Seminar on Combinatorial
and Discrete Mathematics
(Organized in 1985)
Department of Mathematics, West Virginia University
N. B. The listings below are incomplete after 1993. We record these here for historical purposes
in order to suggest the extent to which the Seminar has been successful. Indeed the Seminar continues,
25 years since it was founded to the present, now under the direction of Prof. John Goldwasser.
WVU Faculty Participants (1985-1992) have included:
Prof. John Atkins
Prof. Alphonse Baartmans
Prof. Anand M. Chak
Prof. James Dowdy
Prof. Harry Gingold
Prof. John Goldwasser (Co-Chairman)
Prof. Henry Gould (Organizing Chairman)
Prof. A. J. W. Hilton, Eberly Family Professor of Mathematics
Prof. Jishan Hu
Prof. Jin Bai Kim
Prof. Hong-Jian Lai
Prof. Mike Mays
Prof. Sam Nadler
Prof. George Trapp
Prof. Frances Vanscoy
Prof. Jerzy Wojciechowski
Prof. Cun-Quan Zhang
The Seminar includes research and expository presentations from areas
such as combinatorics, graph theory, number theory, algebra, coding theory,
design theory, finite geometries, and subjects from statistics, electrical
engineering, computer science, etc. which are discrete or combinatorial in
nature. Combinatorics, Graph Theory and Number Theory make up a general
area of strength within the Department's research faculty. Visiting speakers
have included Paul Erdös (3 visits, 1987, 1989 and 1993), L. C. Hsu (1987),
Mourad Ismail, Richard Brualdi, Brian Alspach, and many others.
WVU SEMINAR ON COMBINATORIAL AND DISCRETE MATHEMATICS
Summary of First Year, 1985-86
FALL SEMESTER:
Thurs. 26 Sept. 1985 - Organizational Meeting
Wed. 9 Oct. - Organizational Meeting, and talk by Prof. H. W. Gould on the
object of the Seminar and range of topics making up
combinatorics and discrete mathematics.
Wed. 16 Oct. - Prof. Mike Mays, Math., A Factorization Algorithm of Dixon.
Wed. 23 Oct. - Prof. Bob Swartwout, Elect. Engineering, Fault Testing.
Wed. 30 Oct. - Prof. George Trapp, Comp. Sci., A Survey of Some Problems
in Discrete Mathematics.
Wed. 6 Nov. - Prof. H. W. Gould, Math., Some Classical Enumeration Problems.
Wed. 13 Nov. - Prof. Frances Vanscoy, Comp. Sci., Parallel Algorithms.
Wed. 20 Nov. - Prof. Al Baartmans, Math., Design of Codes.
Wed. 4 Dec. - Prof. Mohan S. Shrikande, Central Michigan Univ., Quasi-
symmetric Designs.
SPRING SEMESTER:
Wed. 12 Feb. 1986 - Organizational Meeting
Wed. 19 Feb. - Prof. Jin Bai Kim, Math., Idempotent Semigroups.
Wed. 26 Feb. - Prof. H. W. Gould, Math., Stirling Numbers, What Are They?
Wed. 5 March- Prof. James Dowdy, Math., Lexicographic Ordering of
Permutations (joint work with Prof. William Simons, Math.)
Wed. 26 March- Prof. John Atkins, Comp. Sci., Fibonacci Numbers and
Computer Algorithms.
Wed. 2 April - Prof. Al Baartmans, Math., A Construction of the Projective
Plane of Order 4 Using the Complete Graph K_s_do6(6) on 6
Vertices.
Wed. 10 April - Prof. W. E. Deskins, Univ. of Pittsburgh, The Influence of
Small Subgroups. (joint meeting with Math.
Colloquium)
Wed. 30 April - Prof. H. W. Gould, Math., Counting Chains in Lattices, Graphs,
and Trees.
