Applications Of Combinatorics And Graph Theory To The Biological And Social Sciences

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications Applications of Combinatorics and Graph Theory to the Biological and Social Sciences is based on the proceedings of a workshop which was an integral part of the 1987-88 IMA program on APPLIED COMBINATORICS. We are grateful to the Scientific Committee: Victor Klee (Chairman), Daniel Kleitman, Dijen Ray-Chaudhuri and Dennis Stanton for planning and implementing an exciting and stimulating year long program. We especially thank the Workshop Organizers, Joel Cohen and Fred Roberts, for organizing a workshop which brought together many of the major figures in a variety of research fields connected with the application of combinatorial ideas to the social and biological sciences. A vner Friedman Willard Miller APPLICATIONS OF COMBINATORICS AND GRAPH THEORY TO THE BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES: SEVEN FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS FRED S. RoBERTS* Abstract. To set the stage for the other papers in this volume, seven fundamental concepts which arise in the applications of combinatorics and graph theory in the biological and social sciences are described. These ideas are: RNA chains as "words" in a 4 letter alphabet; interval graphs; competition graphs or niche overlap graphs; qualitative stability; balanced signed graphs; social welfare functions; and semiorders. For each idea, some basic results are presented, some recent results are given, and some open problems are mentioned.

Graph Theory (as a recognized discipline) is a relative newcomer to Mathematics. The first formal paper is found in the work of Leonhard Euler in 1736. In recent years the subject has grown so rapidly that in today's literature, graph theory papers abound with new mathematical developments and significant applications. As with any academic field, it is good to step back occasionally and ask Where is all this activity taking us?, What are the outstanding fundamental problems?, What are the next important steps to take?. In short, Quo Vadis, Graph Theory?. The contributors to this volume have together provided a comprehensive reference source for future directions and open questions in the field.

This book describes and summarizes past work in important areas of combinatorics and computation, as well as gives directions for researchers working in these areas in the 21st century. It contains primarily survey papers and presents original research by Peter Fishburn, Jim Ho Kwak, Jaeun Lee, K H Kim, F W Roush and Susan Williams. The papers deal with some of the most exciting and promising developments in the areas of coding theory in relation to number theory, lattice theory and its applications, graph theory and its applications, topological techniques in combinatorics, symbolic dynamics and mathematical social science. Contents: Monte-Carlo and Quasi-Monte-Carlo Methods for Numerical Integration (H Faure); Theoretical Approaches to Judgement and Choice (P Fishburn); Combinatorial Aspects of Mathematical Social Science (K H Kim & F W Roush); Twelve Views of Matroid Theory (J P S Kung); Enumeration of Graph Coverings, Surface Branched Coverings and Related Group Theory (J H Kwak & J Lee); An Overview of the Poset of Irreducibles (G Markowsky); Number Theory and Public-Key Cryptography (D Pointcheval); Some Applications of Graph Theory (F Roberts); Duality and Its Consequences for Ordered Cohomology of Finite Type Subshifts (K H Kim et al.); Simple Maximum Likelihood Methods for the Optical Mapping Problem (V Danc k & M S Waterman). Readership: Researchers, graduate students and advanced undergraduates in combinatorics and computational mathematics."

New Edition! Completely Revised and Updated Chemical Graph Theory, 2nd Edition is a completely revised and updated edition of a highly regarded book that has been widely used since its publication in 1983. This unique book offers a basic introduction to the handling of molecular graphs - mathematical diagrams representing molecular structures. Using mathematics well within the vocabulary of most chemists, this volume elucidates the structural aspects of chemical graph theory: (1) the relationship between chemical and graph-theoretical terminology, elements of graph theory, and graph-theoretical matrices; (2) the topological aspects of the Hückel theory, resonance theory, and theories of aromaticity; and (3) the applications of chemical graph theory to structure-property and structure-activity relationships and to isomer enumeration. An extensive bibliography covering the most relevant advances in theory and applications is one of the book's most valuable features. This volume is intended to introduce the entire chemistry community to the applications of graph theory and will be of particular interest to theoretical organic and inorganic chemists, physical scientists, computational chemists, and those already involved in mathematical chemistry.

This book provides teachers of all levels with a great deal of valuable material to help them introduce discrete mathematics into their classrooms.

Food webs hold a central place in ecology. They describe which organisms feed on which others in natural habitats. This book describes recently discovered empirical regularities in real food webs: it proposes a novel theory unifying many of these regularities, as well as extensive empirical data. After a general introduction, reviewing the empirical and theoretical discoveries about food webs, the second portion of the book shows that community food webs obey several striking phenomenological regularities. Some of these unify, regardless of habitat. Others differentiate, showing that habitat significantly influences structure. The third portion of the book presents a theoretical analysis of some of the unifying empirical regularities. The fourth portion of the book presents 113 community food webs. Collected from scattered sources and carefully edited, they are the empirical basis for the results in the volume. The largest available set of data on community food webs provides a valuable foundation for future studies of community food webs. The book is intended for graduate students, teachers and researchers primarily in ecology. The theoretical portions of the book provide materials useful to teachers of applied combinatorics, in particular, random graphs. Researchers in random graphs will find here unsolved mathematical problems.

Graph-Theoretical Matrices in Chemistry presents a systematic survey of graph-theoretical matrices and highlights their potential uses. This comprehensive volume is an updated, extended version of a former bestseller featuring a series of mathematical chemistry monographs. In this edition, nearly 200 graph-theoretical matrices are included.This sec