Lectures on Advances in Combinatorics

Rudolf Ahlswede, Professor emeritus of Bielefeld University, has been engaged in research projects to advance a ''General Theory of Information Transfer'' since his retirement in 2003. He is one of the leading experts in combinatorics, number theory and information theory and has been awarded international prizes and honours, for instance a Honorary Doctorate of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2001, the Humboldt-Japan Society Senior Scientist Award 1998/99, a Paul Erdös Monetary Award (with Levon Khachatrian) in 1996, the Claude-Elwood-Shannon-Award 2006 of the IEEE Information Theory Society. Since 2004 he has been a member of the European Academy of Sciences. Vladimir Blinovsky has been based at the Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow since 1981. His scientific interests include combinatorics, coding theory, probability theory, large deviations, and information theory, subjects he has taught in Russia, France, the USA, and Germany.

The lectures concentrate on highlights in Combinatorial (ChaptersII and III) and Number Theoretical (ChapterIV) Extremal Theory, in particular on the solution of famous problems which were open for many decades. However, the organization of the lectures in six chapters does neither follow the historic developments nor the connections between ideas in several cases. With the speci?ed auxiliary results in ChapterI on Probability Theory, Graph Theory, etc., all chapters can be read and taught independently of one another. In addition to the 16 lectures organized in 6 chapters of the main part of the book, there is supplementary material for most of them in the Appendix. In parti- lar, there are applications and further exercises, research problems, conjectures, and even research programs. The following books and reports [B97], [ACDKPSWZ00], [A01], and [ABCABDM06], mostly of the authors, are frequently cited in this book, especially in the Appendix, and we therefore mark them by short labels as [B], [N], [E], and [G]. We emphasize that there are also "Exercises" in [B], a "Problem Section" with contributions by several authors on pages 1063-1105 of [G], which are often of a combinatorial nature, and "Problems and Conjectures" on pages 172-173 of [E].

This volume features lectures that focus on basis extremal problems and inequalities--two sides of the same coin. Additionally, the lectures help prepare approaches and methods useful and applicable in a broader mathematical context.

Written by specialists of the subject

Conventions and Auxiliary Results.- Intersection and Diametric Problems.- Covering, Packing, and List Codes.- Higher Level and Dimension Constrained Extremal Problems.- LYM-Related AZ-Identities, Antichain Splittings and Correlation Inequalities.- Basic Problems from Combinatorial Number Theory.