A random binary search tree grown from the uniformly random permutation of [n] is studied. We analyze the exact and asymptotic counts of vertices by rank, the distance from the set of leaves. The asymptotic fraction c k of vertices of a fixed rank k ≥ 0 is shown to decay exponentially with k. We prove that the ranks of the uniformly random, fixed size sample of vertices are asymptotically independent, each having the distribution {c k }. Notoriously hard to compute, the exact fractions c k have been determined for k ≤ 3 only. We present a shortcut enabling us to compute c 4 and c 5 as well; both are ratios of enormous integers, the denominator of c 5 being 274 digits long. Prompted by the data, we prove that, in sharp contrast, the largest prime divisor of the denominator of c k is at most 2k+1 + 1. We conjecture that, in fact, the prime divisors of every denominator for k > 1 form a single interval, from 2 to the largest prime not exceeding 2k+1 + 1.

Let [An,k ]n,k ⩾0 be an infinite lower triangular array satisfying the recurrence

for n ⩾ 1 and k ⩾ 0, where A 0,0 = 1, A 0,k = A k,–1 = 0 for k > 0. We present some criteria for the log-concavity of rows and strong q-log-convexity of generating functions of rows. Our results can be applied to many well-known triangular arrays, such as the Pascal triangle, the Stirling triangle of the second kind, the Bell triangle, the large Schröder triangle, the Motzkin triangle, and the Catalan triangles of Aigner and Shapiro, in a unified approach. In addition, we prove that the binomial transformation not only preserves the strong q-log-convexity property, but also preserves the strong q-log-concavity property. Finally, we demonstrate that the strong q-log-convexity property is preserved by the Stirling transformation and Whitney transformation of the second kind, which extends some known results for the strong q-log-convexity property.

The $l_{0}$ -minimisation problem has attracted much attention in recent years with the development of compressive sensing. The spark of a matrix is an important measure that can determine whether a given sparse vector is the solution of an $l_{0}$ -minimisation problem. However, its calculation involves a combinatorial search over all possible subsets of columns of the matrix, which is an NP-hard problem. We use Weyl’s theorem to give two new lower bounds for the spark of a matrix. One is based on the mutual coherence and the other on the coherence function. Numerical examples are given to show that the new bounds can be significantly better than existing ones.

We identify the asymptotic probability of a configuration model CMn (d) producing a connected graph within its critical window for connectivity that is identified by the number of vertices of degree 1 and 2, as well as the expected degree. In this window, the probability that the graph is connected converges to a non-trivial value, and the size of the complement of the giant component weakly converges to a finite random variable. Under a finite second moment condition we also derive the asymptotics of the connectivity probability conditioned on simplicity, from which follows the asymptotic number of simple connected graphs with a prescribed degree sequence.

A class of games for finding a leader among a group of candidates is studied in detail. This class covers games based on coin tossing and rock-paper-scissors as special cases and its complexity exhibits similar stochastic behaviors: either of logarithmic mean and bounded variance or of exponential mean and exponential variance. Many applications are also discussed.

Let $c\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}_{k}(n)$ denote the number of $k$ -colored generalized Frobenius partitions of $n$ . Recently, new Ramanujan-type congruences associated with $c\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}_{4}(n)$ were discovered. In this article, we discuss two approaches in proving such congruences using the theory of modular forms. Our methods allow us to prove congruences such as $c\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}_{4}(14n+6)\equiv 0\;\text{mod}\;7$ and Seller’s congruence $c\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}_{4}(10n+6)\equiv 0\;\text{mod}\;5$ .

Let $B_{k,\ell }(n)$ denote the number of $(k,\ell )$ -regular bipartitions of $n$ . Employing both the theory of modular forms and some elementary methods, we systematically study the arithmetic properties of $B_{3,\ell }(n)$ and $B_{5,\ell }(n)$ . In particular, we confirm all the conjectures proposed by Dou [‘Congruences for (3,11)-regular bipartitions modulo 11’, Ramanujan J.40, 535–540].

