{"title":"Meanders: A personal perspective to the memory of Pierre Rosenstiehl","authors":"Alexander K. Zvonkin","doi":"10.1016/j.ejc.2023.103817","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ejc.2023.103817","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p></p><blockquote><p> <!-->J’errais dans un méandre<!--> <!-->; <!--> <!-->J’avais trop de partis, <!--> <!-->Trop compliqués, à prendre... <!--> <!-->(Edmond Rostand, <!--> <!-->Cyrano de Bergerac)</p></blockquote><span> Meander is a self-avoiding closed curve on a plane which intersects<span><span> a straight line in a given set of points. Meander is a very simple object. In the elementary school, we may ask children to draw a few meanders and to admire their strange beauty. In the middle school, we may ask children to perform an exhaustive search of the meanders with a small number of intersections with the line. Then, gradually, we start to perceive an incredible profoundness of the subject, whose relations go from enumeration to quantum field theory and </span>string theory. Pierre Rosenstiehl was one of the pioneers in the study of the algorithmic aspects of meanders, and he also was a passionate connoisseur of labyrinths, of which the meanders are a particular case.</span></span></div>","PeriodicalId":50490,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Combinatorics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135389045","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Carlos Alegría, Manuel Borrazzo, Giordano Da Lozzo, Giuseppe Di Battista, Fabrizio Frati, Maurizio Patrignani
{"title":"Testing the planar straight-line realizability of 2-trees with prescribed edge lengths","authors":"Carlos Alegría, Manuel Borrazzo, Giordano Da Lozzo, Giuseppe Di Battista, Fabrizio Frati, Maurizio Patrignani","doi":"10.1016/j.ejc.2023.103806","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ejc.2023.103806","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We study a classic problem introduced thirty years ago by Eades and Wormald. Let <span><math><mrow><mi>G</mi><mo>=</mo><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>V</mi><mo>,</mo><mi>E</mi><mo>,</mo><mi>λ</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></math></span><span> be a weighted planar graph, where </span><span><math><mrow><mi>λ</mi><mo>:</mo><mi>E</mi><mo>→</mo><msup><mrow><mi>R</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>+</mo></mrow></msup></mrow></math></span> is a <em>length function</em>. The <span><span>Fixed Edge-Length Planar Realization</span></span> problem (<span>FEPR</span> for short) asks whether there exists a <em>planar straight-line realization</em> of <span><math><mi>G</mi></math></span>, i.e., a planar straight-line drawing of <span><math><mi>G</mi></math></span> where the Euclidean length of each edge <span><math><mrow><mi>e</mi><mo>∈</mo><mi>E</mi></mrow></math></span> is <span><math><mrow><mi>λ</mi><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>e</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></mrow></math></span>.</p><p>Cabello, Demaine, and Rote showed that the <span>FEPR</span> problem is <span>NP</span>-hard, even when <span><math><mi>λ</mi></math></span> assigns the same value to all the edges and the graph is triconnected. Since the existence of large triconnected minors is crucial to the known <span>NP</span>-hardness proofs, in this paper we investigate the computational complexity of the <span>FEPR</span> problem for weighted 2-trees, which are <span><math><msub><mrow><mi>K</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>4</mn></mrow></msub></math></span>-minor free. We show the <span>NP</span>-hardness of the problem, even when <span><math><mi>λ</mi></math></span> assigns to the edges only up to four distinct lengths. Conversely, we show that the <span>FEPR</span> problem is linear-time solvable when <span><math><mi>λ</mi></math></span> assigns to the edges up to two distinct lengths, or when the input has a prescribed embedding. Furthermore, we consider the <span>FEPR</span> problem for weighted maximal outerplanar graphs and prove it to be linear-time solvable if their dual tree is a path, and cubic-time solvable if their dual tree is a caterpillar. Finally, we prove that the <span>FEPR</span> problem for weighted 2-trees is slice-wise polynomial in the length of the large path.