We investigate the structure of the twisted Brauer monoid , comparing and contrasting it with the structure of the (untwisted) Brauer monoid . We characterize Green's relations and pre-orders on , describe the lattice of ideals and give necessary and sufficient conditions for an ideal to be idempotent generated. We obtain formulae for the rank (smallest size of a generating set) and (where applicable) the idempotent rank (smallest size of an idempotent generating set) of each principal ideal; in particular, when an ideal is idempotent generated, its rank and idempotent rank are equal. As an application of our results, we describe the idempotent generated subsemigroup of (which is not an ideal), as well as the singular ideal of (which is neither principal nor idempotent generated), and we deduce that the singular part of the Brauer monoid is idempotent generated, a result previously proved by Maltcev and Mazorchuk.

The set of row reduced matrices (and of echelon form matrices) is closed under multiplication. We show that any system of representatives for the $\text{Gl}_{n}(\mathbb{K})$ action on the $n\times n$ matrices, which is closed under multiplication, is necessarily conjugate to one that is in simultaneous echelon form. We call such closed representative systems Grassmannian semigroups. We study internal properties of such Grassmannian semigroups and show that they are algebraic semigroups and admit gradings by the finite semigroup of partial order preserving permutations, with components that are naturally in one–one correspondence with the Schubert cells of the total Grassmannian. We show that there are infinitely many isomorphism types of such semigroups in general, and two such semigroups are isomorphic exactly when they are semiconjugate in $M_{n}(\mathbb{K})$ . We also investigate their representation theory over an arbitrary field, and other connections with multiplicative structures on Grassmannians and Young diagrams.

In this paper, we investigate the set of accumulation points of normalized roots of infinite Coxeter groups for certain class of their action. Concretely, we prove the conjecture proposed in [6, Section 3.2] in the case where the equipped Coxeter matrices are of type $(n-1,1)$, where $n$ is the rank. Moreover, we obtain that the set of such accumulation points coincides with the closure of the orbit of one point of normalized limit roots. In addition, in order to prove our main results, we also investigate some properties on fixed points of the action.

A 1993 result of Alon and Füredi gives a sharp upper bound on the number of zeros of a multivariate polynomial over an integral domain in a finite grid, in terms of the degree of the polynomial. This result was recently generalized to polynomials over an arbitrary commutative ring, assuming a certain ‘Condition (D)’ on the grid which holds vacuously when the ring is a domain. In the first half of this paper we give a further generalized Alon–Füredi theorem which provides a sharp upper bound when the degrees of the polynomial in each variable are also taken into account. This yields in particular a new proof of Alon–Füredi. We then discuss the relationship between Alon–Füredi and results of DeMillo–Lipton, Schwartz and Zippel. A direct coding theoretic interpretation of Alon–Füredi theorem and its generalization in terms of Reed–Muller-type affine variety codes is shown, which gives us the minimum Hamming distance of these codes. Then we apply the Alon–Füredi theorem to quickly recover – and sometimes strengthen – old and new results in finite geometry, including the Jamison–Brouwer–Schrijver bound on affine blocking sets. We end with a discussion of multiplicity enhancements.

We solve a problem posed by Cardinali and Sastry (Elliptic ovoids and their rosettes in a classical generalized quadrangle of even order. Proc. Indian Acad. Sci. Math. Sci. 126 (2016), 591–612) about factorization of 2-covers of finite classical generalized quadrangles (GQs). To that end, we develop a general theory of cover factorization for GQs, and in particular, we study the isomorphism problem for such covers and associated geometries. As a byproduct, we obtain new results about semi-partial geometries coming from θ-covers, and consider related problems.

We present a stand-alone simple proof of a probabilistic interpretation of the Gaussian binomial coefficients by conditioning a random walk to hit a given lattice point at a given time.

Inspired by the recent work of M. Nakasuji, O. Phuksuwan and Y. Yamasaki, we combine interpolated multiple zeta values and Schur multiple zeta values into one object, which we call interpolated Schur multiple zeta values. Our main result will be a Jacobi–Trudi formula for a certain class of these new objects. This generalizes an analogous result for Schur multiple zeta values and implies algebraic relations between interpolated multiple zeta values.

We present an abstract framework for the axiomatic study of diagram algebras. Algebras that fit this framework possess analogues of both the Murphy and seminormal bases of the Hecke algebras of the symmetric groups. We show that the transition matrix between these bases is dominance unitriangular. We construct analogues of the skew Specht modules in this setting. This allows us to propose a natural tableaux theoretic framework in which to study the infamous Kronecker problem.

We address a unification of the Schubert calculus problems solved by Buch [A Littlewood–Richardson rule for the $K$ -theory of Grassmannians, Acta Math. 189 (2002), 37–78] and Knutson and Tao [Puzzles and (equivariant) cohomology of Grassmannians, Duke Math. J.119(2) (2003), 221–260]. That is, we prove a combinatorial rule for the structure coefficients in the torus-equivariant $K$ -theory of Grassmannians with respect to the basis of Schubert structure sheaves. This rule is positive in the sense of Anderson et al. [Positivity and Kleiman transversality in equivariant $K$ -theory of homogeneous spaces, J. Eur. Math. Soc.13 (2011), 57–84] and in a stronger form. Our work is based on the combinatorics of genomic tableaux and a generalization of Schützenberger’s [Combinatoire et représentation du groupe symétrique, in Actes Table Ronde CNRS, Univ. Louis-Pasteur Strasbourg, Strasbourg, 1976, Lecture Notes in Mathematics, 579 (Springer, Berlin, 1977), 59–113] jeu de taquin. Using our rule, we deduce the two other combinatorial rules for these coefficients. The first is a conjecture of Thomas and Yong [Equivariant Schubert calculus and jeu de taquin, Ann. Inst. Fourier (Grenoble) (2013), to appear]. The second (found in a sequel to this paper) is a puzzle rule, resolving a conjecture of Knutson and Vakil from 2005.

