The subject of these notes is counting and related topics, viewed from a computational perspective. A major theme of the book is the idea of accumulating information about a set of combinatorial structures by performing a random walk on those structures. These notes will be of value not only to teachers of postgraduate courses on these topics, but also to established researchers. For the first time this body of knowledge has been brought together in a single volume.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 24th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation, ISAAC 2013, held in Hong Kong, China in December 2013. The 67 revised full papers presented together with 2 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 177 submissions for inclusion in the book. The focus of the volume in on the following topics: computation geometry, pattern matching, computational complexity, internet and social network algorithms, graph theory and algorithms, scheduling algorithms, fixed-parameter tractable algorithms, algorithms and data structures, algorithmic game theory, approximation algorithms and network algorithms.

The refereed proceedings of the 13th Annual International Computing and Combinatorics Conference, COCOON 2007, held in Banff, Canada in July 2007. The 51 revised full papers presented together with abstracts of 3 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 154 submissions. The papers feature original research works in the areas of algorithms, theory of computation, computational complexity, and combinatorics related to computing.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Algorithms and Discrete Applied Mathematics, CALDAM 2018, held in Guwahati, India, in February 2018. The 23 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 68 submissions. They focus on topics related to efficient algorithms and data structures, their analysis (both theoretical and experimental). The mathematical problems arising thereof, and new applications of discrete mathematics, advances in existing applications and development of new tools for discrete mathematics.

This book constitutes the joint refereed proceedings of the 11th International Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems, APPROX 2008 and the 12th International Workshop on Randomization and Computation, RANDOM 2008, held in Boston, MA, USA, in August 2008. The 20 revised full papers of the APPROX 2008 workshop were carefully reviewed and selected from 42 submissions and focus on algorithmic and complexity issues surrounding the development of efficient approximate solutions to computationally difficult problems. RANDOM 2008 is concerned with applications of randomness to computational and combinatorial problems and accounts for 27 revised full papers, also diligently reviewed and selected out of 52 workshop submissions.

Partition functions arise in combinatorics and related problems of statistical physics as they encode in a succinct way the combinatorial structure of complicated systems. The main focus of the book is on efficient ways to compute (approximate) various partition functions, such as permanents, hafnians and their higher-dimensional versions, graph and hypergraph matching polynomials, the independence polynomial of a graph and partition functions enumerating 0-1 and integer points in polyhedra, which allows one to make algorithmic advances in otherwise intractable problems. The book unifies various, often quite recent, results scattered in the literature, concentrating on the three main approaches: scaling, interpolation and correlation decay. The prerequisites include moderate amounts of real and complex analysis and linear algebra, making the book accessible to advanced math and physics undergraduates.

In a probabilistic model, a rare event is an event with a very small probability of occurrence. The forecasting of rare events is a formidable task but is important in many areas. For instance a catastrophic failure in a transport system or in a nuclear power plant, the failure of an information processing system in a bank, or in the communication network of a group of banks, leading to financial losses. Being able to evaluate the probability of rare events is therefore a critical issue. Monte Carlo Methods, the simulation of corresponding models, are used to analyze rare events. This book sets out to present the mathematical tools available for the efficient simulation of rare events. Importance sampling and splitting are presented along with an exposition of how to apply these tools to a variety of fields ranging from performance and dependability evaluation of complex systems, typically in computer science or in telecommunications, to chemical reaction analysis in biology or particle transport in physics. Graduate students, researchers and practitioners who wish to learn and apply rare event simulation techniques will find this book beneficial.

This book constitutes the revised papers of the 45th International Workshop on Graph-Theoretic Concepts in Computer Science, WG 2019, held in Vall de Núria, Spain, in June 2019. The 29 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 87 submissions. They cover a wide range of areas, aiming at connecting theory and applications by demonstrating how graph-theoretic concepts can be applied in various areas of computer science. Another focus is on presenting recent results and on identifying and exploring promising directions of future research.

This book constitutes the joint refereed proceedings of the 14th International Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems, APPROX 2011, and the 15th International Workshop on Randomization and Computation, RANDOM 2011, held in Princeton, New Jersey, USA, in August 2011. The volume presents 29 revised full papers of the APPROX 2011 workshop, selected from 66 submissions, and 29 revised full papers of the RANDOM 2011 workshop, selected from 64 submissions. They were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. In addition two abstracts of invited talks are included. APPROX focuses on algorithmic and complexity issues surrounding the development of efficient approximate solutions to computationally difficult problems. RANDOM is concerned with applications of randomness to computational and combinatorial problems.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Symposium Fundamentals of Computation Theory, FCT 2005, held in Lübeck, Germany in August 2005. The 46 revised full papers presented together with 3 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 105 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on circuits, automata, complexity, approximability, computational and structural complexity, graphs and complexity, computational game theory, visual cryptography and computational geometry, query complexity, distributed systems, automata and formal languages, semantics, approximation algorithms, average case complexity, algorithms, graph algorithms, and pattern matching.