scholarly journals Asymptotic Rational Approximation To Pi: Solution of an "Unsolved Problem'' Posed By Herbert Wilf

2010 ◽  
Vol DMTCS Proceedings vol. AM,... (Proceedings) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Daniel Ward

International audience The webpage of Herbert Wilf describes eight Unsolved Problems. Here, we completely resolve the third of these eight problems. The task seems innocent: find the first term of the asymptotic behavior of the coefficients of an ordinary generating function, whose coefficients naturally yield rational approximations to $\pi$. Upon closer examination, however, the analysis is fraught with difficulties. For instance, the function is the composition of three functions, but the innermost function has a non-zero constant term, so many standard techniques for analyzing function compositions will completely fail. Additionally, the signs of the coefficients are neither all positive, nor alternating in a regular manner. The generating function involves both a square root and an arctangent. The complex-valued square root and arctangent functions each rely on complex logarithms, which are multivalued and fundamentally depend on branch cuts. These multiple values and branch cuts make the function extremely tedious to visualize using Maple. We provide a complete asymptotic analysis of the coefficients of Wilf's generating function. The asymptotic expansion is naturally additive (not multiplicative); each term of the expansion contains oscillations, which we precisely characterize. The proofs rely on complex analysis, in particular, singularity analysis (which, in turn, rely on a Hankel contour and transfer theorems).

2012 ◽  
Vol DMTCS Proceedings vol. AR,... (Proceedings) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sami Assaf ◽  
Persi Diaconis ◽  
Kannan Soundararajan

International audience The well-known Gilbert-Shannon-Reeds model for riffle shuffles assumes that the cards are initially cut `about in half' and then riffled together. We analyze a natural variant where the initial cut is biased. Extending results of Fulman (1998), we show a sharp cutoff in separation and L-infinity distances. This analysis is possible due to the close connection between shuffling and quasisymmetric functions along with some complex analysis of a generating function. Le modèle de Gilbert-Shannon-Reeds pour mélange de cartes suppose que les cartes sont d'abord coupées environ de moitié, puis intercalées ensemble. Nous analysons une variante naturelle, où la coupe initiale est biaisée. En proposant une une extension des résultats de Fulman (1998), nous montrons une forte coupure dans les distances de séparation et à l'infinité L. Cette analyse est possible grâce à l'étroite relation entre brassage et fonctions quasi-symétriques.


2008 ◽  
Vol DMTCS Proceedings vol. AI,... (Proceedings) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wojciech Szpankowski

International audience Analytic information theory aims at studying problems of information theory using analytic techniques of computer science and combinatorics. Following Hadamard's precept, these problems are tackled by complex analysis methods such as generating functions, Mellin transform, Fourier series, saddle point method, analytic poissonization and depoissonization, and singularity analysis. This approach lies at the crossroad of computer science and information theory. In this survey we concentrate on one facet of information theory (i.e., source coding better known as data compression), namely the $\textit{redundancy rate}$ problem. The redundancy rate problem determines by how much the actual code length exceeds the optimal code length. We further restrict our interest to the $\textit{average}$ redundancy for $\textit{known}$ sources, that is, when statistics of information sources are known. We present precise analyses of three types of lossless data compression schemes, namely fixed-to-variable (FV) length codes, variable-to-fixed (VF) length codes, and variable-to-variable (VV) length codes. In particular, we investigate average redundancy of Huffman, Tunstall, and Khodak codes. These codes have succinct representations as $\textit{trees}$, either as coding or parsing trees, and we analyze here some of their parameters (e.g., the average path from the root to a leaf).


2013 ◽  
Vol DMTCS Proceedings vol. AS,... (Proceedings) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Melczer ◽  
Marni Mishna

International audience We provide exact and asymptotic counting formulas for five singular lattice path models in the quarter plane. Furthermore, we prove that these models have a non D-finite generating function. Nous présentons des résultats énumératifs pour les cinq modèles de marche dans le quart de plan dites "singulière''. Nous prouvons que ces modèles sont non-holonomes.


2014 ◽  
Vol Vol. 16 no. 1 (Combinatorics) ◽  
Author(s):  
Toufik Mansour ◽  
Mark Shattuck ◽  
Mark Wilson

Combinatorics International audience A composition is a sequence of positive integers, called parts, having a fixed sum. By an m-congruence succession, we will mean a pair of adjacent parts x and y within a composition such that x=y(modm). Here, we consider the problem of counting the compositions of size n according to the number of m-congruence successions, extending recent results concerning successions on subsets and permutations. A general formula is obtained, which reduces in the limiting case to the known generating function formula for the number of Carlitz compositions. Special attention is paid to the case m=2, where further enumerative results may be obtained by means of combinatorial arguments. Finally, an asymptotic estimate is provided for the number of compositions of size n having no m-congruence successions.


2007 ◽  
Vol DMTCS Proceedings vol. AH,... (Proceedings) ◽  
Author(s):  
Frédérique Bassino ◽  
Julien Clément ◽  
J. Fayolle ◽  
P. Nicodème

International audience In this paper, we give the multivariate generating function counting texts according to their length and to the number of occurrences of words from a finite set. The application of the inclusion-exclusion principle to word counting due to Goulden and Jackson (1979, 1983) is used to derive the result. Unlike some other techniques which suppose that the set of words is reduced (<i>i..e.</i>, where no two words are factor of one another), the finite set can be chosen arbitrarily. Noonan and Zeilberger (1999) already provided a MAPLE package treating the non-reduced case, without giving an expression of the generating function or a detailed proof. We give a complete proof validating the use of the inclusion-exclusion principle and compare the complexity of the method proposed here with the one using automata for solving the problem.


