The name of Frank Ramsey is universally known amongst combinatorial mathematicians, but our casual mental picture of him can easily be an unimpressive one – the man who almost stumbled across the theorem that now bears his name, thereby anticipating Erdős and Szekeres, who of course gave the proper proof. Such an idea of Ramsey is entirely false: he was an absolutely brilliant man, who would certainly have become even more famous had he not died so young, and who would surely, it could easily be argued, have made yet further remarkable contributions to philosophy, economics and logic – and to combinatorics.

Let A and B be disjoint sets, of size 2k , of vertices of Qn , the n-dimensional hypercube. In 1997, Bollobás and Leader proved that there must be (n − k)2k edge-disjoint paths between such A and B. They conjectured that when A is a down-set and B is an up-set, these paths may be chosen to be directed (that is, the vertices in the path form a chain). We use a novel type of compression argument to prove stronger versions of these conjectures, namely that the largest number of edge-disjoint paths between a down-set A and an up-set B is the same as the largest number of directed edge-disjoint paths between A and B. Bollobás and Leader made an analogous conjecture for vertex-disjoint paths, and we prove a strengthening of this by similar methods. We also prove similar results for all other sizes of A and B.

We establish a generalization of the Expander Mixing Lemma for arbitrary (finite) simplicial complexes. The original lemma states that concentration of the Laplace spectrum of a graph implies combinatorial expansion (which is also referred to as mixing, or pseudo-randomness). Recently, an analogue of this lemma was proved for simplicial complexes of arbitrary dimension, provided that the skeleton of the complex is complete. More precisely, it was shown that a concentrated spectrum of the simplicial Hodge Laplacian implies a similar type of pseudo-randomness as in graphs. In this paper we remove the assumption of a complete skeleton, showing that simultaneous concentration of the Laplace spectra in all dimensions implies pseudo-randomness in any complex. We discuss various applications and present some open questions.

A class of graphs is called bridge-addable if, for each graph in the class and each pair u and v of vertices in different components, the graph obtained by adding an edge joining u and v must also be in the class. The concept was introduced in 2005 by McDiarmid, Steger and Welsh, who showed that, for a random graph sampled uniformly from such a class, the probability that it is connected is at least 1/e.

We generalize this and related results to bridge-addable classes with edge-weights which have an edge-expansion property. Here, a graph is sampled with probability proportional to the product of its edge-weights. We obtain for example lower bounds for the probability of connectedness of a graph sampled uniformly from a relatively bridge-addable class of graphs, where some but not necessarily all of the possible bridges are allowed to be introduced. Furthermore, we investigate whether these bounds are tight, and in particular give detailed results about random forests in complete balanced multipartite graphs.

We consider two notions describing how one finite graph may be larger than another. Using them, we prove several theorems for such pairs that compare the number of spanning trees, the return probabilities of random walks, and the number of independent sets, among other combinatorial quantities. Our methods involve inequalities for determinants, for traces of functions of operators, and for entropy.

Erdős asked the following question: given n points in the plane in almost general position (no four collinear), how large a set can we guarantee to find that is in general position (no three collinear)? Füredi constructed a set of n points in almost general position with no more than o(n) points in general position. Cardinal, Tóth and Wood extended this result to ℝ3, finding sets of n points with no five in a plane whose subsets with no four points in a plane have size o(n), and asked the question for higher dimensions: for given n, is it still true that the largest subset in general position we can guarantee to find has size o(n)? We answer their question for all d and derive improved bounds for certain dimensions.

Given a family of r-uniform hypergraphs ${\cal F}$ (or r-graphs for brevity), the Turán number ex(n, ${\cal F})$ of ${\cal F}$ is the maximum number of edges in an r-graph on n vertices that does not contain any member of ${\cal F}$ . A pair {u,v} is covered in a hypergraph G if some edge of G contains {u, v}. Given an r-graph F and a positive integer p ⩾ n(F), where n(F) denotes the number of vertices in F, let HFp denote the r-graph obtained as follows. Label the vertices of F as v 1,. . .,vn (F). Add new vertices vn(F)+1 ,. . .,vp . For each pair of vertices vi, vj not covered in F, add a set Bi,j of r − 2 new vertices and the edge {vi, vj } ∪ Bi,j , where the Bi,j are pairwise disjoint over all such pairs {i, j}. We call HFp the expanded p-clique with an embedded F. For a relatively large family of F, we show that for all sufficiently large n, ex(n,HFp ) = |Tr (n, p − 1)|, where Tr (n, p − 1) is the balanced complete (p − 1)-partite r-graph on n vertices. We also establish structural stability of near-extremal graphs. Our results generalize or strengthen several earlier results and provide a class of hypergraphs for which the Turán number is exactly determined (for large n).

We prove an inequality for functions on the discrete cube {0, 1}n extending the edge-isoperimetric inequality for sets. This inequality turns out to be equivalent to the following claim about random walks on the cube: subcubes maximize ‘mean first exit time’ among all subsets of the cube of the same cardinality.

We investigate the asymptotic version of the Erdős–Ko–Rado theorem for the random k-uniform hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ k (n, p). For 2⩽k(n) ⩽ n/2, let $N=\binom{n}k$ and $D=\binom{n-k}k$ . We show that with probability tending to 1 as n → ∞, the largest intersecting subhypergraph of $\mathcal{H}$ has size

$$(1+o(1))p\ffrac kn N$$

$$p\gg \ffrac nk\ln^2\biggl(\ffrac nk\biggr)D^{-1}.$$

A different behaviour occurs when k = o(n). In this case, the lower bound on p is almost optimal. Further, for the small interval D −1 ≪ p ⩽ (n/k)1−ϵ D −1, the largest intersecting subhypergraph of $\mathcal{H}$ k (n, p) has size Θ(ln(pD)ND −1), provided that $k \gg \sqrt{n \ln n}$ .