WVU SEMINAR ON COMBINATORIAL AND DISCRETE MATHEMATICS
Summary of Second Year, 1986-87
FALL SEMESTER:
Wed. 10 Sept. 1986 - Prof. J. B. Kim, Math., Choice Functions.
Wed. 17 Sept. - Prof. Mike Mays, Math., Chains of Subsets.
Wed. 24 Sept. - Prof. George Trapp, Comp. Sci., Means of Things.
Wed. 1 Oct. - Prof. George Trapp, Comp. Sci., Means of Vectors and
Quaternions.
Wed. 8 Oct. - Prof. James Dowdy, Math., The Queens Problem.
Wed. 15 Oct. - Prof. Al Baartmans, Math., Open Problems in Finite
Dimensional Vector Spaces Over a Finite Field.
Wed. 22 Oct. - Prof. H. W. Gould, Math., Star of David Properties of Pascal's
Triangle.
Thurs. 30 Oct. - Prof. Joseph Yucas, Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale,
The Structure of the Witt Ring.
Wed. 5 Nov. - Prof. H. M. Srivastava, Lucknow, India, Certain Functional
Relations and a Generalization of the Mk,m - Function.
Wed. 12 Nov. - Prof. H. W. Gould, Math., Introduction to Special Functions and
Related Combinatorial Identities.
Wed. 19 Nov. - Prof. Mourad Ismail, Arizona State Univ., Tempe, Ariz.,
Orthogonal Polynomials. (Visiting colloquium speaker)
SPRING SEMESTER:
Wed. 28 Jan. 1987 - Organizational Meeting.
Wed. 4 Feb. - H. W. Gould and Paula Schlesinger,Math., The Schlesinger-Hermite
g.c.d. Formulas for Binomial Coefficients.
Wed. 18 Feb. - Prof. Mike Mays, Comma-free Codes.
Wed. 4 March - Prof. H. W. Gould, Math., An Exploration of Graph Theory As An
Experimental Science Growing Out of Solid Geometry.
Mon. 23 March - Dr. Cun-Quang Zhang, Simon Fraser Univ., B.C., Canada,
Cycles in Graphs..
Wed. 25 March - Prof. Al Baartmans, Math., The Extension Problem for Symmetric
Designs.
Mon. 20 April - Prof. George E. Andrews, Penn. State University, Ramanujan and
Partitions. (Visiting Mathematician Program)
Wed. 22 April - Prof. George E. Andrews, Ramanujan and
Computer
Algebra.
Thurs. 23 April - Prof. George E. Andrews, Ramanujan and Mock Theta Functions.
Fri. 24 April - Prof. George E. Andrews, Problems in Partitions.
4 - 7 May - Paul Erdös, gave two lectures.
WVU SEMINAR ON COMBINATORIAL AND DISCRETE MATHEMATICS
Summary of Third Year, 1987-88
FALL SEMESTER:
Wed. 30 Sept. 1987 - Prof. H. W. Gould, Math., Equivalence of the Piza,
Gould-Greig and Mann-Shanks Primality Criteria.
Wed. 7 Oct. - Prof. Al Baartmans, Math., 23 - 8 = 15; A Connection Between
Two Distinguished Geometries.
Wed. 14 Oct. - Prof. C.-Q. Zhang, Math., Edge Coloring and Cycle Covering.
Wed. 21 Oct. - Prof. Jin B. Kim, Math, Boolean Projective Geometry.
Wed. 28 Oct. - Prof. Mike Mays, Math., Spreadsheets and the Unimodal Property
of Gaussian Polynomials.
Wed. 11 Nov. - Prof. H. W. Gould, Unusual Trigonometric Identities.
Wed.18 Nov. - Mr. D. Chris Metzger, WVU Grad. Stud., Math., Slidex RT Code.
Wed. 2 Dec. - Prof. I. Square, Computer Algorithms for the Natural Numbers.
(Introduced by Prof. H. W. Gould)
SPRING SEMESTER:
Mon. 25 Jan. 1988 - Prof. Brian Alspach, Simon Fraser Univ., Canada,
Networks and Graphs.
