Let T be a semicomplete digraph on n vertices. Let ak(T) denote the minimum number of arcs whose addition to T results in a k-connected semicomplete digraph and let rk(T) denote the minimum number of arcs whose reversal in T results in a k-connected semicomplete digraph. We prove that if n[ges ]3k−1, then ak(T)=rk(T). We also show that this bound on n is best possible.

This paper is part of the ongoing effort to study high-dimensional permutations. We prove the analogue to the Erdős–Szekeres theorem: For every k ≥ 1, every order-nk-dimensional permutation contains a monotone subsequence of length Ωk($\sqrt{n}$), and this is tight. On the other hand, and unlike the classical case, the longest monotone subsequence in a random k-dimensional permutation of order n is asymptotically almost surely Θk(nk/(k+1)).

We show that a nearly square independent and identically distributed random integral matrix is surjective over the integral lattice with very high probability. This answers a question by Koplewitz [6]. Our result extends to sparse matrices as well as to matrices of dependent entries.

We consider probability spaces which contain a family {EA[ratio ]A⊆{1, 2, …, n}, [mid ]A[mid ]=k} of events indexed by the k-element subsets of {1, 2, …, n}. A pair (A, B) of k-element subsets of {1, 2, …, n} is called a shift pair if the largest k−1 elements of A coincide with the smallest k−1 elements of B. For a shift pair (A, B), Pr[AB¯] is the probability that event EA is true and EB is false. We investigate how large the minimum value of Pr[AB¯], taken over all shift pairs, can be. As n→∞, this value converges to a number λk, with ½−1/2k+2[les ]λk[les ] ½−1/4k+2. We show that λk is a strictly increasing function of k, with λ1=¼ and λ2=1/3.

For k=1, our results have the following natural interpretation. If a fair coin is tossed repeatedly, and event Ei is true when the ith toss is heads, then for all i and j with i<j, Pr[EiĒj]=¼. Furthermore, as we show in this paper, for any ε>0, there is an n such that for any sequence E1, E2, …, En of events in an arbitrary probability space, there are indices i<j with Pr[EiĒj]<¼+ε. The results and techniques we develop in this research, together with further applications of Ramsey theory, are then used to show that the supremum of fractional dimensions of interval orders is exactly 4, answering a question of Brightwell and Scheinerman.

Generalizing the ¼+ε result to random variables X1, X2, …, Xn with values in an m-element set, we obtain a finite version of de Finetti's theorem without the exchangeability hypothesis: for any fixed m, k and ε, every sufficiently long sequence of such random variables has a length-k subsequence at variation distance less than ε from an i.i.d. mix.

We derive here the Friedland–Tverberg inequality for positive hyperbolic polynomials. This inequality is applied to give lower bounds for the number of matchings in r-regular bipartite graphs. It is shown that some of these bounds are asymptotically sharp. We improve the known lower bound for the three-dimensional monomer–dimer entropy.

We prove that the number of 1324-avoiding permutations of length n is less than $(7+4\sqrt{3})^n$. The novelty of our method is that we injectively encode such permutations by a pair of words of length n over a finite alphabet that avoid a given factor.

Bergelson and Tao have recently proved that if G is a D-quasi-random group, and x, g are drawn uniformly and independently from G, then the quadruple (g, x, gx, xg) is roughly equidistributed in the subset of G4 defined by the constraint that the last two coordinates lie in the same conjugacy class. Their proof gives only a qualitative version of this result. The present note gives a rather more elementary proof which improves this to an explicit polynomial bound in D−1.

The counting and (upper) mass dimensions of a set A ⊆ $\mathbb{R}^d$ are

$$D(A) = \limsup_{\|C\| \to \infty} \frac{\log | \lfloor A \rfloor \cap C |}{\log \|C\|}, \quad \smash{\overline{D}}\vphantom{D}(A) = \limsup_{\ell \to \infty} \frac{\log | \lfloor A \rfloor \cap [-\ell,\ell)^d |}{\log (2 \ell)},$$

$\mathbb{R}^d$

$$D(A) = \text{inf} \{ \alpha \geq 0 \mid {d_{H}^{\alpha}}(A) = 0 \},$$

$${d_{H}^{\alpha}}(A) = \lim_{r \rightarrow 0} \limsup_{\|C\| \rightarrow \infty} \inf \biggl\{ \sum_i \biggl(\frac{\|C_i\|}{\|C\|} \biggr)^\alpha \ \bigg| \ 1 \leq \|C_i\| \leq r \|C\| \biggr\}$$

$\mathbb{R}^d$

Let M(n, A) denote the maximum possible cardinality of a family of binary strings of length n, such that for every four distinct members of the family there is a coordinate in which exactly two of them have a 1. We prove that M(n, A) [les ] 20.78n for all sufficiently large n. Let M(n, C) denote the maximum possible cardinality of a family of binary strings of length n, such that for every four distinct members of the family there is a coordinate in which exactly one of them has a 1. We show that there is an absolute constant c < 1/2 such that M(n, C) [les ] 2cn for all sufficiently large n. Some related questions are discussed as well.

A partition of a positive integer n is a finite sequence of positive integers a1, a2, . . ., ak such that a1+a2+ċ ċ ċ+ak=n and ai+1 ≥ ai for all i. Let d be a fixed positive integer. We say that we have an ascent of size d or more if ai+1 ≥ ai+d.

We determine the mean, the variance and the limiting distribution of the number of ascents of size d or more (equivalently, the number of distinct part sizes of multiplicity d or more) in the partitions of n.

The perceptron learning algorithm quite naturally yields an algorithm for finding a linearly separable boolean function consistent with a sample of such a function. Using the idea of a specifying sample, we give a simple proof that, in general, this algorithm is not efficient.

