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Matroid Theory
In combinatorics, a matroid is a structure that abstracts and generalizes the notion of linear independence in vector spaces. There are many equivalent ways to define a matroid Axiomatic system, axiomatically, the most significant being in terms of: independent sets; bases or circuits; rank functions; closure operators; and closed sets or ''flats''. In the language of partially ordered sets, a finite simple matroid is equivalent to a geometric lattice. Matroid theory borrows extensively from the terms used in both linear algebra and graph theory, largely because it is the abstraction of various notions of central importance in these fields. Matroids have found applications in geometry, topology, combinatorial optimization, network theory, and coding theory. Definition There are many Cryptomorphism, equivalent ways to define a (finite) matroid. Independent sets In terms of independence, a finite matroid M is a pair (E, \mathcal), where E is a finite set (called the ''gro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Combinatorics
Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and as an end to obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many applications ranging from logic to statistical physics and from evolutionary biology to computer science. Combinatorics is well known for the breadth of the problems it tackles. Combinatorial problems arise in many areas of pure mathematics, notably in algebra, probability theory, topology, and geometry, as well as in its many application areas. Many combinatorial questions have historically been considered in isolation, giving an ''ad hoc'' solution to a problem arising in some mathematical context. In the later twentieth century, however, powerful and general theoretical methods were developed, making combinatorics into an independent branch of mathematics in its own right. One of the oldest and most accessible parts of combinatorics ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subset
In mathematics, a Set (mathematics), set ''A'' is a subset of a set ''B'' if all Element (mathematics), elements of ''A'' are also elements of ''B''; ''B'' is then a superset of ''A''. It is possible for ''A'' and ''B'' to be equal; if they are unequal, then ''A'' is a proper subset of ''B''. The relationship of one set being a subset of another is called inclusion (or sometimes containment). ''A'' is a subset of ''B'' may also be expressed as ''B'' includes (or contains) ''A'' or ''A'' is included (or contained) in ''B''. A ''k''-subset is a subset with ''k'' elements. When quantified, A \subseteq B is represented as \forall x \left(x \in A \Rightarrow x \in B\right). One can prove the statement A \subseteq B by applying a proof technique known as the element argument:Let sets ''A'' and ''B'' be given. To prove that A \subseteq B, # suppose that ''a'' is a particular but arbitrarily chosen element of A # show that ''a'' is an element of ''B''. The validity of this technique ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernst Steinitz
Ernst Steinitz (13 June 1871 – 29 September 1928) was a German mathematician. Biography Steinitz was born in Laurahütte ( Siemianowice Śląskie), Silesia, Germany (now in Poland), the son of Sigismund Steinitz, a Jewish coal merchant, and his wife Auguste Cohen; he had two brothers. He studied at the University of Breslau and the University of Berlin, receiving his Ph.D. from Breslau in 1894. Subsequently, he took positions at Charlottenburg (now Technische Universität Berlin), Breslau, and the University of Kiel, Germany, where he died in 1928. Steinitz married Martha Steinitz and had one son. Mathematical works Steinitz's 1894 thesis was on the subject of projective configurations; it contained the result that any abstract description of an incidence structure of three lines per point and three points per line could be realized as a configuration of straight lines in the Euclidean plane with the possible exception of one of the lines. His thesis also contains th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saunders Mac Lane
Saunders Mac Lane (August 4, 1909 – April 14, 2005), born Leslie Saunders MacLane, was an American mathematician who co-founded category theory with Samuel Eilenberg. Early life and education Mac Lane was born in Norwich, Connecticut, near where his family lived in Taftville, Connecticut, Taftville.. He was christened "Leslie Saunders MacLane", but "Leslie" fell into disuse because his parents, Donald MacLane and Winifred Saunders, came to dislike it. He began inserting a space into his surname because his first wife found it difficult to type the name without a space. He was the eldest of three brothers; one of his brothers, Gerald MacLane, also became a mathematics professor at Rice University and Purdue University. Another sister died as a baby. His father and grandfather were both ministers; his grandfather had been a Presbyterian, but was kicked out of the church for believing in evolution, and his father was a Congregational church, Congregationalist. His mother, Winifre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Power Set
In mathematics, the power set (or powerset) of a set is the set of all subsets of , including the empty set and itself. In axiomatic set theory (as developed, for example, in the ZFC axioms), the existence of the power set of any set is postulated by the axiom of power set. The powerset of is variously denoted as , , , \mathbb(S), or . Any subset of is called a ''family of sets'' over . Example If is the set , then all the subsets of are * (also denoted \varnothing or \empty, the empty set or the null set) * * * * * * * and hence the power set of is . Properties If is a finite set with the cardinality (i.e., the number of all elements in the set is ), then the number of all the subsets of is . This fact as well as the reason of the notation denoting the power set are demonstrated in the below. : An indicator function or a characteristic function of a subset of a set with the cardinality is a function from to the two-element set , denoted as , ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closure Operator
In mathematics, a closure operator on a Set (mathematics), set ''S'' is a Function (mathematics), function \operatorname: \mathcal(S)\rightarrow \mathcal(S) from the power set of ''S'' to itself that satisfies the following conditions for all sets X,Y\subseteq S : Closure operators are determined by their closed sets, i.e., by the sets of the form cl(''X''), since the closure cl(''X'') of a set ''X'' is the smallest closed set containing ''X''. Such families of "closed sets" are sometimes called closure systems or "Moore families". A set together with a closure operator on it is sometimes called a closure space. Closure operators are also called "hull operators", which prevents confusion with the "closure operators" studied in point-set topology, topology. History E. H. Moore studied closure operators in his 1910 ''Introduction to a form of general analysis'', whereas the concept of the closure of a subset originated in the work of Frigyes Riesz in connection with topological sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monotonic Function