Wed. 27 Jan. - Prof. Brian Alspach, Long Paths and Cycles in Vertex-
transitive Graphs.
Fri. 29 Jan. - Prof. Brian Alspach, Cycle Decomposition of Graphs.
Wed. 3 Feb. - Prof. John Atkins, Comp. Sci., Balancing Binary Trees.
Wed. 10 Feb. - Prof. C.-Q. Zhang, Claw-free Graphs.
Wed. 24 Feb. - Dr. Robt. Aldred, Univ. of Otago, New Zealand, An Insight Into
T-Separators.
Wed. 29 Feb. - Dr. Samira Saidi, Univ. of California, Los Angeles. Perfect Error-
Correcting Codes.
Wed. 2 March - Prof. H. W. Gould, Math., Bernoulli and Fibonacci Identities Via
Generating Functions.
Wed. 16 March- Prof. H. W. Gould, Math., Bracket Function Identities Via
Generating Functions.
Wed. 13 April - Prof. A. M. Chak, Math., "The King and I" - Calculus of Sequences
and the Poweroids of Steffensen.
Wed. 20 April - Mr. William Y. Kerr, WVU Grad. Stud., Math., Polynomials
Satisfying Generalized Convolution Differential-Difference
Equations. (joint paper with Prof. H. W. Gould)
Wed. 27 April - Prof. A. M. Chak, "The King and I", Morgan Ward Calculus, Part II.
WVU SEMINAR ON COMBINATORIAL AND DISCRETE MATHEMATICS
Summary of Fourth Year, 1988-89
FALL SEMESTER:
Wed. 31 Aug. 1988 - Prof. John Goldwasser, Math., Permanents - Part I.
Tues. 6 Sept. - Prof. Larry Cummings, Univ. of Waterloo, Canada,
Synchronizable Codes. (Visiting Speaker)
Wed. 14 Sept. - Prof. John Goldwasser, Permanents - Part II.
Wed. 21 Sept. - Prof. John Goldwasser, Permanents - Part III.
Wed. 28 Sept. - Prof. John Goldwasser, Permanents - Part IV.
Wed. 5 Oct. - Prof. H. W. Gould, Unusual Limits and Sums of the form
∑ s(g(n),k=a) f(k,n) where g(n) is other
than g(n) = n.
Wed. 12 Oct. - Prof. Michael E. Mays, Math., Construction Techniques for
Comma-free Codes.
Wed. 19 Oct. - Prof. Michael E. Mays, Math., Construction Techniques for
Comma-free Codes, Part II.
Wed. 26 Oct. - Prof. Michael E. Mays, Math., Construction Techniques for
Comma-free Codes, Part III.
Wed. 2 Nov. - Prof. C. Q. Zhang, Math., Fractional Independence Number.
Wed. 9 Nov. - Prof. C. Q. Zhang, Math., Tournaments, Part I.
Wed.16 Nov. - Prof. C. Q. Zhang, Math., Tournaments, Part II.
Wed. Dec. - Mr. Hollie Buchanan, An algebraic treatment of comma-free
bounded synchronization delay, and retrograde codes, Part I
Wed. Dec. - Mr. Hollie
Buchanan, "
"
" , Part II (Thesis)
SPRING SEMESTER:
Wed. 25 Jan. 1989 -Organizational Meeting. Talk by Prof. H. W. Gould: Stirling
and q-Stirling Numbers, Part I.
Wed. 1 Feb. - Prof. H. W. Gould, Stirling and q-Stirling Numbers, Part II.
Tues.14 Feb. - Dr. Stephen Suchower, Penn. State Univ., Construction of
F-hyperrectangles and Linear Codes.
Wed. 15 Feb. - Dr. Hong-Jian Lai, Eulerian subgraphs.
Fri. 17 Feb. - Dr. Olivia Carducci, Carnegie Mellon Univ., Integrality Properties
of 0-1 matrices.
