On Saturated Graphs and Combinatorial Games

On Saturated Graphs and Combinatorial Games

Author: Ali Dogan

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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This dissertation concerns two types of problems in Extremal Graph Theory. The first type is on the edge spectrum of saturated graphs, while the second one is related to a combinatorial game. In the first chapter we give an overview of the structure of the dissertation, introduce some notation and definitions, and state some results that are repeatedly used for reference. In Chapter 2, we analyze the edge spectrum of star-saturated graphs. In particular, we show that there are star-saturated graphs for any number between the saturation number and the extremal number. Chapter 3 is dedicated to a problem similar to that in Chapter 2. Namely, we study the edge spectrum of path-saturated graphs and show that it includes all integers from the saturation number to slightly below the extremal number. Moreover, we analyze the structure of large path-saturated graphs that have edge counts close to the extremal number in order to show that there are some gaps in the edge spectrum of path-saturated graphs near the extremal number. We continue with path-saturated graphs in Chapter 4, and determine the size of the second largest path saturated graph. Chapter 5 deals with a combinatorial game. Namely, we study the H-Saturation Game when H is a path.


Combinatorial Games on Graphs

Combinatorial Games on Graphs

Author: Trevor K. Williams

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Combinatorial games are intriguing and have a tendency to engross students and lead them into a serious study of mathematics. The engaging nature of games is the basis for this thesis. Two combinatorial games along with some educational tools were developed in the pursuit of the solution of these games. The game of Nim is at least centuries old, possibly originating in China, but noted in the 16th century in European countries. It consists of several stacks of tokens, and two players alternate taking one or more tokens from one of the stacks, and the player who cannot make a move loses. The formal and intense study of Nim culminated in the celebrated Sprague-Grundy Theorem, which is now one of the centerpieces in the theory of impartial combinatorial games. We study a variation on Nim, played on a graph. Graph Nim, for which the theory of Sprague-Grundy does not provide a clear strategy, was originally developed at the University of Colorado Denver. Graph Nim was first played on graphs of three vertices. The winning strategy, and losing position, of three vertex Graph Nim has been discovered, but we will expand the game to four vertices and develop the winning strategies for four vertex Graph Nim. Graph Theory is a markedly visual field of mathematics. It is extremely useful for graph theorists and students to visualize the graphs they are studying. There exists software to visualize and analyze graphs, such as SAGE, but it is often extremely difficult to learn how use such programs. The tools in GeoGebra make pretty graphs, but there is no automated way to make a graph or analyze a graph that has been built. Fortunately GeoGebra allows the use of JavaScript in the creation of buttons which allow us to build useful Graph Theory tools in GeoGebra. We will discuss two applets we have created that can be used to help students learn some of the basics of Graph Theory. The game of thrones is a two-player impartial combinatorial game played on an oriented complete graph (or tournament) named after the popular fantasy book and TV series. The game of thrones relies on a special type of vertex called a king. A king is a vertex, k, in a tournament, T, which for all x in T either k beats x or there exists a vertex y such that k beats y and y beats x. Players take turns removing vertices from a given tournament until there is only one king left in the resulting tournament. The winning player is the one which makes the final move. We develop a winning position and classify those tournaments that are optimal for the first or second-moving player.


Graph Searching Games and Probabilistic Methods

Graph Searching Games and Probabilistic Methods

Author: Anthony Bonato

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2017-11-28

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 135181477X

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Graph Searching Games and Probabilistic Methods is the first book that focuses on the intersection of graph searching games and probabilistic methods. The book explores various applications of these powerful mathematical tools to games and processes such as Cops and Robbers, Zombie and Survivors, and Firefighting. Written in an engaging style, the book is accessible to a wide audience including mathematicians and computer scientists. Readers will find that the book provides state-of-the-art results, techniques, and directions in graph searching games, especially from the point of view of probabilistic methods. The authors describe three directions while providing numerous examples, which include: • Playing a deterministic game on a random board. • Players making random moves. • Probabilistic methods used to analyze a deterministic game.