The aim of this paper is to develop analytic techniques to deal with the monotonicity of certain combinatorial sequences. On the one hand, a criterion for the monotonicity of the function is given, which is a continuous analogue of a result of Wang and Zhu. On the other hand, the log-behaviour of the functions

is considered, where ζ(x) and Γ(x) are the Riemann zeta function and the Euler Gamma function, respectively. Consequently, the strict log-concavities of the function θ(x) (a conjecture of Chen et al.) and for some combinatorial sequences (including the Bernoulli numbers, the tangent numbers, the Catalan numbers, the Fuss–Catalan numbers, and the binomial coefficients are demonstrated. In particular, this contains some results of Chen et al., and Luca and Stănică. Finally, by researching the logarithmically complete monotonicity of some functions, the infinite log-monotonicity of the sequence

is proved. This generalizes two results of Chen et al. that both the Catalan numbers and the central binomial coefficients are infinitely log-monotonic, and strengthens one result of Su and Wang that is log-convex in n for positive integers d > δ. In addition, the asymptotically infinite log-monotonicity of derangement numbers is showed. In order to research the stronger properties of the above functions θ(x) and F(x), the logarithmically complete monotonicity of functions

is also obtained, which generalizes the results of Lee and Tepedelenlioǧlu, and Qi and Li.

In this paper, we study the integer sequence $(E_{n})_{n\geq 1}$ , where $E_{n}$ counts the number of possible dimensions for centralisers of $n\times n$ matrices. We give an example to show another combinatorial interpretation of $E_{n}$ and present an implicit recurrence formula for $E_{n}$ , which may provide a fast algorithm for computing $E_{n}$ . Based on the recurrence, we obtain the asymptotic formula $E_{n}=\frac{1}{2}n^{2}-\frac{2}{3}\sqrt{2}n^{3/2}+O(n^{5/4})$ .

In this paper a determinant identity is established, from which a simple proof of the multivariate Lagrange–Good inversion formula follows directly. Further discussion on a discrete analogue of the Lagrange–Good inversion formula is also presented.

In this paper, we count a dual set of Stirling permutations by the number of alternating runs and study properties of the generating functions, including recurrence relations, grammatical interpretations and convolution formulas.

We give a new combinatorial interpretation of the stationary distribution of the (partially) asymmetric exclusion process on a finite number of sites in terms of decorated alternative trees and coloured permutations. The corresponding expressions of the multivariate partition functions are then related to multivariate generalisations of Eulerian polynomials for coloured permutations considered recently by N. Williams and the third author, and others. We also discuss stability and negative dependence properties satisfied by the partition functions.

The counting and (upper) mass dimensions of a set A ⊆ $\mathbb{R}^d$ are

$$D(A) = \limsup_{\|C\| \to \infty} \frac{\log | \lfloor A \rfloor \cap C |}{\log \|C\|}, \quad \smash{\overline{D}}\vphantom{D}(A) = \limsup_{\ell \to \infty} \frac{\log | \lfloor A \rfloor \cap [-\ell,\ell)^d |}{\log (2 \ell)},$$

$\mathbb{R}^d$

$$D(A) = \text{inf} \{ \alpha \geq 0 \mid {d_{H}^{\alpha}}(A) = 0 \},$$

$${d_{H}^{\alpha}}(A) = \lim_{r \rightarrow 0} \limsup_{\|C\| \rightarrow \infty} \inf \biggl\{ \sum_i \biggl(\frac{\|C_i\|}{\|C\|} \biggr)^\alpha\ \bigg| \1 \leq \|C_i\| \leq r \|C\| \biggr\}$$

$\mathbb{R}^d$

We apply the concept of braiding sequences to link polynomials to show polynomial growth bounds on the derivatives of the Jones polynomial evaluated on S 1 and of the Brandt–Lickorish–Millett–Ho polynomial evaluated on [–2, 2] on alternating and positive knots of given genus. For positive links, boundedness criteria for the coefficients of the Jones, HOMFLY and Kauffman polynomials are derived. (This is a continuation of the paper ‘Applications of braiding sequences. I’: Commun. Contemp. Math.12(5) (2010), 681–726.)