In mathematics, a monotonic function (or monotone function) is a function between ordered sets that preserves or reverses the given order. This concept first arose in calculus, and was later generalized to the more abstract setting of order theory. In calculus and analysis In calculus, a function f defined on a subset of the real numbers with real values is called ''monotonic'' if it is either entirely non-decreasing, or entirely non-increasing. That is, as per Fig. 1, a function that increases monotonically does not exclusively have to increase, it simply must not decrease. A function is termed ''monotonically increasing'' (also ''increasing'' or ''non-decreasing'') if for all x and y such that x \leq y one has f\!\left(x\right) \leq f\!\left(y\right), so f preserves the order (see Figure 1). Likewise, a function is called ''monotonically decreasing'' (also ''decreasing'' or ''non-increasing'') if, whenever x \leq y, then f\!\left(x\right) \geq f\!\left(y\right), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Submodular Function
In mathematics, a submodular set function (also known as a submodular function) is a set function that, informally, describes the relationship between a set of inputs and an output, where adding more of one input has a decreasing additional benefit ( diminishing returns). The natural diminishing returns property which makes them suitable for many applications, including approximation algorithms, game theory (as functions modeling user preferences) and electrical networks. Recently, submodular functions have also found utility in several real world problems in machine learning and artificial intelligence, including automatic summarization, multi-document summarization, feature selection, active learning, sensor placement, image collection summarization and many other domains. Definition If \Omega is a finite set, a submodular function is a set function f:2^\rightarrow \mathbb, where 2^\Omega denotes the power set of \Omega, which satisfies one of the following equivalent conditi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Integer
An integer is the number zero (0), a positive natural number (1, 2, 3, ...), or the negation of a positive natural number (−1, −2, −3, ...). The negations or additive inverses of the positive natural numbers are referred to as negative integers. The set (mathematics), set of all integers is often denoted by the boldface or blackboard bold The set of natural numbers \mathbb is a subset of \mathbb, which in turn is a subset of the set of all rational numbers \mathbb, itself a subset of the real numbers \mathbb. Like the set of natural numbers, the set of integers \mathbb is Countable set, countably infinite. An integer may be regarded as a real number that can be written without a fraction, fractional component. For example, 21, 4, 0, and −2048 are integers, while 9.75, , 5/4, and Square root of 2, are not. The integers form the smallest Group (mathematics), group and the smallest ring (mathematics), ring containing the natural numbers. In algebraic number theory, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matroid Rank
In the mathematical theory of matroids, the rank of a matroid is the maximum size of an independent set in the matroid. The rank of a subset ''S'' of elements of the matroid is, similarly, the maximum size of an independent subset of ''S'', and the rank function of the matroid maps sets of elements to their ranks. The rank function is one of the fundamental concepts of matroid theory via which matroids may be axiomatized. Matroid rank functions form an important subclass of the submodular set functions. The rank functions of matroids defined from certain other types of mathematical object such as undirected graphs, matrices, and field extensions are important within the study of those objects. Examples In all examples, ''E'' is the base set of the matroid, and ''B'' is some subset of ''E''. * Let ''M'' be the free matroid, where the independent sets are all subsets of ''E''. Then the rank function of ''M'' is simply: ''r''(''B'') = , ''B'', . * Let ''M'' be a uniform mat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basis (linear Algebra)
In mathematics, a Set (mathematics), set of elements of a vector space is called a basis (: bases) if every element of can be written in a unique way as a finite linear combination of elements of . The coefficients of this linear combination are referred to as components or coordinates of the vector with respect to . The elements of a basis are called . Equivalently, a set is a basis if its elements are linearly independent and every element of is a linear combination of elements of . In other words, a basis is a linearly independent spanning set. A vector space can have several bases; however all the bases have the same number of elements, called the dimension (vector space), dimension of the vector space. This article deals mainly with finite-dimensional vector spaces. However, many of the principles are also valid for infinite-dimensional vector spaces. Basis vectors find applications in the study of crystal structures and frame of reference, frames of reference. De ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graphic Matroid
In the mathematical theory of Matroid theory, matroids, a graphic matroid (also called a cycle matroid or polygon matroid) is a matroid whose independent sets are the tree (graph theory), forests in a given finite undirected graph. The dual matroids of graphic matroids are called co-graphic matroids or bond matroids. A matroid that is both graphic and co-graphic is sometimes called a planar matroid (but this should not be confused with matroids of rank 3, which generalize planar point configurations); these are exactly the graphic matroids formed from planar graphs. Definition A matroid may be defined as a family of finite sets (called the "independent sets" of the matroid) that is closed under subsets and that satisfies the "exchange property": if sets A and B are both independent, and A is larger than B, then there is an element x\in A\setminus B such that B\cup\ remains independent. If G is an undirected graph, and F is the family of sets of edges that form forests in G, then ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