The jaggedness of an order ideal $I$ in a poset $P$ is the number of maximal elements in $I$ plus the number of minimal elements of $P$ not in $I$ . A probability distribution on the set of order ideals of $P$ is toggle-symmetric if for every $p\in P$ , the probability that $p$ is maximal in $I$ equals the probability that $p$ is minimal not in $I$ . In this paper, we prove a formula for the expected jaggedness of an order ideal of  $P$ under any toggle-symmetric probability distribution when $P$ is the poset of boxes in a skew Young diagram. Our result extends the main combinatorial theorem of Chan–López–Pflueger–Teixidor [Trans. Amer. Math. Soc., forthcoming. 2015, arXiv:1506.00516], who used an expected jaggedness computation as a key ingredient to prove an algebro-geometric formula; and it has applications to homomesies, in the sense of Propp–Roby, of the antichain cardinality statistic for order ideals in partially ordered sets.

Let $\mathbb{K}$ be a field and S = ${\mathbb{K}}$ [x 1, . . ., xn ] be the polynomial ring in n variables over the field $\mathbb{K}$ . For every monomial ideal I ⊂ S, we provide a recursive formula to determine a lower bound for the Stanley depth of S/I. We use this formula to prove the inequality sdepth(S/I) ≥ size(I) for a particular class of monomial ideals.

In 2005, Knutson–Vakil conjectured a puzzle rule for equivariant $K$ -theory of Grassmannians. We resolve this conjecture. After giving a correction, we establish a modified rule by combinatorially connecting it to the authors’ recently proved tableau rule for the same Schubert calculus problem.

To a pair $P$ and $Q$ of finite posets we attach the toric ring $K[P,Q]$ whose generators are in bijection to the isotone maps from $P$ to $Q$ . This class of algebras, called isotonian, are natural generalizations of the so-called Hibi rings. We determine the Krull dimension of these algebras and for particular classes of posets $P$ and $Q$ we show that $K[P,Q]$ is normal and that their defining ideal admits a quadratic Gröbner basis.

In this paper, we give an explicit construction of a quasi-idempotent in the $q$ -rook monoid algebra $R_{n}(q)$ and show that it generates the whole annihilator of the tensor space $U^{\otimes n}$ in $R_{n}(q)$ .

We characterise the elements of the (maximum) idempotent-generated subsemigroup of the Kauffman monoid in terms of combinatorial data associated with certain normal forms. We also calculate the smallest size of a generating set and idempotent generating set.

In this paper, we study the poset of basic tilting kQ-modules when Q is a Dynkin quiver, and the poset of basic support τ-tilting kQ-modules when Q is a connected acyclic quiver respectively. It is shown that the first poset is a distributive lattice if and only if Q is of types $\mathbb{A}_{1}$ , $\mathbb{A}_{2}$ or $\mathbb{A}_{3}$ with a non-linear orientation and the second poset is a distributive lattice if and only if Q is of type $\mathbb{A}_{1}$ .

Building on coprincipal mesoprimary decomposition [Kahle and Miller, Decompositions of commutative monoid congruences and binomial ideals, Algebra and Number Theory 8 (2014), 1297–1364], we combinatorially construct an irreducible decomposition of any given binomial ideal. In a parallel manner, for congruences in commutative monoids we construct decompositions that are direct combinatorial analogues of binomial irreducible decompositions, and for binomial ideals we construct decompositions into ideals that are as irreducible as possible while remaining binomial. We provide an example of a binomial ideal that is not an intersection of irreducible binomial ideals, thus answering a question of Eisenbud and Sturmfels [Binomial ideals, Duke Math. J. 84 (1996), 1–45].

For an odd prime $p$, a $p$-transposition group is a group generated by a set of involutions such that the product of any two has order 2 or $p$. We first classify a family of $(G,2)$-geodesic transitive Cayley graphs ${\rm\Gamma}:=\text{Cay}(T,S)$ where $S$ is a set of involutions and $T:\text{Inn}(T)\leq G\leq T:\text{Aut}(T,S)$. In this case, $T$ is either an elementary abelian 2-group or a $p$-transposition group. Then under the further assumption that $G$ acts quasiprimitively on the vertex set of ${\rm\Gamma}$, we prove that: (1) if ${\rm\Gamma}$ is not $(G,2)$-arc transitive, then this quasiprimitive action is the holomorph affine type; (2) if $T$ is a $p$-transposition group and $S$ is a conjugacy class, then $p=3$ and ${\rm\Gamma}$ is $(G,2)$-arc transitive.

This paper contributes to the regular covers of a complete bipartite graph minus a matching, denoted $K_{n,n}-nK_{2}$ , whose fiber-preserving automorphism group acts 2-arc-transitively. All such covers, when the covering transformation group $K$ is either cyclic or $\mathbb{Z}_{p}^{2}$ with $p$ a prime, have been determined in Xu and Du [‘2-arc-transitive cyclic covers of $K_{n,n}-nK_{2}$ ’, J. Algebraic Combin.39 (2014), 883–902] and Xu et al. [‘2-arc-transitive regular covers of $K_{n,n}-nK_{2}$ with the covering transformation group $\mathbb{Z}_{p}^{2}$ ’, Ars. Math. Contemp.10 (2016), 269–280]. Finally, this paper gives a classification of all such covers for $K\cong \mathbb{Z}_{p}^{3}$ with $p$ a prime.