We study cup products in the integral cohomology of the Hilbert scheme of $n$ points on a K3 surface and present a computer program for this purpose. In particular, we deal with the question of which classes can be represented by products of lower degrees.

Supplementary materials are available with this article.

We propose a new method, probabilistic divide-and-conquer, for improving the success probability in rejection sampling. For the example of integer partitions, there is an ideal recursive scheme which improves the rejection cost from asymptotically order n 3/4 to a constant. We show other examples for which a non-recursive, one-time application of probabilistic divide-and-conquer removes a substantial fraction of the rejection sampling cost.

We also present a variation of probabilistic divide-and-conquer for generating i.i.d. samples that exploits features of the coupon collector's problem, in order to obtain a cost that is sublinear in the number of samples.

We provide a comprehensive study of the function $h=h(q)$ defined by

$$\begin{eqnarray}h=q\mathop{\prod }_{j=1}^{\infty }\frac{(1-q^{12j-1})(1-q^{12j-11})}{(1-q^{12j-5})(1-q^{12j-7})}\end{eqnarray}$$

$k=k(q)$

$$\begin{eqnarray}k=q\mathop{\prod }_{j=1}^{\infty }\frac{(1-q^{10j-1})(1-q^{10j-2})(1-q^{10j-8})(1-q^{10j-9})}{(1-q^{10j-3})(1-q^{10j-4})(1-q^{10j-6})(1-q^{10j-7})}.\end{eqnarray}$$

In a recent paper, Baxter and Zeilberger showed that the two most important Mahonian statistics, the inversion number and the major index, are asymptotically independently normally distributed on permutations. In another recent paper, Canfield, Janson and Zeilberger proved the result, already known to statisticians, that the Mahonian distribution is asymptotically normal on words. This leaves one question unanswered: What, asymptotically, is the joint distribution of the inversion number and the major index on words? We answer this question by establishing convergence to a bivariate normal distribution.

We continue our study of intermediate sums over polyhedra, interpolating between integrals and discrete sums, which were introduced by Barvinok [Computing the Ehrhart quasi-polynomial of a rational simplex. Math. Comp. 75 (2006), 1449–1466]. By well-known decompositions, it is sufficient to consider the case of affine cones $s+\mathfrak{c}$ , where $s$ is an arbitrary real vertex and $\mathfrak{c}$ is a rational polyhedral cone. For a given rational subspace  $L$ , we define the intermediate generating functions $S^{L}(s+\mathfrak{c})(\unicode[STIX]{x1D709})$ by integrating an exponential function over all lattice slices of the affine cone  $s+\mathfrak{c}$ parallel to the subspace  $L$ and summing up the integrals. We expose the bidegree structure in parameters $s$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D709}$ , which was implicitly used in the algorithms in our papers [Computation of the highest coefficients of weighted Ehrhart quasi-polynomials of rational polyhedra. Found. Comput. Math.12 (2012), 435–469] and [Intermediate sums on polyhedra: computation and real Ehrhart theory. Mathematika59 (2013), 1–22]. The bidegree structure is key to a new proof for the Baldoni–Berline–Vergne approximation theorem for discrete generating functions [Local Euler–Maclaurin expansion of Barvinok valuations and Ehrhart coefficients of rational polytopes. Contemp. Math.452 (2008), 15–33], using the Fourier analysis with respect to the parameter  $s$ and a continuity argument. Our study also enables a forthcoming paper, in which we study intermediate sums over multi-parameter families of polytopes.

We relate Catalan numbers and Catalan determinants to random matrix integrals and to moments of spin representations of odd orthogonal groups.