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50490,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Combinatorics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135638189","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The repetition threshold of episturmian sequences","authors":"L’ubomíra Dvořáková, Edita Pelantová","doi":"10.1016/j.ejc.2024.104001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejc.2024.104001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The repetition threshold of a class <span><math><mi>C</mi></math></span> of infinite <span><math><mi>d</mi></math></span>-ary sequences is the smallest real number <span><math><mi>r</mi></math></span> such that in the class <span><math><mi>C</mi></math></span> there exists a sequence that avoids <span><math><mi>e</mi></math></span>-powers for all <span><math><mrow><mi>e</mi><mo>></mo><mi>r</mi></mrow></math></span>. This notion was introduced by Dejean in 1972 for the class of all sequences over a <span><math><mi>d</mi></math></span>-letter alphabet. Thanks to the effort of many authors over more than 30 years, the precise value of the repetition threshold in this class is known for every <span><math><mrow><mi>d</mi><mo>∈</mo><mi>N</mi></mrow></math></span>. The repetition threshold for the class of Sturmian sequences was determined by Carpi and de Luca in 2000. Sturmian sequences may be equivalently defined in various ways, therefore there exist many generalizations to larger alphabets. Rampersad, Shallit and Vandome in 2020 initiated a study of the repetition threshold for the class of balanced sequences – one of the possible generalizations of Sturmian sequences. Here, we focus on the class of <span><math><mi>d</mi></math></span>-ary episturmian sequences – another generalization of Sturmian sequences introduced by Droubay, Justin and Pirillo in 2001. We show that the repetition threshold of this class is reached by the <span><math><mi>d</mi></math></span>-bonacci sequence and its value equals <span><math><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>+</mo><mfrac><mrow><mn>1</mn></mrow><mrow><mi>t</mi><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></mfrac></mrow></math></span>, where <span><math><mrow><mi>t</mi><mo>></mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></math></span> is the unique positive root of the polynomial <span><math><mrow><msup><mrow><mi>x</mi></mrow><mrow><mi>d</mi></mrow></msup><mo>−</mo><msup><mrow><mi>x</mi></mrow><mrow><mi>d</mi><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup><mo>−</mo><mo>⋯</mo><mo>−</mo><mi>x</mi><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></math></span>.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50490,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Combinatorics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141242538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Spanning hypertrees, vertex tours and meanders","authors":"Robert Cori , Gábor Hetyei","doi":"10.1016/j.ejc.2023.103805","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ejc.2023.103805","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper revisits the notion of a spanning hypertree of a hypermap introduced by one of its authors and shows that it allows to shed new light on a very diverse set of recent results.</p><p><span><span>The tour of a map along one of its spanning trees used by Bernardi may be generalized to hypermaps and we show that it is equivalent to a dual tour described by Cori (1976) and Machì(1982). We give a bijection between the spanning hypertrees of the reciprocal of the </span>plane graph with 2 vertices and </span><span><math><mi>n</mi></math></span> parallel edges and the meanders of order <span><math><mi>n</mi></math></span> and a bijection of the same kind between semimeanders of order <span><math><mi>n</mi></math></span> and spanning hypertrees of the reciprocal of a plane graph with a single vertex and <span><math><mrow><mi>n</mi><mo>/</mo><mn>2</mn></mrow></math></span> nested edges. We introduce hyperdeletions and hypercontractions in a hypermap which allow to count the spanning hypertrees of a hypermap recursively, and create a link with the computation of the Tutte polynomial of a graph. Having a particular interest in hypermaps which are reciprocals of maps, we generalize the reduction map introduced by Franz and Earnshaw to enumerate meanders to a reduction map that allows the enumeration of the spanning hypertrees of such hypermaps.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50490,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Combinatorics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136119581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Quasiplanar graphs, string graphs, and the Erdős–Gallai problem","authors":"Jacob Fox , János Pach , Andrew Suk","doi":"10.1016/j.ejc.2023.103811","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ejc.2023.103811","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>An <span><math><mi>r</mi></math></span>-<em>quasiplanar graph</em> is a graph drawn in the plane with no <span><math><mi>r</mi></math></span> pairwise crossing edges. Let <span><math><mrow><mi>s</mi><mo>≥</mo><mn>3</mn></mrow></math></span> be an integer and <span><math><mrow><mi>r</mi><mo>=</mo><msup><mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow><mrow><mi>s</mi></mrow></msup></mrow></math></span>. We prove that there is a constant <span><math><mi>C</mi></math></span> such that every <span><math><mi>r</mi></math></span>-quasiplanar graph with <span><math><mrow><mi>n</mi><mo>≥</mo><mi>r</mi></mrow></math></span> vertices has at most <span><math><mrow><mi>n</mi><msup><mrow><mfenced><mrow><mi>C</mi><msup><mrow><mi>s</mi></mrow><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup><mo>log</mo><mi>n</mi></mrow></mfenced></mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn><mi>s</mi><mo>−</mo><mn>4</mn></mrow></msup></mrow></math></span> edges.