2015 ◽  
Vol DMTCS Proceedings, 27th... (Proceedings) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lenny Tevlin

International audience This paper contains two results. First, I propose a $q$-generalization of a certain sequence of positive integers, related to Catalan numbers, introduced by Zeilberger, see Lassalle (2010). These $q$-integers are palindromic polynomials in $q$ with positive integer coefficients. The positivity depends on the positivity of a certain difference of products of $q$-binomial coefficients.To this end, I introduce a new inversion/major statistics on lattice walks. The difference in $q$-binomial coefficients is then seen as a generating function of weighted walks that remain in the upper half-plan. Cet document contient deux résultats. Tout d’abord, je vous propose un $q$-generalization d’une certaine séquence de nombres entiers positifs, liés à nombres de Catalan, introduites par Zeilberger (Lassalle, 2010). Ces $q$-integers sont des polynômes palindromiques à $q$ à coefficients entiers positifs. La positivité dépend de la positivité d’une certaine différence de produits de $q$-coefficients binomial.Pour ce faire, je vous présente une nouvelle inversion/major index sur les chemins du réseau. La différence de $q$-binomial coefficients est alors considérée comme une fonction de génération de trajets pondérés qui restent dans le demi-plan supérieur.


2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 1057-1086 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER J. GRABNER ◽  
ARNOLD KNOPFMACHER ◽  
STEPHAN WAGNER

We consider statistical properties of random integer partitions. In order to compute means, variances and higher moments of various partition statistics, one often has to study generating functions of the form P(x)F(x), where P(x) is the generating function for the number of partitions. In this paper, we show how asymptotic expansions can be obtained in a quasi-automatic way from expansions of F(x) around x = 1, which parallels the classical singularity analysis of Flajolet and Odlyzko in many ways. Numerous examples from the literature, as well as some new statistics, are treated via this methodology. In addition, we show how to compute further terms in the asymptotic expansions of previously studied partition statistics.


2020 ◽  
Vol DMTCS Proceedings, 28th... ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Biane ◽  
Matthieu Josuat-Vergès

International audience It is known that the number of minimal factorizations of the long cycle in the symmetric group into a product of k cycles of given lengths has a very simple formula: it is nk−1 where n is the rank of the underlying symmetric group and k is the number of factors. In particular, this is nn−2 for transposition factorizations. The goal of this work is to prove a multivariate generalization of this result. As a byproduct, we get a multivariate analog of Postnikov's hook length formula for trees, and a refined enumeration of final chains of noncrossing partitions.


2010 ◽  
Vol DMTCS Proceedings vol. AN,... (Proceedings) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergey Kitaev ◽  
Jeffrey Remmel

International audience A poset is said to be (2+2)-free if it does not contain an induced subposet that is isomorphic to 2+2, the union of two disjoint 2-element chains. In a recent paper, Bousquet-Mélou et al. found, using so called ascent sequences, the generating function for the number of (2+2)-free posets: $P(t)=∑_n≥ 0 ∏_i=1^n ( 1-(1-t)^i)$. We extend this result by finding the generating function for (2+2)-free posets when four statistics are taken into account, one of which is the number of minimal elements in a poset. We also show that in a special case when only minimal elements are of interest, our rather involved generating function can be rewritten in the form $P(t,z)=∑_n,k ≥0 p_n,k t^n z^k = 1+ ∑_n ≥0\frac{zt}{(1-zt)^n+1}∏_i=1^n (1-(1-t)^i)$ where $p_n,k$ equals the number of (2+2)-free posets of size $n$ with $k$ minimal elements. Un poset sera dit (2+2)-libre s'il ne contient aucun sous-poset isomorphe à 2+2, l'union disjointe de deux chaînes à deux éléments. Dans un article récent, Bousquet-Mélou et al. ont trouvé, à l'aide de "suites de montées'', la fonction génératrice des nombres de posets (2+2)-libres: c'est $P(t)=∑_n≥ 0 ∏_i=1^n ( 1-(1-t)^i)$. Nous étendons ce résultat en trouvant la fonction génératrice des posets (\textrm2+2)-libres rendant compte de quatre statistiques, dont le nombre d'éléments minimaux du poset. Nous montrons aussi que lorsqu'on ne s'intéresse qu'au nombre d'éléments minimaux, notre fonction génératrice assez compliquée peut être simplifiée en$P(t,z)=∑_n,k ≥0 p_n,k t^n z^k = 1+ ∑_n ≥0\frac{zt}{(1-zt)^n+1}∏_i=1^n (1-(1-t)^i)$, où $p_n,k$ est le nombre de posets (2+2)-libres de taille $n$ avec $k$ éléments minimaux.


2021 ◽  
Vol Volume 43 - Special... ◽  
Author(s):  
Dandan Chen ◽  
Rong Chen ◽  
Frank Garvan

International audience It is well known that Ramanujan conjectured congruences modulo powers of 5, 7 and 11 for the partition function. These were subsequently proved by Watson (1938) and Atkin (1967). In 2009 Choi, Kang, and Lovejoy proved congruences modulo powers of 5 for the crank parity function. The generating function for the rank parity function is f (q), which is the first example of a mock theta function that Ramanujan mentioned in his last letter to Hardy. We prove congruences modulo powers of 5 for the rank parity function.


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