Topics concerning metric dimension related invariants in graphs are nowadays intensively studied. This compendium of combinatorial and computational results on this topic is an attempt of surveying those contributions that are of the highest interest for the research community dealing with several variants of metric dimension in graphs.
In this survey we discuss some of the significant contributions of Ian Goulden and David Jackson in the areas of classical enumeration, symmetric functions, factorizations of permutations, and algebraic foundations of quantum field theory. Through their groundbreaking textbook, {\em Combinatorial Enumeration}, and their numerous research papers, both together and with their many students, they have had an influence in areas of bioinformatics, mathematical chemistry, algorithmic computer science, and theoretical physics. Here we review and set in context highlights of their 40 years of collabor…
Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology(斯科尔科沃科学技术研究院);Zyfra(兹夫特拉);Criteo AI Lab(Criteo人工智能实验室)
Many traditional algorithms for solving combinatorial optimization problems involve using hand-crafted heuristics that sequentially construct a solution. Such heuristics are designed by domain experts and may often be suboptimal due to the hard nature of the problems. Reinforcement learning (RL) proposes a good alternative to automate the search of these heuristics by training an agent in a supervised or self-supervised manner. In this survey, we explore the recent advancements of applying RL frameworks to hard combinatorial problems. Our survey provides the necessary background for operations…
A subset $D$ of vertices of a graph $G$ is a total dominating set if every vertex of $G$ is adjacent to at least one vertex of $D$. The total dominating set $D$ is called a total co-independent dominating set if the subgraph induced by $V-D$ is edgeless and has at least one vertex. The minimum cardinality of any total co-independent dominating set is the total co-independent domination number of $G$ and is denoted by $γ_{t,coi}(G)$. In this work we study some complexity and combinatorial properties of $γ_{t,coi}(G)$. Specifically, we prove that deciding whether $γ_{t,coi}(G)\le k$ for a given …
Heffter arrays were introduced by Archdeacon in 2015 as an interesting link between combinatorial designs and topological graph theory. Since the initial paper on this topic, there has been a good deal of interest in Heffter arrays as well as in related topics such as the sequencing of subsets of a group, biembeddings of cycle systems on a surface, and orthogonal cycle systems. This survey presents an overview of the current state of the art of this topic. We begin with an introduction to Heffter arrays for the reader who is unfamiliar with the subject, then we give a unified and comprehensive…
This is a detailed survey -- with rigorous and self-contained proofs -- of some of the basics of elementary combinatorics and algebra, including the properties of finite sums, binomial coefficients, permutations and determinants. It is entirely expository (and written to a large extent as a repository for folklore proofs); no new results (and few, if any, new proofs) appear.
In this survey, we study three different notions of curvature that are defined on graphs, namely, combinatorial curvature, Bakry-Émery curvature, and Ollivier's Ricci curvature. For each curvature notion, the definition and its motivation from Riemannian geometry will be explained. Moreover, we bring together some global results and geometric concepts in Riemannian geometry that are related to curvature (e.g. Bonnet-Myers theorem, Laplacian operator, Lichnerowicz theorem, Cheeger constant), and then compare them to the discrete analogues in some (if not all) of the discrete curvature notions. …
The Neighbor-Joining algorithm is a popular distance-based phylogenetic method that computes a tree metric from a dissimilarity map arising from biological data. Realizing dissimilarity maps as points in Euclidean space, the algorithm partitions the input space into polyhedral regions indexed by the combinatorial type of the trees returned. A full combinatorial description of these regions has not been found yet; different sequences of Neighbor-Joining agglomeration events can produce the same combinatorial tree, therefore associating multiple geometric regions to the same algorithmic output. …
In this survey we discuss the notion of combinatorial interpretation in the context of Algebraic Combinatorics and related areas. We approach the subject from the Computational Complexity perspective. We review many examples, state a workable definition, discuss many open problems, and present recent results on the subject.
We survey problems and results from combinatorial geometry in normed spaces, concentrating on problems that involve distances. These include various properties of unit-distance graphs, minimum-distance graphs, diameter graphs, as well as minimum spanning trees and Steiner minimum trees. In particular, we discuss translative kissing (or Hadwiger) numbers, equilateral sets, and the Borsuk problem in normed spaces. We show how to use the angular measure of Peter Brass to prove various statements about Hadwiger and blocking numbers of convex bodies in the plane, including some new results. We also…
Lecture hall partitions are a fundamental combinatorial structure which have been studied extensively over the past two decades. These objects have produced new results, as well as reinterpretations and generalizations of classicial results, which are of interest in combinatorial number theory, enumerative combinatorics, and convex geometry. In a recent survey of Savage \cite{Savage-LHP-Survey}, a wide variety of these results are nicely presented. However, since the publication of this survey, there have been many new developments related to the polyhedral geometry and Ehrhart theory arising …
We survey some general-purpose symbolic software packages that implement algorithms from enumerative and analytic combinatorics. Software for the following areas is covered: basic combinatorial objects, symbolic combinatorics, Pólya theory, combinatorial species, and asymptotics. We describe the capabilities that the packages offer as well as some of the algorithms used, and provide links to original documentation. Most of the packages are freely downloadable from the web.
Recently, a standardized framework was proposed for introducing quantum-inspired moves in mathematical games with perfect information and no chance. The beauty of quantum games-succinct in representation, rich in structures, explosive in complexity, dazzling for visualization, and sophisticated for strategic reasoning-has drawn us to play concrete games full of subtleties and to characterize abstract properties pertinent to complexity consequence. Going beyond individual games, we explore the tractability of quantum combinatorial games as whole, and address fundamental questions including: Qua…
It is known that the homogeneous coordinate ring of a Grassmannian has a cluster structure, which is induced from the combinatorial structure of a plabic graph. A plabic graph is a certain bipartite graph described on the disk, and there is a family of plabic graphs giving a cluster structure of the same Grassmannian. Such plabic graphs are related by the operation called square move which can be considered as the mutation in cluster theory. By using a plabic graph, we also obtain the Newton--Okounkov polytope which gives a toric degeneration of the Grassmannian. The purposes of this article i…