Reconstruction of permutations distorted by single transposition errors

The reconstruction problem for permutations on $n$ elements from their erroneous patterns which are distorted by transpositions is presented in this paper. It is shown that for any $n \geq 3$ an unknown permutation is uniquely reconstructible from 4 distinct permutations at transposition distance at most one from the unknown permutation. The {\it transposition distance} between two permutations is defined as the least number of transpositions needed to transform one into the other. The proposed approach is based on the investigation of structural properties of a corresponding Cayley graph. In the case of at most two transposition errors it is shown that $\frac32(n-2)(n+1)$ erroneous patterns are required in order to reconstruct an unknown permutation. Similar results are obtained for two particular cases when permutations are distorted by given transpositions. These results confirm some bounds for regular graphs which are also presented in this paper.Comment: 5 pages, Report of paper presented at ISIT-200

Growth rates of permutation classes: categorization up to the uncountability threshold

In the antecedent paper to this it was established that there is an algebraic number $\xi\approx 2.30522$ such that while there are uncountably many growth rates of permutation classes arbitrarily close to $\xi$, there are only countably many less than $\xi$. Here we provide a complete characterization of the growth rates less than $\xi$. In particular, this classification establishes that $\xi$ is the least accumulation point from above of growth rates and that all growth rates less than or equal to $\xi$ are achieved by finitely based classes. A significant part of this classification is achieved via a reconstruction result for sum indecomposable permutations. We conclude by refuting a suggestion of Klazar, showing that $\xi$ is an accumulation point from above of growth rates of finitely based permutation classes.Comment: To appear in Israel J. Mat

Metric intersection problems in Cayley graphs and the Stirling recursion

In the symmetric group Sym(n) with n at least 5 let H be a conjugacy class of elements of order 2 and let \Gamma be the Cayley graph whose vertex set is the group G generated by H (so G is Sym(n) or Alt(n)) and whose edge set is determined by H. We are interested in the metric structure of this graph. In particular, for g\in G let B_{r}(g) be the metric ball in \Gamma of radius r and centre g. We show that the intersection numbers \Phi(\Gamma; r, g):=|\,B_{r}(e)\,\cap\,B_{r}(g)\,| are generalized Stirling functions in n and r. The results are motivated by the study of error graphs and related reconstruction problems.Comment: 18 page

Error Graphs and the Reconstruction of Elements in Groups

Packing and covering problems for metric spaces, and graphs in particular, are of essential interest in combinatorics and coding theory. They are formulated in terms of metric balls of vertices. We consider a new problem in graph theory which is also based on the consideration of metric balls of vertices, but which is distinct from the traditional packing and covering problems. This problem is motivated by applications in information transmission when redundancy of messages is not sufficient for their exact reconstruction, and applications in computational biology when one wishes to restore an evolutionary process. It can be defined as the reconstruction, or identification, of an unknown vertex in a given graph from a minimal number of vertices (erroneous or distorted patterns) in a metric ball of a given radius r around the unknown vertex. For this problem it is required to find minimum restrictions for such a reconstruction to be possible and also to find efficient reconstruction algorithms under such minimal restrictions. In this paper we define error graphs and investigate their basic properties. A particular class of error graphs occurs when the vertices of the graph are the elements of a group, and when the path metric is determined by a suitable set of group elements. These are the undirected Cayley graphs. Of particular interest is the transposition Cayley graph on the symmetric group which occurs in connection with the analysis of transpositional mutations in molecular biology. We obtain a complete solution of the above problems for the transposition Cayley graph on the symmetric group.Comment: Journal of Combinatorial Theory A 200

Inverse monoids of partial graph automorphisms

A partial automorphism of a finite graph is an isomorphism between its vertex induced subgraphs. The set of all partial automorphisms of a given finite graph forms an inverse monoid under composition (of partial maps). We describe the algebraic structure of such inverse monoids by the means of the standard tools of inverse semigroup theory, namely Green's relations and some properties of the natural partial order, and give a characterization of inverse monoids which arise as inverse monoids of partial graph automorphisms. We extend our results to digraphs and edge-colored digraphs as well

Network Inference from Co-Occurrences

The recovery of network structure from experimental data is a basic and fundamental problem. Unfortunately, experimental data often do not directly reveal structure due to inherent limitations such as imprecision in timing or other observation mechanisms. We consider the problem of inferring network structure in the form of a directed graph from co-occurrence observations. Each observation arises from a transmission made over the network and indicates which vertices carry the transmission without explicitly conveying their order in the path. Without order information, there are an exponential number of feasible graphs which agree with the observed data equally well. Yet, the basic physical principles underlying most networks strongly suggest that all feasible graphs are not equally likely. In particular, vertices that co-occur in many observations are probably closely connected. Previous approaches to this problem are based on ad hoc heuristics. We model the experimental observations as independent realizations of a random walk on the underlying graph, subjected to a random permutation which accounts for the lack of order information. Treating the permutations as missing data, we derive an exact expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm for estimating the random walk parameters. For long transmission paths the exact E-step may be computationally intractable, so we also describe an efficient Monte Carlo EM (MCEM) algorithm and derive conditions which ensure convergence of the MCEM algorithm with high probability. Simulations and experiments with Internet measurements demonstrate the promise of this approach.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. An extended version is available as University of Wisconsin Technical Report ECE-06-

Bijective enumeration of some colored permutations given by the product of two long cycles

Let $\gamma_n$ be the permutation on $n$ symbols defined by $\gamma_n = (1\ 2\...\ n)$. We are interested in an enumerative problem on colored permutations, that is permutations$\beta$of$n$in which the numbers from 1 to$n$are colored with$p$colors such that two elements in a same cycle have the same color. We show that the proportion of colored permutations such that$\gamma_n \beta^{-1}$is a long cycle is given by the very simple ratio$\frac{1}{n- p+1}$. Our proof is bijective and uses combinatorial objects such as partitioned hypermaps and thorn trees. This formula is actually equivalent to the proportionality of the number of long cycles$\alpha$such that$\gamma_n\alpha$has$m$cycles and Stirling numbers of size$n+1$, an unexpected connection previously found by several authors by means of algebraic methods. Moreover, our bijection allows us to refine the latter result with the cycle type of the permutations.Comment: 22 pages. Version 1 is a short version of 12 pages, entitled "Linear coefficients of Kerov's polynomials: bijective proof and refinement of Zagier's result", published in DMTCS proceedings of FPSAC 2010, AN, 713-72