Davies-trees in infinite combinatorics

This short note, prepared for the Logic Colloquium 2014, provides an introduction to Davies-trees and presents new applications in infinite combinatorics. In particular, we give new and simple proofs to the following theorems of P. Komj\'ath: every $n$-almost disjoint family of sets is essentially disjoint for any $n\in \mathbb N$; $\mathbb R^2$ is the union of $n+2$ clouds if the continuum is at most $\aleph_n$ for any $n\in \mathbb N$; every uncountably chromatic graph contains $n$-connected uncountably chromatic subgraphs for every $n\in \mathbb N$.Comment: 8 pages, prepared for the Logic Colloquium 201

Universal graphs with forbidden subgraphs and algebraic closure

We apply model theoretic methods to the problem of existence of countable universal graphs with finitely many forbidden connected subgraphs. We show that to a large extent the question reduces to one of local finiteness of an associated''algebraic closure'' operator. The main applications are new examples of universal graphs with forbidden subgraphs and simplified treatments of some previously known cases