Monotonic surfaces spanning finite regions of ℤd arise in many contexts, including DNA-based self-assembly, card-shuffling and lozenge tilings. One method that has been used to uniformly generate these surfaces is a Markov chain that iteratively adds or removes a single cube below the surface during a step. We consider a biased version of the chain, where we are more likely to add a cube than to remove it, thereby favouring surfaces that are ‘higher’ or have more cubes below it. We prove that the chain is rapidly mixing for any uniform bias in ℤ2 and for bias λ > d in ℤd when d > 2. In ℤ2 we match the optimal mixing time achieved by Benjamini, Berger, Hoffman and Mossel in the context of biased card shuffling [2], but using much simpler arguments. The proofs use a geometric distance function and a variant of path coupling in order to handle distances that can be exponentially large. We also provide the first results in the case of fluctuating bias, where the bias can vary depending on the location of the tile. We show that the chain continues to be rapidly mixing if the biases are close to uniform, but that the chain can converge exponentially slowly in the general setting.

Multiview geometry is the study of two-dimensional images of three-dimensional scenes, a foundational subject in computer vision. We determine a universal Gröbner basis for the multiview ideal of $n$ generic cameras. As the cameras move, the multiview varieties vary in a family of dimension $11n\,-\,15$. This family is the distinguished component of a multigraded Hilbert scheme with a unique Borel-fixed point. We present a combinatorial study of ideals lying on that Hilbert scheme.

We classify all 3 letter patterns that are avoidable in the abelian sense. A short list of four letter patterns for which abelian avoidance is undecided is given. Using a generalization of Zimin words we deduce some properties of $\omega$-words avoiding these patterns.

The well-known Tschirnhausen transformation, , eliminates the second term of the polynomial xn + axn-l + …. By a mere repeated application of this transformation, one can decide whether a given element of k[[x,y]] is prime (irreducible) or not. Here K is an algebraically closed field of characteristic 0. A generalised version of Hensel's Lemma is developed for the proofs. The entire paper can be understood by undergraduate students.