there is no pair $i \not= j$ for which some $F_i \in \mathcal{F}_i$ is comparable to some $F_j \in \mathcal{F}_j$. Two natural measures of the `size' of such a family are the sum $\sum_{i = 1}^k |\mathcal{F}_i|$ and the product $\prod_{i = 1}^k |\mathcal{F}_i|$. We prove new upper and lower bounds on both of these measures for general $n$ and $k \ge 2$ which improve considerably on the previous best bounds. In particular, we construct a rich family of counterexamp…
A set system $\mathcal{F}$ is $t$-\textit{intersecting}, if the size of the intersection of every pair of its elements has size at least $t$. A set system $\mathcal{F}$ is $k$-\textit{Sperner}, if it does not contain a chain of length $k+1$. Our main result is the following: Suppose that $k$ and $t$ are fixed positive integers, where $n+t$ is even with $t\le n$ and $n$ is large enough. If $\mathcal{F}\subseteq 2^{[n]}$ is a $t$-intersecting $k$-Sperner family, then $|\mathcal{F}|$ has size at most the size of the sum of $k$ layers, of sizes $(n+t)/2,\ldots, (n+t)/2+k-1$. This bound is best pos…
A family of sets is called $r$-\emph{cover free} if no set in the family is contained in the union of $r$ (or less) other sets in the family. A $1$-cover free family is simply an antichain with respect to set inclusion. Thus, Sperner's classical result determines the maximal cardinality of a $1$-cover free family of subsets of an $n$-element set. Estimating the maximal cardinality of an $r$-cover free family of subsets of an $n$-element set for $r>1$ was also studied. In this note we are interested in the following probabilistic variant of this problem. Let $S_0,S_1,\ldots, S_r$ be independent…
We asymptotically determine the size of the largest family F of subsets of {1,...,n} not containing a given poset P if the Hasse diagram of P is a tree. This is a qualitative generalization of several known results including Sperner's theorem.
For each poset $H$ whose Hasse diagram is a tree of height $k$, we show that the largest size of a family $\cF$ of subsets of $[n]=\{1,..., n\}$ not containing $H$ as an induced subposet is asymptotic to $(k-1){n\choose \fl{n/2}}$. This extends the result of Bukh \cite{bukh}, which in turn generalizes several known results including Sperner's theorem.
The two part Sperner theorem of Katona and Kleitman states that if $X$ is an $n$-element set with partition $X_1 \cup X_2$, and $\cF$ is a family of subsets of $X$ such that no two sets $A, B \in \cF$ satisfy $A \subset B$ (or $B \subset A$) and $A \cap X_i=B \cap X_i$ for some $i$, then $|\cF| \le {n \choose \lfloor n/2 \rfloor}$. We consider variations of this problem by replacing the Sperner property with the intersection property and considering families that satisfiy various combinations of these properties on one or both parts $X_1$, $X_2$. Along the way, we prove the following new resul…
A well-known theorem of Sperner describes the largest collections of subsets of an $n$-element set none of which contains another set from the collection. Generalising this result, Erdős characterised the largest families of subsets of an $n$-element set that do not contain a chain of sets $A_1 \subset \dotsc \subset A_k$ of an arbitrary length $k$. The extremal families contain all subsets whose cardinalities belong to an interval of length $k-1$ centred at $n/2$. In a far-reaching extension of Sperner's theorem, Kleitman determined the smallest number of chains of length two that have to app…
Counterexamples to the Balogh-Linz-Patkós Conjecture
School of Mathematics, Nanjing University(南京大学数学系);School of Mathematics and Statistics, Central China Normal University(华中师范大学数学与统计学院);Faculty of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University(横滨国立大学环境信息学部)
A \emph{chain} in the unit $n$-cube is a set $C\subset [0,1]^n$ such that for every $\mathbf{x}=(x_1,\ldots,x_n)$ and $\mathbf{y}=(y_1,\ldots,y_n)$ in $C$ we either have $x_i\le y_i$ for all $i\in [n]$, or $x_i\ge y_i$ for all $i\in [n]$. We show that the $1$-dimensional Hausdorff measure of a chain in the unit $n$-cube is at most $n$, and that the bound is sharp. Given this result, we consider the problem of maximising the $n$-dimensional Lebesgue measure of a measurable set $A\subset [0,1]^n$ subject to the constraint that it satisfies $\mathcal{H}^1(A\cap C) \le κ$ for all chains $C\subset …
A family ${\mathcal A} \subset {\mathcal P} [n]$ is said to be an antichain if $A \not \subset B$ for all distinct $A,B \in {\mathcal A}$. A classic result of Sperner shows that such families satisfy $|{\mathcal A}| \leq \binom {n}{\lfloor n/2\rfloor}$, which is easily seen to be best possible. One can view the antichain condition as a restriction on the intersection sizes between sets in different layers of ${\mathcal P} [n]$. More generally one can ask, given a collection of intersection restrictions between the layers, how large can families respecting these restrictions be? Answering a que…
Given a family $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of $[n]$, we say two sets $A, B \in \mathcal{F}$ are comparable if $A \subset B$ or $B \subset A$. Sperner's celebrated theorem gives the size of the largest family without any comparable pairs. This result was later generalised by Kleitman, who gave the minimum number of comparable pairs appearing in families of a given size. In this paper we study a complementary problem posed by Erdős and Daykin and Frankl in the early '80s. They asked for the maximum number of comparable pairs that can appear in a family of $m$ subsets of $[n]$, a quantity we denote …
We investigate a new family of regions that is the universal generalization of three well-known region families in the field of enumeration of tilings: the quasi-regular hexagons, the semi-hexagons, and the halved hexagons. We prove a simple product formula for the number of tilings of these new regions. Our main result also yields the enumerations of two special classes of plane partitions with restricted parts.
