Handbook of Enumerative Combinatorics (Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications) - Hardcover

"Mathematical handbooks are among the most essential library resources, providing compilations of formulas, tables, graphs, etc. Traditional handbooks speak equally to experts and casual users of mathematics. Other handbooks, such as the current work, are really encyclopedic compendiums of survey articles primarily addressing readers who make mathematics their main business. They supplement systematic monographs that develop subjects methodically but require extreme reader commitment and journal literature that provides quick access to specific results for those with prerequisite knowledge. Researchers will benefit from rapid authoritative citations to newer or lesser-known results. Students, undergraduate and graduate, will find accessible, systematic snapshots of whole subjects, helping them discover what they most wish to learn and, equally, what they will then need to learn on the way. Enumerative combinatorics means counting problems, so that subject begins classically with permutations and combinations but is active now with connections to probability, graph theory, statistical mechanics, geometry, representation theory, analysis, and computer science. Chapters here divide between general counting methods, both exact and approximate, and special classes of objects for counting via any suitable means. The volume, part of the 'Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications' series, is well edited by Bóna (Univ. of Florida), who successfully pools the expertise of leaders in the field. Summing up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals/practitioners."
―D. V. Feldman, University of New Hampshire, Durham, USA, for CHOICE, March 2016

"I cannot think of any topic that I would like to have seen presented here that the book omits. The chapters discuss not only methods in the study of enumerative combinatorics, but also objects that lend themselves to study along these lines. ... accessible to a wide audience ... this will clearly be a book that anybody with a serious interest in combinatorics will want to have on his or her bookshelf, and of course it belongs in any self-respecting university library. Having seen firsthand what it takes to edit a handbook like this, I know that Miklós Bóna must have invested a great deal of time and effort in the creation of this volume, as did the authors of the individual chapters. Their efforts have not been in vain; this is a valuable book."
―MAA Reviews, July 2015

Presenting the state of the art, the Handbook of Enumerative Combinatorics brings together the work of today’s most prominent researchers. The contributors survey the methods of combinatorial enumeration along with the most frequent applications of these methods.

This important new work is edited by Miklós Bóna of the University of Florida where he is a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1997. Miklós is the author of four books and more than 65 research articles, including the award-winning Combinatorics of Permutations. Miklós Bóna is an editor-in-chief for the Electronic Journal of Combinatorics and Series Editor of the Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications Series for CRC Press/Chapman and Hall.

The first two chapters provide a comprehensive overview of the most frequently used methods in combinatorial enumeration, including algebraic, geometric, and analytic methods. These chapters survey generating functions, methods from linear algebra, partially ordered sets, polytopes, hyperplane arrangements, and matroids. Subsequent chapters illustrate applications of these methods for counting a wide array of objects.

The contributors for this book represent an international spectrum of researchers with strong histories of results. The chapters are organized so readers advance from the more general ones, namely enumeration methods, towards the more specialized ones.

Topics include coverage of asymptotic normality in enumeration, planar maps, graph enumeration, Young tableaux, unimodality, log-concavity, real zeros, asymptotic normality, trees, generalized Catalan paths, computerized enumeration schemes, enumeration of various graph classes, words, tilings, pattern avoidance, computer algebra, and parking functions.

This book will be beneficial to a wide audience. It will appeal to experts on the topic interested in learning more about the finer points, readers interested in a systematic and organized treatment of the topic, and novices who are new to the field.