Automatic Enumeration of Generalized Menage Numbers

I describe an empirical-yet-rigorous, algorithm, based on Riordan's rook polynomials and the so-called C-finite ansatz, fully implemented in the accompanying Maple package (http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/tokhniot/MENAGES ), MENAGES, that reproduces in a few seconds, rigorously-proved enumeration theorems on permutations with restricted positions, previously proved by quite a few illustrious human mathematicians, and that can go far beyond any human attempts.Comment: 15 pages. An extended version of the last of three invited talks given by the author at the 71th Seminaire Lotharingien de Combinatoire, that took place in Bertinoro, Italy, Sept. 16-18, 201

Zero-sum problems for abelian p-groups and covers of the integers by residue classes

Zero-sum problems for abelian groups and covers of the integers by residue classes, are two different active topics initiated by P. Erdos more than 40 years ago and investigated by many researchers separately since then. In an earlier announcement [Electron. Res. Announc. Amer. Math. Soc. 9(2003), 51-60], the author claimed some surprising connections among these seemingly unrelated fascinating areas. In this paper we establish further connections between zero-sum problems for abelian p-groups and covers of the integers. For example, we extend the famous Erdos-Ginzburg-Ziv theorem in the following way: If {a_s(mod n_s)}_{s=1}^k covers each integer either exactly 2q-1 times or exactly 2q times where q is a prime power, then for any c_1,...,c_k in Z/qZ there exists a subset I of {1,...,k} such that sum_{s in I}1/n_s=q and sum_{s in I}c_s=0. Our main theorem in this paper unifies many results in the two realms and also implies an extension of the Alon-Friedland-Kalai result on regular subgraphs

History of Catalan numbers

We give a brief history of Catalan numbers, from their first discovery in the 18th century to modern times. This note will appear as an appendix in Richard Stanley's forthcoming book on Catalan numbers.Comment: 10 page