Combinatorial Game Theory

Combinatorial Game Theory

Author: Richard J. Nowakowski

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2022-08-22

Total Pages: 530

ISBN-13: 3110755491

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Elwyn Berlekamp, John Conway, and Richard Guy wrote ‘Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays’ and turned a recreational mathematics topic into a full mathematical fi eld. They combined set theory, combinatorics, codes, algorithms, and a smattering of other fi elds, leavened with a liberal dose of humor and wit. Their legacy is a lively fi eld of study that still produces many surprises. Despite being experts in other areas of mathematics, in the 50 years since its publication, they also mentored, talked, and played games, giving their time, expertise, and guidance to several generations of mathematicians. This volume is dedicated to Elwyn Berlekamp, John Conway, and Richard Guy. It includes 20 contributions from colleagues that refl ect on their work in combinatorial game theory.


Domination Games Played on Graphs

Domination Games Played on Graphs

Author: Boštjan Brešar

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2021-04-16

Total Pages: 122

ISBN-13: 9783030690861

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This concise monograph present the complete history of the domination game and its variants up to the most recent developments and will stimulate research on closely related topics, establishing a key reference for future developments. The crux of the discussion surrounds new methods and ideas that were developed within the theory, led by the imagination strategy, the Continuation Principle, and the discharging method of Bujtás, to prove results about domination game invariants. A toolbox of proof techniques is provided for the reader to obtain results on the domination game and its variants. Powerful proof methods such as the imagination strategy are presented. The Continuation Principle is developed, which provides a much-used monotonicity property of the game domination number. In addition, the reader is exposed to the discharging method of Bujtás. The power of this method was shown by improving the known upper bound, in terms of a graph's order, on the (ordinary) domination number of graphs with minimum degree between 5 and 50. The book is intended primarily for students in graph theory as well as established graph theorists and it can be enjoyed by anyone with a modicum of mathematical maturity. The authors include exact results for several families of graphs, present what is known about the domination game played on subgraphs and trees, and provide the reader with the computational complexity aspects of domination games. Versions of the games which involve only the “slow” player yield the Grundy domination numbers, which connect the topic of the book with some concepts from linear algebra such as zero-forcing sets and minimum rank. More than a dozen other related games on graphs and hypergraphs are presented in the book. In all these games there are problems waiting to be solved, so the area is rich for further research. The domination game belongs to the growing family of competitive optimization graph games. The game is played by two competitors who take turns adding a vertex to a set of chosen vertices. They collaboratively produce a special structure in the underlying host graph, namely a dominating set. The two players have complementary goals: one seeks to minimize the size of the chosen set while the other player tries to make it as large as possible. The game is not one that is either won or lost. Instead, if both players employ an optimal strategy that is consistent with their goals, the cardinality of the chosen set is a graphical invariant, called the game domination number of the graph. To demonstrate that this is indeed a graphical invariant, the game tree of a domination game played on a graph is presented for the first time in the literature.


Cooperative Games on Combinatorial Structures

Cooperative Games on Combinatorial Structures

Author: Jesús Mario Bilbao

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 1461543932

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The aim of Cooperative Games on Combinatorial Structures is to analyze conflict situations in which two or more players can make coalitions and obtain prizes and penalties. This approach to situations of competition and cooperation was given in the seminal treatise by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. Cooperative game theory has succeeded in providing many applications of game theory. In this volume, games defined on combinatorial structures will be analyzed, i.e. a set system over a set of players. In many situations the author will work in a closure space. Examples of closure operators are the spanning operator of linear algebra and all convex hull operators. Chapters 1-4 constitute a review of mathematical concepts from Cooperative Game Theory, Graph Theory, Linear and Integer Programming, Combinatorial Optimization, Discrete Convex Analysis and Computational Complexity. The table of contents is a short guide to the topics and methods covered in this book. In Chapters 11 and 12, several notebooks are presented with the system Mathematica by Wolfram in the contexts of the packages DiscreteMath (Skiena) and Cooperative (Carter). There will also be found in the book several research projects. These are intended to offer new ideas that the reader should consider with caution. This book will be of interest to graduate students with some experience in game theory or mathematical programming and professional researchers in game theory, operational research and its applications in economic theory, and the political and social sciences. In addition, it will be especially useful for professionals who are interested in models for understanding and managing conflicts: management and operational research scientists, political and military scientists, and professional negotiators.