On Packing Densities of Set Partitions

We study packing densities for set partitions, which is a generalization of packing words. We use results from the literature about packing densities for permutations and words to provide packing densities for set partitions. These results give us most of the packing densities for partitions of the set $\{1,2,3\}$. In the final section we determine the packing density of the set partition $\{\{1,3\},\{2\}\}$.Comment: 12 pages, to appear in the Permutation Patterns edition of the Australasian Journal of Combinatoric

Waiting Time Distribution for the Emergence of Superpatterns

Consider a sequence X_1, X_2,... of i.i.d. uniform random variables taking values in the alphabet set {1,2,...,d}. A k-superpattern is a realization of X_1,...,X_t that contains, as an embedded subsequence, each of the non-order-isomorphic subpatterns of length k. We focus on the non-trivial case of d=k=3 and study the waiting time distribution of tau=inf{t>=7: X_1,...,X_t is a superpattern}Comment: 17 page

Prolific Compositions

Under what circumstances might every extension of a combinatorial structure contain more copies of another one than the original did? This property, which we call prolificity, holds universally in some cases (e.g., finite linear orders) and only trivially in others (e.g., permutations). Integer compositions, or equivalently layered permutations, provide a middle ground. In that setting, there are prolific compositions for a given pattern if and only if that pattern begins and ends with 1. For each pattern, there is an easily constructed automaton that recognises prolific compositions for that pattern. Some instances where there is a unique minimal prolific composition for a pattern are classified