Mon. 27 Feb. - Prof. Pavel Hell, Simon Fraser Univ., Generalized Graph
Colorings.
Thurs. 2 March - Prof. John Goldwasser,
Web. 15 March - Prof. H. Gingold, 3-dimensional Matrices of Arbitrary Order
which are Totally Invertible.
Mon. 20 March - Prof. Richard A. Brualdi, Univ. of Wisconsin, Combinatorial
Matrix Theory: The Determinant and the Cayley-Hamilton
Theorem. (Visiting Mathematician Program)
Tues.21 March- Prof. Richard A. Brualdi, Ramsey theory: Complete Disorder is
Impossible. (intended for graduate and upper-level under-
graduates.)
Wed. 22 March- Prof. Richard A. Brualdi, Combinatorial Matrix Analysis: Eigen-
values and Primitive Digraphs.
Thurs.22 March-Prof. Richard A. Brualdi, Doubly Stochastic Matrices and
Generalization of Graph Automorphisms.
28 - 31 March- Paul Erdös gave two lectures.
Wed. 12 April - Prof. Sam Nadler, WVU, A Topological Characterization of the
Number 6.
WVU SEMINAR ON COMBINATORIAL AND DISCRETE MATHEMATICS
Summary of Fifth Year, 1989-90
FALL SEMESTER:
Tues. 29 Aug. 1989 - Informal organizational meeting.
Tues. 5 Sept. - Prof. John Goldwasser, A Solution to Erdös' x + y = 3z
Problem.
Mon. 11 Sept. - Prof. Mike Mays, Parity of the Necklace Counting Function.
Mon. 18 Sept. - Prof. Mike Mays, Necklace Counting and Hamiltonian Cycles.
Mon. 25 Sept. - Group discussion: Computers and Intractability, a book by
Michael R. Garey & David S. Johnson.
Mon. 2 Oct. - Continuation of discussion on Computers and
Intractability.
Mon. 16 Oct. - Prof. Hong-Jian Lai, Dominating Trails and Spanning
Trails.
Mon. 23 Oct. - Prof. Paul Catlin, Wayne State Univ., Supereulerian Graphs
Tues. 24 Oct. - Prof. Paul Catlin, A Reduction Method for Finding
Supereulerian Graphs
Wed. 25 Oct. - Prof.Paul Catlin, Application of the Reduction Method
Mon. 30 Oct. -
Mon. 6 Nov. -
Mon. 13 Nov. - Prof. Hong-Jian Lai, The Size of Strength-maximal Graphs
Thurs. 16 Nov. - Mr. Cheng Zhao, On the Edge Coloring and Total Coloring of
Graphs
Mon. 27 Nov. -
Tues. 5 Dec. - Dr. Marvin C. Wunderlich, National Security Agency,
Massively Parallel Computers and their Application to
Computational Number Theory
SPRING SEMESTER:
Tues. 9 Jan. 1990 - Prof. S. Friedland, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago, Random
Walks on Graphs and Estimates of the Spectral Radii of
Graphs
Wed. 22 Jan. - Prof. John Goldwasser, Reconstructing a Set from
Knowledge of Subsets
Wed. 31 Jan. - Prof. Mike Mays, Random Topics
Wed. 7 Feb. - Prof. C. Q. Zhang, Minimum Cycle Covering and Postman Problems
Thurs. 15 Feb. - Miss Maria Brunett, A sufficient Condition for a Graph to
be Hamiltonian
Mon. 19 Feb. - Mr. Guo-Hui Zhang, Southern Illinois University, Regular
Graphs with Prescribed Odd Girth
Wed. 21 Feb. - Mr. Tim Swyter, Nodes of Degree 2 - Who Needs them?
