The number of directed k-convex polyominoes

We present a new method to obtain the generating functions for directed convex polyominoes according to several different statistics including: width, height, size of last column/row and number of corners. This method can be used to study different families of directed convex polyominoes: symmetric polyominoes, parallelogram polyominoes. In this paper, we apply our method to determine the generating function for directed k-convex polyominoes. We show it is a rational function and we study its asymptotic behavior

Gr\"obner bases of balanced polyominoes

We introduce balanced polyominoes and show that their ideal of inner minors is a prime ideal and has a quadratic Gr\"obner basis with respect to any monomial order, and we show that any row or column convex and any tree-like polyomino is simple and balanced

Polyominoes Simulating Arbitrary-Neighborhood Zippers and Tilings

This paper provides a bridge between the classical tiling theory and the complex neighborhood self-assembling situations that exist in practice. The neighborhood of a position in the plane is the set of coordinates which are considered adjacent to it. This includes classical neighborhoods of size four, as well as arbitrarily complex neighborhoods. A generalized tile system consists of a set of tiles, a neighborhood, and a relation which dictates which are the "admissible" neighboring tiles of a given tile. Thus, in correctly formed assemblies, tiles are assigned positions of the plane in accordance to this relation. We prove that any validly tiled path defined in a given but arbitrary neighborhood (a zipper) can be simulated by a simple "ribbon" of microtiles. A ribbon is a special kind of polyomino, consisting of a non-self-crossing sequence of tiles on the plane, in which successive tiles stick along their adjacent edge. Finally, we extend this construction to the case of traditional tilings, proving that we can simulate arbitrary-neighborhood tilings by simple-neighborhood tilings, while preserving some of their essential properties.Comment: Submitted to Theoretical Computer Scienc

A closed formula for the number of convex permutominoes

In this paper we determine a closed formula for the number of convex permutominoes of size n. We reach this goal by providing a recursive generation of all convex permutominoes of size n+1 from the objects of size n, according to the ECO method, and then translating this construction into a system of functional equations satisfied by the generating function of convex permutominoes. As a consequence we easily obtain also the enumeration of some classes of convex polyominoes, including stack and directed convex permutominoes

Covariogram of non-convex sets

The covariogram of a compact set A contained in R^n is the function that to each x in R^n associates the volume of A intersected with (A+x). Recently it has been proved that the covariogram determines any planar convex body, in the class of all convex bodies. We extend the class of sets in which a planar convex body is determined by its covariogram. Moreover, we prove that there is no pair of non-congruent planar polyominoes consisting of less than 9 points that have equal discrete covariogram.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication on Mathematik