Algorithmic Combinatorics

This book uses new mathematical tools to examine broad computability and complexity questions in enumerative combinatorics, with applications to other areas of mathematics, theoretical computer science, and physics. A focus on effective algorithms leads to the development of computer algebra software of use to researchers in these domains.

The book is centered around the research areas of combinatorics, special functions, and computer algebra. What these research fields share is that many of their outstanding results do not only have applications in Mathematics, but also other disciplines, such as computer science, physics, chemistry, etc.

The discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science communities have recently witnessed explosive growth in the area of algorithmic combinatorics on words. The next generation of research on combinatorics of partial words promises to have a substantial impact on molecular biology, nanotechnology, data communication, and DNA computing.

This book is a concise, self-contained, up-to-date introduction to extremal combinatorics for nonspecialists. There is a strong emphasis on theorems with particularly elegant and informative proofs, they may be called gems of the theory. The author presents a wide spectrum of the most powerful combinatorial tools together with impressive applications in computer science: methods of extremal set theory, the linear algebra method, the probabilistic method, and fragments of Ramsey theory.