Combinatorial Mathematics, Optimal Designs, and Their Applications

The fruit of a conference that gathered seven very active researchers in the field, Combinatorial Design and their Applications presents a wide but representative range of topics on the non-geometrical aspects of design theory. By concentrating on a few important areas, the authors succeed in providing greater detail in these areas in a more complete and accessible form. Through their contributions to this collection, they help fill a gap in the available combinatorics literature. The papers included in this volume cover recent developments in areas of current interest, such as difference sets, cryptography, and optimal linear codes. Researchers in combinatorics and other areas of pure mathematics, along with researchers in statistics and computer design will find in-depth, up-to-date discussions of design theory and the application of the theory to statistical design, codes, and cryptography.

What Is Combinatorics Anyway? Broadly speaking, combinatorics is the branch of mathematics dealing with different ways of selecting objects from a set or arranging objects. It tries to answer two major kinds of questions, namely, counting questions: how many ways can a selection or arrangement be chosen with a particular set of properties; and structural questions: does there exist a selection or arrangement of objects with a particular set of properties? The authors have presented a text for students at all levels of preparation. For some, this will be the first course where the students see several real proofs. Others will have a good background in linear algebra, will have completed the calculus stream, and will have started abstract algebra. The text starts by briefly discussing several examples of typical combinatorial problems to give the reader a better idea of what the subject covers. The next chapters explore enumerative ideas and also probability. It then moves on to enumerative functions and the relations between them, and generating functions and recurrences., Important families of functions, or numbers and then theorems are presented. Brief introductions to computer algebra and group theory come next. Structures of particular interest in combinatorics: posets, graphs, codes, Latin squares, and experimental designs follow. The authors conclude with further discussion of the interaction between linear algebra and combinatorics. Features Two new chapters on probability and posets. Numerous new illustrations, exercises, and problems. More examples on current technology use A thorough focus on accuracy Three appendices: sets, induction and proof techniques, vectors and matrices, and biographies with historical notes, Flexible use of MapleTM and MathematicaTM

Continuing in the bestselling, informative tradition of the first edition, the Handbook of Combinatorial Designs, Second Edition remains the only resource to contain all of the most important results and tables in the field of combinatorial design. This handbook covers the constructions, properties, and applications of designs as well as existence results. Over 30% longer than the first edition, the book builds upon the groundwork of its predecessor while retaining the original contributors' expertise. The first part contains a brief introduction and history of the subject. The following parts focus on four main classes of combinatorial designs: balanced incomplete block designs, orthogonal arrays and Latin squares, pairwise balanced designs, and Hadamard and orthogonal designs. Closely connected to the preceding sections, the next part surveys 65 additional classes of designs, such as balanced ternary, factorial, graphical, Howell, quasi-symmetric, and spherical. The final part presents mathematical and computational background related to design theory. New to the Second Edition An introductory part that provides a general overview and a historical perspective of the area New chapters on the history of design theory, various codes, bent functions, and numerous types of designs Fully updated tables, including BIBDs, MOLS, PBDs, and Hadamard matrices Nearly 2,200 references in a single bibliographic section Meeting the need for up-to-date and accessible tabular and reference information, this handbook provides the tools to understand combinatorial design theory and applications that span the entire discipline. The author maintains a website with more information.

Combinatorial and Geometric Structures and Their Applications

This volume consists of research papers and expository survey articles presented by the invited speakers of the Summer Workshop on Lattice Polytopes. Topics include enumerative, algebraic and geometric combinatorics on lattice polytopes, topological combinatorics, commutative algebra and toric varieties.Readers will find that this volume showcases current trends on lattice polytopes and stimulates further developments of many research areas surrounding this field. With the survey articles, research papers and open problems, this volume provides its fundamental materials for graduate students to learn and researchers to find exciting activities and avenues for further exploration on lattice polytopes.

This volume, the third in a sequence that began with The Theory of Matroids and Combinatorial Geometries, concentrates on the applications of matroid theory to a variety of topics from engineering (rigidity and scene analysis), combinatorics (graphs, lattices, codes and designs), topology and operations research (the greedy algorithm).

Presenting the state of the art, the Handbook of Enumerative Combinatorics brings together the work of today's most prominent researchers. The contributors survey the methods of combinatorial enumeration along with the most frequent applications of these methods.This important new work is edited by Miklos Bona of the University of Florida where he