</p><p>A graph whose vertices are continuous curves in the plane, two being connected by an edge if and only if they intersect, is called a <em>string graph</em>. We show that for every <span><math><mrow><mi>ϵ</mi><mo>></mo><mn>0</mn></mrow></math></span>, there exists <span><math><mrow><mi>δ</mi><mo>></mo><mn>0</mn></mrow></math></span> such that every string graph with <span><math><mi>n</mi></math></span> vertices whose chromatic number is at least <span><math><msup><mrow><mi>n</mi></mrow><mrow><mi>ϵ</mi></mrow></msup></math></span> contains a clique of size at least <span><math><msup><mrow><mi>n</mi></mrow><mrow><mi>δ</mi></mrow></msup></math></span>. A clique of this size or a coloring using fewer than <span><math><msup><mrow><mi>n</mi></mrow><mrow><mi>ϵ</mi></mrow></msup></math></span> colors can be found by a polynomial time algorithm in terms of the size of the geometric representation of the set of strings.</p><p>In the process, we use, generalize, and strengthen previous results of Lee, Tomon, and others. All of our theorems are related to geometric variants of the following classical graph-theoretic problem of Erdős, Gallai, and Rogers. Given a <span><math><msub><mrow><mi>K</mi></mrow><mrow><mi>r</mi></mrow></msub></math></span>-free graph on <span><math><mi>n</mi></math></span> vertices and an integer <span><math><mrow><mi>s</mi><mo><</mo><mi>r</mi></mrow></math></span>, at least how many vertices can we find such that the subgraph induced by them is <span><math><msub><mrow><mi>K</mi></mrow><mrow><mi>s</mi></mrow></msub></math></span>-free?</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50490,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Combinatorics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195669823001282/pdfft?md5=d736f71ea441144851fb043750102221&pid=1-s2.0-S0195669823001282-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135607241","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Robert Cori , Yiting Jiang , Patrice Ossona de Mendez , Pierre Rosenstiehl
{"title":"A few words about maps","authors":"Robert Cori , Yiting Jiang , Patrice Ossona de Mendez , Pierre Rosenstiehl","doi":"10.1016/j.ejc.2023.103810","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ejc.2023.103810","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span><span>In this paper, we survey some properties, encoding, and bijections involving combinatorial maps, double occurrence words, and chord diagrams. We particularly study quasi-trees from a purely combinatorial point of view and derive a topological representation of maps with a given spanning quasi-tree using two fundamental polygons, which extends the representation of planar maps based on the equivalence with bipartite </span>circle graphs. Then, we focus on Depth-First Search trees and their connection with a </span>poset we define on the spanning quasi-trees of a map. We apply the bijections obtained in the first section to the problem of enumerating loopless rooted maps. Finally, we return to the planar case and discuss a decomposition of planar rooted loopless maps and its consequences on planar rooted loopless map enumeration.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50490,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Combinatorics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135605805","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hereditary classes of ordered sets of width at most two","authors":"Maurice Pouzet , Imed Zaguia","doi":"10.1016/j.ejc.2023.103813","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ejc.2023.103813","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper is a contribution to the study of hereditary classes of relational structures, these classes being quasi-ordered by embeddability. It deals with the specific case of ordered sets of width two and the corresponding bichains and incomparability graphs.</p><p>Several open problems about hereditary classes of relational structures which have been considered over the years have a positive answer in this case. For example, well-quasi-ordered hereditary classes of finite bipartite permutation graphs, respectively finite 321-avoiding permutations, have been characterized by Korpelainen, Lozin and Mayhill, respectively by Albert, Brignall, Ruškuc and Vatter.</p><p>In this paper we present an overview of properties of these hereditary classes in the framework of the Theory of Relations as presented by Roland Fraïssé.</p><p>We provide another proof of the results mentioned above. It is based on the existence of a countable universal poset of width two, obtained by the first author in 1978, his notion of multichainability (1978) (a kind of analog to letter-graphs), and metric properties of incomparability graphs. Using Laver’s theorem (1971) on better-quasi-ordering (bqo) of countable chains we prove that a wqo hereditary class of finite or countable bipartite permutation graphs is necessarily bqo. This gives a positive answer to a conjecture of Nash-Williams (1965) in this case. We extend a previous result of Albert et al. by proving that if a hereditary class of finite, respectively countable, bipartite permutation graphs is wqo, respectively bqo, then the corresponding hereditary classes of posets of width at most two and bichains are wqo, respectively bqo.