Extremal Lipschitz functions in the deviation inequalities from the mean

We obtain an optimal deviation from the mean upper bound \begin{equation} D(x)\=\sup_{f\in \F}\mu\{f-\E_{\mu} f\geq x\},\qquad\ \text{for}\ x\in\R\label{abstr} \end{equation} where \F is the class of the integrable, Lipschitz functions on probability metric (product) spaces. As corollaries we get exact solutions of \eqref{abstr} for Euclidean unit sphere $S^{n-1}$ with a geodesic distance and a normalized Haar measure, for $\R^n$ equipped with a Gaussian measure and for the multidimensional cube, rectangle, torus or Diamond graph equipped with uniform measure and Hamming distance. We also prove that in general probability metric spaces the $\sup$ in \eqref{abstr} is achieved on a family of distance functions.Comment: 7 page

A Bijection Between the Recurrent Configurations of a Hereditary Chip-Firing Model and Spanning Trees

Hereditary chip-firing models generalize the Abelian sandpile model and the cluster firing model to an exponential family of games induced by covers of the vertex set. This generalization retains some desirable properties, e.g. stabilization is independent of firings chosen and each chip-firing equivalence class contains a unique recurrent configuration. In this paper we present an explicit bijection between the recurrent configurations of a hereditary chip-firing model on a graph and its spanning trees.Comment: 13 page

Using homological duality in consecutive pattern avoidance

Using the approach suggested in [arXiv:1002.2761] we present below a sufficient condition guaranteeing that two collections of patterns of permutations have the same exponential generating functions for the number of permutations avoiding elements of these collections as consecutive patterns. In short, the coincidence of the latter generating functions is guaranteed by a length-preserving bijection of patterns in these collections which is identical on the overlappings of pairs of patterns where the overlappings are considered as unordered sets. Our proof is based on a direct algorithm for the computation of the inverse generating functions. As an application we present a large class of patterns where this algorithm is fast and, in particular, allows to obtain a linear ordinary differential equation with polynomial coefficients satisfied by the inverse generating function.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur

The structure of the consecutive pattern poset

The consecutive pattern poset is the infinite partially ordered set of all permutations where $\sigma\le\tau$ if $\tau$ has a subsequence of adjacent entries in the same relative order as the entries of $\sigma$. We study the structure of the intervals in this poset from topological, poset-theoretic, and enumerative perspectives. In particular, we prove that all intervals are rank-unimodal and strongly Sperner, and we characterize disconnected and shellable intervals. We also show that most intervals are not shellable and have M\"obius function equal to zero.Comment: 29 pages, 7 figures. To appear in IMR