We study the problem of determining the size of the largest intersecting $P$-free family for a given partially ordered set (poset) $P$. In particular, we find the exact size of the largest intersecting $B$-free family where $B$ is the butterfly poset and classify the cases of equality. The proof uses a new generalization of the partition method of Griggs, Li and Lu. We also prove generalizations of two well-known inequalities of Bollobás and Greene, Katona and Kleitman in this case. Furthermore, we obtain a general bound on the size of the largest intersecting $P$-free family, which is sharp f…
A coloured version of classic extremal problems dates back to Erdős and Rothschild, who in 1974 asked which $n$-vertex graph has the maximum number of 2-edge-colourings without monochromatic triangles. They conjectured that the answer is simply given by the largest triangle-free graph. Since then, this new class of coloured extremal problems has been extensively studied by various researchers. In this paper we pursue the Erdős--Rothschild versions of Sperner's Theorem, the classic result in extremal set theory on the size of the largest antichain in the Boolean lattice, and Erdős' extension to…
In the Boolean lattice, Sperner's, Erdős's, Kleitman's and Samotij's theorems state that families that do not contain many chains must have a very specific layered structure. We show that if instead of $\mathbb{Z}_2^n$ we work in $\mathbb{Z}_{2^n}$, several analogous statements hold if one replaces the word $k$-chain by projective cube of dimension $2^{k-1}$. We say that $B_d$ is a projective cube of dimension $d$ if there are numbers $a_1, a_2, \ldots, a_d$ such that $$B_d = \left\{\sum_{i\in I} a_i \bigg\rvert \emptyset \neq I\subseteq [d]\right\}.$$ As an analog of Sperner's and Erdős's the…
A central theorem in combinatorics is Sperner's Theorem, which determines the maximum size of a family $\mathcal{F}\subseteq \mathcal{P}(n)$ that does not contain a $2$-chain $F_1\subsetneq F_2$. Erdős later extended this result and determined the largest family not containing a $k$-chain $F_1\subsetneq \ldots \subsetneq F_k$. Erdős and Katona and later Kleitman asked how many such chains must appear in families whose size is larger than the corresponding extremal result. This question was resolved for $2$-chains by Kleitman in $1966$, who showed that amongst families of size $M$ in $\mathcal{…
Various kinds of fingerprinting codes and their related combinatorial structures are extensively studied for protecting copyrighted materials. This paper concentrates on one specialised fingerprinting code named wide-sense frameproof codes in order to prevent innocent users from being framed. Let $Q$ be a finite alphabet of size $q$. Given a $t$-subset $X=\{x ^1,\ldots, x ^t\}\subseteq Q^n$, a position $i$ is called undetectable for $X$ if the values of the words of $X$ match in their $i$th position: $x_i^1=\cdots=x_i^t$. The wide-sense descendant set of $X$ is defined by $\wdesc(X)=\{y\in Q^n…
Let H = (H,V) be a hypergraph with edge set H and vertex set V. Then hypergraph H is invertible iff there exists a permutation pi of V such that for all E belongs to H(edges) intersection of(pi(E) and E)=0. H is invertibility critical if H is not invertible but every hypergraph obtained by removing an edge from H is invertible. The degree of H is d if |{E belongs to H(edges)|x belongs to E}| =< d for each x belongs to V Let i(d) be the maximum number of edges of an invertibility critical hypergraph of degree d. Theorem: i(d) =< (d-1) {2d-1 choose d} + 1. The proof of this result leads to the f…