Mon. 26 Feb. - Prof. A. J. W. Hilton, Reading Univ., UK, k to 1 Maps
Between Graphs (General Colloquium Talk)
Wed. 28 Feb. - Prof. A. J. W. Hilton, Reading Univ., UK, Recent Results on
Total Chromatic Number
Wed. 21 March - Prof. H. W. Gould, Annihilation Coefficients, Part I
Tues.27 March - Lauren Rose, Ohio State University, Algebraic Combinatorics
of Splines
Wed. 28 March - Prof. H. J. Lai, The Size of Matchings
Wed. 11 April - Prof. Brian Alspach, Simon Fraser Univ., Canada,
Matching Designs
Wed. 18 April - Prof. John Goldwasser, One Peg in the Center
Wed. 25 April - Prof. C. Q. Zhang, Cycle Double Coverings of Cubic Graphs
WVU SEMINAR ON COMBINATORIAL AND DISCRETE MATHEMATICS
Tentative Program, Sixth Year, 1990-91
FALL SEMESTER: (Seminar meets Wednesdays at 3:30 P.M., 503 Eiesland Hall)
Wed. 5 Sept. 1990 - Dr. A. J. W. Hilton, Eberly Family Professor of Mathematics,
West Virginia University, Outline Latin Squares
and -
Prof. Daniel Younger, University of Waterloo, Coloring and Integer Flow
Wed. 12 Sept. - Prof. M. E. Mays, Complete Latin Squares
Wed. 19 Sept. - Prof. A. J. W. Hilton, Magic Squares
Mon. 1 Oct. - Prof. Mark Ellingham, Vanderbilt University, The Graph
Reconstruction Problem
Wed. 3 Oct. - Prof. Mark Ellingham, Algebraic and Combinatorial
Techniques for Graph Reconstruction
Thurs. 5 Oct. - Prof. Mark Ellingham, Recent results on Vertex-Switching
Reconstruction
Wed. 17 Oct. - Prof. John Goldwasser, How to Win the Lottery
Wed. 24 Oct. - Prof. John Goldwasser, More on the Lottery and Extremal
Hypergraphs
Thurs. 25 Oct. -
Prof.
, Texas A & M Univ., Electrical Circuits
and Minimum Coverings of Matroids
Wed. 31 Oct. -
Wed. 7 Nov. - Prof. Jerzy Wojciechowski, On Small Graphs With Highly
Imperfect Powers
Wed. 14 Nov. - Prof. A. J. W. Hilton, Alternating Hamiltonian cycles in 2-edge
colored complete bipartite graphs
Wed. 28 Nov. -
Wed. 5 Dec. -
SPRING SEMESTER:
Wed. 16 Jan. 1991- Prof. M. E. Mays, Power Products Related to the
Cyclotomic Identity
Wed. 23 Jan. - Prof. Hong-jin Lai, 3-edge-connected Super Eulerian Graphs
Wed. 30 Jan. - Prof. A. J. W. Hilton, Hamiltonian Decompositions of complete
graphs, II
Wed. 6 Feb. - Prof. A. J. W. Hilton, A Survey of Embedding Theorems for Partial
Combinatorial Structures
Wed. 20 Feb. - Prof. C. Q. Zhang, Cycle Double Covering of the Cayley Graph
Wed. 27 Feb. - Cheng Zhao, On a Conjecture of Hilton
Wed. 6 March -Prof. John Goldwasser, Turán's Problem
Wed. 20 March -
Wed. 27 March -Cheng Zhao, Several Results of Total Chromatic Numbers
Wed. 3 April -Prof. John Goldwasser, On "Turán's Problem"
Fri. 5 April - C. Q. Zhang, Disconnection Numbers in Graphs (Grad.Seminar)
Wed. 10 April -
Wed. 17 April -
Wed. 24 April -
WVU SEMINAR ON COMBINATORIAL AND DISCRETE MATHEMATICS
Tentative Program, Seventh Year, 1991-92
Record not available
WVU SEMINAR ON COMBINATORIAL AND DISCRETE MATHEMATICS
Tentative Program, Eighth Year, 1992-93
Thurs. 10 March - Paul Erdös, Some of my favorite problems