Together with previous work of Balogh, Bohman and Mubayi, these results settle the asymptotic size of the largest intersecting family in $\mathcal{H}$ k , for essentially all values of p and k.

We introduce and study the model of simply generated non-crossing partitions, which are, roughly speaking, chosen at random according to a sequence of weights. This framework encompasses the particular case of uniform non-crossing partitions with constraints on their block sizes. Our main tool is a bijection between non-crossing partitions and plane trees, which maps such simply generated non-crossing partitions into simply generated trees so that blocks of size k are in correspondence with vertices of out-degree k. This allows us to obtain limit theorems concerning the block structure of simply generated non-crossing partitions. We apply our results in free probability by giving a simple formula relating the maximum of the support of a compactly supported probability measure on the real line in terms of its free cumulants.

Szemerédi's regularity lemma and its variants are some of the most powerful tools in combinatorics. In this paper, we establish several results around the regularity lemma. First, we prove that whether or not we include the condition that the desired vertex partition in the regularity lemma is equitable has a minimal effect on the number of parts of the partition. Second, we use an algorithmic version of the (weak) Frieze–Kannan regularity lemma to give a substantially faster deterministic approximation algorithm for counting subgraphs in a graph. Previously, only an exponential dependence for the running time on the error parameter was known, and we improve it to a polynomial dependence. Third, we revisit the problem of finding an algorithmic regularity lemma, giving approximation algorithms for several co-NP-complete problems. We show how to use the weak Frieze–Kannan regularity lemma to approximate the regularity of a pair of vertex subsets. We also show how to quickly find, for each ε′>ε, an ε′-regular partition with k parts if there exists an ε-regular partition with k parts. Finally, we give a simple proof of the permutation regularity lemma which improves the tower-type bound on the number of parts in the previous proofs to a single exponential bound.

In this paper we study a question related to the classical Erdős–Ko–Rado theorem, which states that any family of k-element subsets of the set [n] = {1,. . .,n} in which any two sets intersect has cardinality at most $\binom{n-1}{k-1}$ .

We say that two non-empty families ${\mathcal A}, {\mathcal B}\subset \binom{[n]}{k}$ are s-cross-intersecting if, for any A ∈ ${\mathcal A}$ , B ∈ ${\mathcal B}$ , we have |A ∩ B| ≥ s. In this paper we determine the maximum of | ${\mathcal A}$ |+| ${\mathcal B}$ | for all n. This generalizes a result of Hilton and Milner, who determined the maximum of | ${\mathcal A}$ |+| ${\mathcal B}$ | for non-empty 1-cross-intersecting families.

Let C 6 3 be the 3-uniform hypergraph on {1, . . ., 6} with edges 123,345,561, which can be seen as the analogue of the triangle in 3-uniform hypergraphs. For sufficiently large n divisible by 6, we show that every n-vertex 3-uniform hypergraph H with minimum codegree at least n/3 contains a C 6 3-factor, that is, a spanning subhypergraph consisting of vertex-disjoint copies of C 6 3. The minimum codegree condition is best possible. This improves the asymptotic result obtained by Mycroft and answers a question of Rödl and Ruciński exactly.

In a Markov chain started at a state x, the hitting time τ(y) is the first time that the chain reaches another state y. We study the probability $\mathbb{P}_x(\tau(y) = t)$ that the first visit to y occurs precisely at a given time t. Informally speaking, the event that a new state is visited at a large time t may be considered a ‘surprise’. We prove the following three bounds.

• • In any Markov chain with n states, $\mathbb{P}_x(\tau(y) = t) \le {n}/{t}$ .

• • In a reversible chain with n states, $\mathbb{P}_x(\tau(y) = t) \le {\sqrt{2n}}/{t}$ for $t \ge 4n + 4$ .

• • For random walk on a simple graph with n ≥ 2 vertices, $\mathbb{P}_x(\tau(y) = t) \le 4e \log(n)/t$ .

To prove the bound for random walk on graphs, we establish the following estimate conjectured by Aldous, Ding and Oveis-Gharan (private communication): for random walk on an n-vertex graph, for every initial vertex x,

$$\sum_y \biggl( \sup_{t \ge 0} p^t(x, y) \biggr) = O(\log n). $$

Let $\mathcal F$ ⊂ 2[n] be a family of subsets. The diameter of $\mathcal F$ is the maximum of the size of symmetric differences among pairs of members of $\mathcal F$ . In 1966 Kleitman determined the maximum of | $\mathcal F$ | for fixed diameter. However, this important classical result lacked a characterization of the families meeting the bound. This is remedied in the present paper, where a best possible stability result is established as well.

In Section 4 we introduce a ‘parity trick’ that provides an easy way of deducing the odd case from the even case in both Kleitman's original theorem and its stability version.

We prove that for every poset P, there is a constant CP such that the size of any family of subsets of {1, 2, . . ., n} that does not contain P as an induced subposet is at most

$$C_P{\binom{n}{\lfloor\gfrac{n}{2}\rfloor}},$$

Let [n]r be the complete r-partite hypergraph with vertex classes of size n. It is an easy exercise to show that every set of more than (k−1)n r−1 edges in [n]r contains a matching of size k. We conjecture the following rainbow version of this observation: if F 1,F 2,. . .,F k ⊆ [n]r are of size larger than (k−1)n r−1 then there exists a rainbow matching, that is, a choice of disjoint edges f i ∈ F i . We prove this conjecture for r=2 and r=3.