European Journal of Combinatorics Index, Volume 27

BACKGROUND: Diabetes is an inflammatory condition associated with iron abnormalities and increased oxidative damage. We aimed to investigate how diabetes affects the interrelationships between these pathogenic mechanisms. METHODS: Glycaemic control, serum iron, proteins involved in iron homeostasis, global antioxidant capacity and levels of antioxidants and peroxidation products were measured in 39 type 1 and 67 type 2 diabetic patients and 100 control subjects. RESULTS: Although serum iron was lower in diabetes, serum ferritin was elevated in type 2 diabetes (p = 0.02). This increase was not related to inflammation (C-reactive protein) but inversely correlated with soluble transferrin receptors (r = - 0.38, p = 0.002). Haptoglobin was higher in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes (p &lt; 0.001) and haemopexin was higher in type 2 diabetes (p &lt; 0.001). The relation between C-reactive protein and haemopexin was lost in type 2 diabetes (r = 0.15, p = 0.27 vs r = 0.63, p &lt; 0.001 in type 1 diabetes and r = 0.36, p = 0.001 in controls). Haemopexin levels were independently determined by triacylglycerol (R(2) = 0.43) and the diabetic state (R(2) = 0.13). Regarding oxidative stress status, lower antioxidant concentrations were found for retinol and uric acid in type 1 diabetes, alpha-tocopherol and ascorbate in type 2 diabetes and protein thiols in both types. These decreases were partially explained by metabolic-, inflammatory- and iron alterations. An additional independent effect of the diabetic state on the oxidative stress status could be identified (R(2) = 0.5-0.14). CONCLUSIONS: Circulating proteins, body iron stores, inflammation, oxidative stress and their interrelationships are abnormal in patients with diabetes and differ between type 1 and type 2 diabetes</p

Distance-regular graphs

This is a survey of distance-regular graphs. We present an introduction to distance-regular graphs for the reader who is unfamiliar with the subject, and then give an overview of some developments in the area of distance-regular graphs since the monograph 'BCN' [Brouwer, A.E., Cohen, A.M., Neumaier, A., Distance-Regular Graphs, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1989] was written.Comment: 156 page

On regular induced subgraphs of edge-regular graphs.

PhD Thesis.We study edge-regular graphs and their regular induced subgraphs. More precisely, we are interested in vertex partitions of edge-regular graphs into two parts, for which one or both of the parts induce a regular subgraph. We can divide the thesis into three major components, where we focus on di erent subclasses of edge-regular graphs and partitions with varying properties. First we consider regular induced subgraphs of strongly regular graphs. We determine new upper and lower bounds on the order of a d-regular induced subgraph of a strongly regular graph with given parameters. We prove our bounds are at least as good as some well-known bounds for the order of regular induced subgraphs of regular graphs. Further, we nd that our bounds are often better than these well-known bounds. Secondly, we investigate edge-regular graphs which have a partition into a clique and a regular induced subgraph. We rst explore some fundamental properties of these graphs and their parameters. Then we construct new graphs having partitions with previously unseen properties, answering questions found in the literature. Finally, we examine partitions of the Johnson graphs J(n; 3) into two regular induced subgraphs. We use the combinatorial structure and spectrum of J(n; 3) to investigate the local structure of particular partitions in J(n; 3). To study these problems, we use algebraic and computational tools in conjunction with combinatorial arguments. A manual for AGT, a software package developed and used during this thesis, is found in the appendix

Krein parameters and antipodal tight graphs with diameter 3 and 4

AbstractWe determine which Krein parameters of nonbipartite antipodal distance-regular graphs of diameter 3 and 4 can vanish, and give combinatorial interpretations of their vanishing. We also study tight distance-regular graphs of diameter 3 and 4. In the case of diameter 3, tight graphs are precisely the Taylor graphs. In the case of antipodal distance-regular graphs of diameter 4, tight graphs are precisely the graphs for which the Krein parameter q114 vanishes

The Distribution of Ownership in an Apartment Ownership or Condominium Scheme

This is a preprint of an article that appeared in: 2002 Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, pp. 101-37

Spectral Aspects of Cocliques in Graphs

This thesis considers spectral approaches to finding maximum cocliques in graphs. We focus on the relation between the eigenspaces of a graph and the size and location of its maximum cocliques. Our main result concerns the computational problem of finding the size of a maximum coclique in a graph. This problem is known to be NP-Hard for general graphs. Recently, Codenotti et al. showed that computing the size of a maximum coclique is still NP-Hard if we restrict to the class of circulant graphs. We take an alternative approach to this result using quotient graphs and coding theory. We apply our method to show that computing the size of a maximum coclique is NP-Hard for the class of Cayley graphs for the groups $\mathbb{Z}_p^n$ where $p$ is any fixed prime. Cocliques are closely related to equitable partitions of a graph, and to parallel faces of the eigenpolytopes of a graph. We develop this connection and give a relation between the existence of quadratic polynomials that vanish on the vertices of an eigenpolytope of a graph, and the existence of elements in the null space of the Veronese matrix. This gives a us a tool for finding equitable partitions of a graph, and proving the non-existence of equitable partitions. For distance-regular graphs we exploit the algebraic structure of association schemes to derive an explicit formula for the rank of the Veronese matrix. We apply this machinery to show that there are strongly regular graphs whose $\tau$-eigenpolytopes are not prismoids. We also present several partial results on cocliques and graph spectra. We develop a linear programming approach to the problem of finding weightings of the adjacency matrix of a graph that meets the inertia bound with equality, and apply our technique to various families of Cayley graphs. Towards characterizing the maximum cocliques of the folded-cube graphs, we find a class of large facets of the least eigenpolytope of a folded cube, and show how they correspond to the structure of the graph. Finally, we consider equitable partitions with additional structural constraints, namely that both parts are convex subgraphs. We show that Latin square graphs cannot be partitioned into a coclique and a convex subgraph

Graph Coverings with Few Eigenvalues or No Short Cycles

This thesis addresses the extent of the covering graph construction. How much must a cover X resemble the graph Y that it covers? How much can X deviate from Y? The main statistics of X and Y which we will measure are their regularity, the spectra of their adjacency matrices, and the length of their shortest cycles. These statistics are highly interdependent and the main contribution of this thesis is to advance our understanding of this interdependence. We will see theorems that characterize the regularity of certain covering graphs in terms of the number of distinct eigenvalues of their adjacency matrices. We will see old examples of covers whose lack of short cycles is equivalent to the concentration of their spectra on few points, and new examples that indicate certain limits to this equivalence in a more general setting. We will see connections to many combinatorial objects such as regular maps, symmetric and divisible designs, equiangular lines, distance-regular graphs, perfect codes, and more. Our main tools will come from algebraic graph theory and representation theory. Additional motivation will come from topological graph theory, finite geometry, and algebraic topology