These notes were first used in an introductory course team taught by the authors at Appalachian State University to advanced undergraduates and beginning graduates. The text was written with four pedagogical goals in mind: offer a variety of topics in one course, get to the main themes and tools as efficiently as possible, show the relationships between the different topics, and include recent results to convince students that mathematics is a living discipline.
Graph Theory is a part of discrete mathematics characterized by the fact of an extremely rapid development during the last 10 years. The number of graph theoretical paper as well as the number of graph theorists increase very strongly. The main purpose of this book is to show the reader the variety of graph theoretical methods and the relation to combinatorics and to give him a survey on a lot of new results, special methods, and interesting informations. This book, which grew out of contributions given by about 130 authors in honour to the 70th birthday of Gerhard Ringel, one of the pioneers in graph theory, is meant to serve as a source of open problems, reference and guide to the extensive literature and as stimulant to further research on graph theory and combinatorics.
Combinatorics and Graph Theory is designed as a textbook for undergraduate students of computer science and engineering and postgraduate students of computer applications. The book seeks to introduce students to the mathematical concepts needed to develop abstract thinking and problem solving—important prerequisites for the study of computer science. The book provides an exhaustive coverage of various concepts and remarkable introduction of several topics of combinatorics and graph theory. The book presents an informative exposure for beginners and acts as a reference for advanced students. It highlights comprehensive and rigorous views of combinatorics and graphs. The text shows simplicity and step-by-step concepts throughout and is profusely illustrated with diagrams. The real-world applications corresponding to the topics are appropriately highlighted. The chapters have also been interspersed throughout with numerous interesting and instructional notes. Written in a lucid style, the book helps students apply the mathematical tools to computer-related concepts and consists of around 600 worked-out examples which motivate students as a self-learning mode.KEY FEATURES Contains various exercises with their answers or hints. Lays emphasis on the applicability of mathematical structures to computer science. Includes competitive examinations’ questions asked in GATE, NET, SET, etc
This is a textbook for an introductory combinatorics course lasting one or two semesters. An extensive list of problems, ranging from routine exercises to research questions, is included. In each section, there are also exercises that contain material not explicitly discussed in the preceding text, so as to provide instructors with extra choices if they want to shift the emphasis of their course.Just as with the first two editions, the new edition walks the reader through the classic parts of combinatorial enumeration and graph theory, while also discussing some recent progress in the area: on the one hand, providing material that will help students learn the basic techniques, and on the other hand, showing that some questions at the forefront of research are comprehensible and accessible to the talented and hardworking undergraduate. The basic topics discussed are: the twelvefold way, cycles in permutations, the formula of inclusion and exclusion, the notion of graphs and trees, matchings, Eulerian and Hamiltonian cycles, and planar graphs.The selected advanced topics are: Ramsey theory, pattern avoidance, the probabilistic method, partially ordered sets, the theory of designs (new to this edition), enumeration under group action (new to this edition), generating functions of labeled and unlabeled structures and algorithms and complexity.As the goal of the book is to encourage students to learn more combinatorics, every effort has been made to provide them with a not only useful, but also enjoyable and engaging reading.The Solution Manual is available upon request for all instructors who adopt this book as a course text. Please send your request to [email protected].
This is a textbook for an introductory combinatorics course that can take up one or two semesters. An extensive list of problems, ranging from routine exercises to research questions, is included. In each section, there are also exercises that contain material not explicitly discussed in the preceding text, so as to provide instructors with extra choices if they want to shift the emphasis of their course. Just as with the first edition, the new edition walks the reader through the classic parts of combinatorial enumeration and graph theory, while also discussing some recent progress in the area: on the one hand, providing material that will help students learn the basic techniques, and on the other hand, showing that some questions at the forefront of research are comprehensible and accessible for the talented and hard-working undergraduate. The basic topics discussed are: the twelvefold way, cycles in permutations, the formula of inclusion and exclusion, the notion of graphs and trees, matchings and Eulerian and Hamiltonian cycles. The selected advanced topics are: Ramsey theory, pattern avoidance, the probabilistic method, partially ordered sets, and algorithms and complexity. As the goal of the book is to encourage students to learn more combinatorics, every effort has been made to provide them with a not only useful, but also enjoyable and engaging reading.
Graph Theory, Combinatorics and Algorithms: Interdisciplinary Applications focuses on discrete mathematics and combinatorial algorithms interacting with real world problems in computer science, operations research, applied mathematics and engineering. The book contains eleven chapters written by experts in their respective fields, and covers a wide spectrum of high-interest problems across these discipline domains. Among the contributing authors are Richard Karp of UC Berkeley and Robert Tarjan of Princeton; both are at the pinnacle of research scholarship in Graph Theory and Combinatorics. The chapters from the contributing authors focus on "real world" applications, all of which will be of considerable interest across the areas of Operations Research, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, and Engineering. These problems include Internet congestion control, high-speed communication networks, multi-object auctions, resource allocation, software testing, data structures, etc. In sum, this is a book focused on major, contemporary problems, written by the top research scholars in the field, using cutting-edge mathematical and computational techniques.
Combinatorics is a subject of increasing importance because of its links with computer science, statistics, and algebra. This textbook stresses common techniques (such as generating functions and recursive construction) that underlie the great variety of subject matter, and the fact that a constructive or algorithmic proof is more valuable than an existence proof. The author emphasizes techniques as well as topics and includes many algorithms described in simple terms. The text should provide essential background for students in all parts of discrete mathematics.
This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications Applications of Combinatorics and Graph Theory to the Biological and Social Sciences is based on the proceedings of a workshop which was an integral part of the 1987-88 IMA program on APPLIED COMBINATORICS. We are grateful to the Scientific Committee: Victor Klee (Chairman), Daniel Kleitman, Dijen Ray-Chaudhuri and Dennis Stanton for planning and implementing an exciting and stimulating year long program. We especially thank the Workshop Organizers, Joel Cohen and Fred Roberts, for organizing a workshop which brought together many of the major figures in a variety of research fields connected with the application of combinatorial ideas to the social and biological sciences. A vner Friedman Willard Miller APPLICATIONS OF COMBINATORICS AND GRAPH THEORY TO THE BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES: SEVEN FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS FRED S. RoBERTS* Abstract. To set the stage for the other papers in this volume, seven fundamental concepts which arise in the applications of combinatorics and graph theory in the biological and social sciences are described. These ideas are: RNA chains as "words" in a 4 letter alphabet; interval graphs; competition graphs or niche overlap graphs; qualitative stability; balanced signed graphs; social welfare functions; and semiorders. For each idea, some basic results are presented, some recent results are given, and some open problems are mentioned.
The use of topological ideas to explore various aspects of graph theory, and vice versa, is a fruitful area of research. There are links with other areas of mathematics, such as design theory and geometry, and increasingly with such areas as computer networks where symmetry is an important feature. Other books cover portions of the material here, but there are no other books with such a wide scope. This book contains fifteen expository chapters written by acknowledged international experts in the field. Their well-written contributions have been carefully edited to enhance readability and to standardize the chapter structure, terminology and notation throughout the book. To help the reader, there is an extensive introductory chapter that covers the basic background material in graph theory and the topology of surfaces. Each chapter concludes with an extensive list of references.
