Avoidance of Partitions of a Three-element Set

Klazar defined and studied a notion of pattern avoidance for set partitions, which is an analogue of pattern avoidance for permutations. Sagan considered partitions which avoid a single partition of three elements. We enumerate partitions which avoid any family of partitions of a 3-element set as was done by Simion and Schmidt for permutations. We also consider even and odd set partitions. We provide enumerative results for set partitions restricted by generalized set partition patterns, which are an analogue of the generalized permutation patterns of Babson and Steingr{\'{\i}}msson. Finally, in the spirit of work done by Babson and Steingr{'{\i}}msson, we will show how these generalized partition patterns can be used to describe set partition statistics.Comment: 23 pages, 2 tables, 1 figure, to appear in Advances in Applied Mathematic

Generalised Pattern Avoidance

Recently, Babson and Steingrimsson have introduced generalised permutation patterns that allow the requirement that two adjacent letters in a pattern must be adjacent in the permutation. We consider pattern avoidance for such patterns, and give a complete solution for the number of permutations avoiding any single pattern of length three with exactly one adjacent pair of letters. We also give some results for the number of permutations avoiding two different patterns. Relations are exhibited to several well studied combinatorial structures, such as set partitions, Dyck paths, Motzkin paths, and involutions. Furthermore, a new class of set partitions, called monotone partitions, is defined and shown to be in one-to-one correspondence with non-overlapping partitions

On Multiple Pattern Avoiding Set Partitions

We study classes of set partitions determined by the avoidance of multiple patterns, applying a natural notion of partition containment that has been introduced by Sagan. We say that two sets S and T of patterns are equivalent if for each n, the number of partitions of size n avoiding all the members of S is the same as the number of those that avoid all the members of T. Our goal is to classify the equivalence classes among two-element pattern sets of several general types. First, we focus on pairs of patterns {\sigma,\tau}, where \sigma\ is a pattern of size three with at least two distinct symbols and \tau\ is an arbitrary pattern of size k that avoids \sigma. We show that pattern-pairs of this type determine a small number of equivalence classes; in particular, the classes have on average exponential size in k. We provide a (sub-exponential) upper bound for the number of equivalence classes, and provide an explicit formula for the generating function of all such avoidance classes, showing that in all cases this generating function is rational. Next, we study partitions avoiding a pair of patterns of the form {1212,\tau}, where \tau\ is an arbitrary pattern. Note that partitions avoiding 1212 are exactly the non-crossing partitions. We provide several general equivalence criteria for pattern pairs of this type, and show that these criteria account for all the equivalences observed when \tau\ has size at most six. In the last part of the paper, we perform a full classification of the equivalence classes of all the pairs {\sigma,\tau}, where \sigma\ and \tau\ have size four.Comment: 37 pages. Corrected a typ

Pattern avoidance for set partitions \`a la Klazar

In 2000 Klazar introduced a new notion of pattern avoidance in the context of set partitions of $[n]=\{1,\ldots, n\}$. The purpose of the present paper is to undertake a study of the concept of Wilf-equivalence based on Klazar's notion. We determine all Wilf-equivalences for partitions with exactly two blocks, one of which is a singleton block, and we conjecture that, for $n\geq 4$, these are all the Wilf-equivalences except for those arising from complementation. If $\tau$ is a partition of $[k]$ and $\Pi_n(\tau)$ denotes the set of all partitions of $[n]$ that avoid $\tau$, we establish inequalities between $|\Pi_n(\tau_1)|$ and $|\Pi_n(\tau_2)|$ for several choices of $\tau_1$ and $\tau_2$, and we prove that if $\tau_2$ is the partition of $[k]$ with only one block, then $|\Pi_n(\tau_1)| k$ and all partitions $\tau_1$ of $[k]$ with exactly two blocks. We conjecture that this result holds for all partitions $\tau_1$ of $[k]$. Finally, we enumerate $\Pi_n(\tau)$ for all partitions $\tau$ of $[4]$.Comment: 21 page

ANALYTIC AND TOPOLOGICAL COMBINATORICS OF PARTITION POSETS AND PERMUTATIONS

In this dissertation we first study partition posets and their topology. For each composition c we show that the order complex of the poset of pointed set partitions is a wedge of spheres of the same dimension with the multiplicity given by the number of permutations with descent composition c. Furthermore, the action of the symmetric group on the top homology is isomorphic to the Specht module of a border strip associated to the composition. We also study the filter of pointed set partitions generated by knapsack integer partitions. In the second half of this dissertation we study descent avoidance in permutations. We extend the notion of consecutive pattern avoidance to considering sums over all permutations where each term is a product of weights depending on each consecutive pattern of a fixed length. We study the problem of finding the asymptotics of these sums. Our technique is to extend the spectral method of Ehrenborg, Kitaev and Perry. When the weight depends on the descent pattern, we show how to find the equation determining the spectrum. We give two length 4 applications, and a weighted pattern of length 3 where the associated operator only has one non-zero eigenvalue. Using generating functions we show that the error term in the asymptotic expression is the smallest possible