</p><p>Several notions of labelled wqo are also considered. We prove that they are all equivalent in the case of bipartite permutation graphs, posets of width at most two and the corresponding bichains. We characterize hereditary classes of finite bipartite permutation graphs which remain wqo when labels from a wqo are added. Hereditary classes of posets of width two, bipartite permutation graphs and the corresponding bichains having finitely many bounds are also characterized.</p><p><span>We prove that a hereditary class of finite bipartite permutation graphs is not wqo if and only if it embeds the poset of finite subsets of </span><span><math><mi>N</mi></math></span> ordered by set inclusion. This answers a long standing conjecture of the first author in the case of bipartite permutation graphs.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50490,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Combinatorics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134934369","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pendant appearances and components in random graphs from structured classes","authors":"Colin McDiarmid","doi":"10.1016/j.ejc.2024.103994","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejc.2024.103994","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We consider random graphs sampled uniformly from a structured class of graphs, such as the class of graphs embeddable in a given surface. We sharpen earlier results on pendant appearances, concerning for example numbers of leaves, and we find the asymptotic distribution of components other than the giant component, under quite general conditions.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50490,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Combinatorics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195669824000799/pdfft?md5=579bb065983d305f54b0cc541656b245&pid=1-s2.0-S0195669824000799-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141242537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"(−1)-enumerations of arrowed Gelfand–Tsetlin patterns","authors":"Ilse Fischer, Florian Schreier-Aigner","doi":"10.1016/j.ejc.2024.103979","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejc.2024.103979","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Arrowed Gelfand–Tsetlin patterns have recently been introduced to study alternating sign matrices. In this paper, we show that a <span><math><mrow><mo>(</mo><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn><mo>)</mo></mrow></math></span>-enumeration of arrowed Gelfand–Tsetlin patterns can be expressed by a simple product formula. The numbers are up to <span><math><msup><mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow><mrow><mi>n</mi></mrow></msup></math></span> a one-parameter generalization of the numbers <span><math><mrow><msup><mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow><mrow><mi>n</mi><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>n</mi><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn><mo>)</mo></mrow><mo>/</mo><mn>2</mn></mrow></msup><msubsup><mrow><mo>∏</mo></mrow><mrow><mi>j</mi><mo>=</mo><mn>0</mn></mrow><mrow><mi>n</mi><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msubsup><mfrac><mrow><mrow><mo>(</mo><mn>4</mn><mi>j</mi><mo>+</mo><mn>2</mn><mo>)</mo></mrow><mo>!</mo></mrow><mrow><mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>n</mi><mo>+</mo><mn>2</mn><mi>j</mi><mo>+</mo><mn>1</mn><mo>)</mo></mrow><mo>!</mo></mrow></mfrac></mrow></math></span> that appear in recent work of Di Francesco. A second result concerns the <span><math><mrow><mo>(</mo><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn><mo>)</mo></mrow></math></span>-enumeration of arrowed Gelfand–Tsetlin patterns when excluding double-arrows as decoration in which case we also obtain a simple product formula. We are also able to provide signless interpretations of our results. The proofs of the enumeration formulas are based on a recent Littlewood-type identity, which allows us to reduce the problem to the evaluations of two determinants. The evaluations are accomplished by means of the LU-decompositions of the underlying matrices, and an extension of Sister Celine’s algorithm as well as creative telescoping to evaluate certain triple sums. In particular, we use implementations of such algorithms by Koutschan, and by Wegschaider and Riese.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50490,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Combinatorics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195669824000647/pdfft?md5=55104cbe526326423121d99e38e209de&pid=1-s2.0-S0195669824000647-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141242536","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}