In this paper we prove that given a finite collection of finite graphs, and the subsets of vertices of a random graph G that induce those graphs, it is almost always possible to uniquely reconstruct a class of graphs equivalent to G.

We consider a variant of the Cops and Robbers game where the robber can move t edges at a time, and show that in this variant, the cop number of a d-regular graph with girth larger than 2t+2 is Ω(dt). By the known upper bounds on the order of cages, this implies that the cop number of a connected n-vertex graph can be as large as Ω(n2/3) if t ≥ 2, and Ω(n4/5) if t ≥ 4. This improves the Ω() lower bound of Frieze, Krivelevich and Loh (Variations on cops and robbers, J. Graph Theory, to appear) when 2 ≤ t ≤ 6. We also conjecture a general upper bound O(nt/t+1) for the cop number in this variant, generalizing Meyniel's conjecture.

Let ℱ be a family of graphs and let d be large enough. For every d-regular graph G, we study the existence of a spanning ℱ-free subgraph of G with large minimum degree. This problem is well understood if ℱ does not contain bipartite graphs. Here we provide asymptotically tight results for many families of bipartite graphs such as cycles or complete bipartite graphs. To prove these results, we study a locally injective analogue of the question.

The hard-core model has attracted much attention across several disciplines, representing lattice gases in statistical physics and independent sets in discrete mathematics and computer science. On finite graphs, we are given a parameter λ, and an independent set I arises with probability proportional to λ|I|. On infinite graphs a Gibbs measure is defined as a suitable limit with the correct conditional probabilities, and we are interested in determining when this limit is unique and when there is phase coexistence, i.e., existence of multiple Gibbs measures.

It has long been conjectured that on ℤ2 this model has a critical value λc ≈ 3.796 with the property that if λ < λc then it exhibits uniqueness of phase, while if λ > λc then there is phase coexistence. Much of the work to date on this problem has focused on the regime of uniqueness, with the state of the art being recent work of Sinclair, Srivastava, Štefankovič and Yin showing that there is a unique Gibbs measure for all λ < 2.538. Here we explore the other direction and prove that there are multiple Gibbs measures for all λ > 5.3506. We also show that with the methods we are using we cannot hope to replace 5.3506 with anything below 4.8771.

Our proof begins along the lines of the standard Peierls argument, but we add two innovations. First, following ideas of Kotecký and Randall, we construct an event that distinguishes two boundary conditions and always has long contours associated with it, obviating the need to accurately enumerate short contours. Second, we obtain improved bounds on the number of contours by relating them to a new class of self-avoiding walks on an oriented version of ℤ2.

Let C63 be the 3-uniform hypergraph on {1, . . ., 6} with edges 123,345,561, which can be seen as the analogue of the triangle in 3-uniform hypergraphs. For sufficiently large n divisible by 6, we show that every n-vertex 3-uniform hypergraph H with minimum codegree at least n/3 contains a C63-factor, that is, a spanning subhypergraph consisting of vertex-disjoint copies of C63. The minimum codegree condition is best possible. This improves the asymptotic result obtained by Mycroft and answers a question of Rödl and Ruciński exactly.

Extending an old conjecture of Tutte, Jaeger conjectured in 1988 that for any fixed integer p ≥ 1, the edges of any 4p-edge connected graph can be oriented so that the difference between the outdegree and the indegree of each vertex is divisible by 2p+1. It is known that it suffices to prove this conjecture for (4p+1)-regular, 4p-edge connected graphs. Here we show that there exists a finite p0 such that for every p > p0 the assertion of the conjecture holds for all (4p+1)-regular graphs that satisfy some mild quasi-random properties, namely, the absolute value of each of their non-trivial eigenvalues is at most c1p2/3 and the neighbourhood of each vertex contains at most c2p3/2 edges, where c1, c2 > 0 are two absolute constants. In particular, this implies that for p > p0 the assertion of the conjecture holds asymptotically almost surely for random (4p+1)-regular graphs.

A tree functional is called additive if it satisfies a recursion of the form $F(T) = \sum_{j=1}^k F(B_j) + f(T)$, where B1, …, Bk are the branches of the tree T and f (T) is a toll function. We prove a general central limit theorem for additive functionals of d-ary increasing trees under suitable assumptions on the toll function. The same method also applies to generalized plane-oriented increasing trees (GPORTs). One of our main applications is a log-normal law that we prove for the size of the automorphism group of d-ary increasing trees, but other examples (old and new) are covered as well.

Consider the following experiment: a deck with m copies of n different card types is randomly shuffled, and a guesser attempts to guess the cards sequentially as they are drawn. Each time a guess is made, some amount of ‘feedback’ is given. For example, one could tell the guesser the true identity of the card they just guessed (the complete feedback model) or they could be told nothing at all (the no feedback model). In this paper we explore a partial feedback model, where upon guessing a card, the guesser is only told whether or not their guess was correct. We show in this setting that, uniformly in n, at most $m+O(m^{3/4}\log m)$ cards can be guessed correctly in expectation. This resolves a question of Diaconis and Graham from 1981, where even the $m=2$ case was open.

A perfect matching M in an edge-coloured complete bipartite graph Kn,n is rainbow if no pair of edges in M have the same colour. We obtain asymptotic enumeration results for the number of rainbow perfect matchings in terms of the maximum number of occurrences of each colour. We also consider two natural models of random edge-colourings of Kn,n and show that if the number of colours is at least n, then there is with high probability a rainbow perfect matching. This in particular shows that almost every square matrix of order n in which every entry appears n times has a Latin transversal.