A graph on n vertices is ε-far from a property $\mathcal{P}$ if one has to add or delete from it at least εn2 edges to get a graph satisfying $\mathcal{P}$. A graph property $\mathcal{P}$ is strongly testable if for every fixed ε > 0 it is possible to distinguish, with one-sided error, between graphs satisfying $\mathcal{P}$ and ones that are ε-far from $\mathcal{P}$ by inspecting the induced subgraph on a random subset of at most f(ε) vertices. A property is easily testable if it is strongly testable and the function f is polynomial in 1/ε, otherwise it is hard. We consider the problem of characterizing the easily testable graph properties, which is wide open, and obtain several results in its study. One of our main results shows that testing perfectness is hard. The proof shows that testing perfectness is at least as hard as testing triangle-freeness, which is hard. On the other hand, we show that being a cograph, or equivalently, induced P3-freeness where P3 is a path with 3 edges, is easily testable. This settles one of the two exceptional graphs, the other being C4 (and its complement), left open in the characterization by the first author and Shapira of graphs H for which induced H-freeness is easily testable. Our techniques yield a few additional related results, but the problem of characterizing all easily testable graph properties, or even that of formulating a plausible conjectured characterization, remains open.

Estimating numerically the spectral radius of a random walk on a non-amenable graph is complicated, since the cardinality of balls grows exponentially fast with the radius. We propose an algorithm to get a bound from below for this spectral radius in Cayley graphs with finitely many cone types (including for instance hyperbolic groups). In the genus 2 surface group, it improves by an order of magnitude the previous best bound, due to Bartholdi.

We consider a variant of the game of Cops and Robbers, called Lazy Cops and Robbers, where at most one cop can move in any round. We investigate the analogue of the cop number for this game, which we call the lazy cop number. Lazy Cops and Robbers was recently introduced by Offner and Ojakian, who provided asymptotic upper and lower bounds on the lazy cop number of the hypercube. By coupling the probabilistic method with a potential function argument, we improve on the existing lower bounds for the lazy cop number of hypercubes.

We study the expected value of the length Ln of the minimum spanning tree of the complete graph Kn when each edge e is given an independent uniform [0, 1] edge weight. We sharpen the result of Frieze [6] that limn→∞$\mathbb{E}$(Ln) = ζ(3) and show that

$$\mathbb{E}(L_n)=\zeta(3)+\frac{c_1}{n}+\frac{c_2+o(1)}{n^{4/3}},$$

The shadow of a system of sets is all sets which can be obtained by taking a set in the original system, and removing a single element. The Kruskal-Katona theorem tells us the minimum possible size of the shadow of $\mathcal A$ , if $\mathcal A$ consists of m r-element sets.

In this paper, we ask questions and make conjectures about the minimum possible size of a partial shadow for $\mathcal A$ , which contains most sets in the shadow of $\mathcal A$ . For example, if $\mathcal B$ is a family of sets containing all but one set in the shadow of each set of $\mathcal A$ , how large must $\mathcal B$ be?

We address a question raised by Anderson, Hayman and Pommerenke relating to a classical result on univalent functions $f$ in the unit disc due to Spencer, and involving the size of the set of ${\it\theta}\in [-{\it\pi},{\it\pi}]$ for which we have $\log |f(r\text{e}^{\text{i}{\it\theta}})|\neq o(\log (1/(1-r)))$ as $r\rightarrow 1.$ An answer is given in terms of a certain generalized capacity, and also in terms of Hausdorff measure. Further results regarding the radial growth of univalent functions are also established, and some examples are constructed which relate to the sharpness of these results.

Laplace operators on finite compact metric graphs are considered under the assumption that matching conditions at graph vertices are of types ${\it\delta}$ and ${\it\delta}^{\prime }$. Assuming rational independence of edge lengths, necessary and sufficient conditions for isospectrality of two Laplacians defined on the same graph are derived and scrutinized. It is proved that the spectrum of a graph Laplacian uniquely determines matching conditions for “almost all” graphs.

In this paper we establish concavity properties of two extensions of the classical notion of the outer parallel volume. On the one hand, we replace the Lebesgue measure by more general measures. On the other hand, we consider a functional version of the outer parallel sets.

In this paper we provide two results. The first one consists of an infinitary version of the Furstenberg–Weiss theorem. More precisely we show that every subset A of a homogeneous tree T such that

$\frac{|A\cap T(n)|}{|T(n)|}\geqslant\delta,$

The second result is the following. For every sequence (mq )q∈ℕ of positive integers and for every real 0 < δ ⩽ 1, there exists a sequence (nq )q∈ℕ of positive integers such that for every D ⊆ ∪k ∏q=0 k-1[nq ] satisfying

$\frac{\big|D\cap \prod_{q=0}^{k-1} [n_q]\big|s}{\prod_{q=0}^{k-1}n_q}\geqslant\delta$

We study sum-free sets in sparse random subsets of even-order abelian groups. In particular, we determine the sharp threshold for the following property: the largest such set is contained in some maximum-size sum-free subset of the group. This theorem extends recent work of Balogh, Morris and Samotij, who resolved the case G = ℤ2n, and who obtained a weaker threshold (up to a constant factor) in general.

We provide primitive recursive bounds for the finite version of Gowers’ $c_{0}$ theorem for both the positive and the general case. We also provide multidimensional versions of these results.

This paper presents a recent result for the problem introduced eleven years ago by Fraenkel and McLeod [A diffusing vortex circle in a viscous fluid. In IUTAM Symposium on Asymptotics, Singularities and Homogenisation in Problems of Mechanics, Kluwer (2003), 489–500], but described only briefly there. We shall prove the following, as far as space allows. The vorticity ${\it\omega}$ of a diffusing vortex circle in a viscous fluid has, for small values of a non-dimensional time, a second approximation ${\it\omega}_{A}+{\it\omega}_{1}$ that, although formulated for a fixed, finite Reynolds number ${\it\lambda}$ and exact for ${\it\lambda}=0$ (then ${\it\omega}={\it\omega}_{A}$), tends to a smooth limiting function as ${\it\lambda}\uparrow \infty$. In §§1 and 2 the necessary background and apparatus are described; §3 outlines the new result and its proof.