Ars Combinatoria
ISSN 0381-7032 (print), 2817-5204 (online)
Ars Combinatoria is the oldest Canadian journal of combinatorics, established in 1976, dedicated to advancing combinatorial mathematics through the publication of high-quality, peer-reviewed research papers. Over the decades, it has built a strong international reputation and continues to serve as a leading platform for significant contributions to the field.
Open Access: The journal follows the Diamond Open Access model—completely free for both authors and readers, with no article processing charges (APCs).
Publication Frequency: From 2024 onward, Ars Combinatoria publishes four issues annually—in March, June, September, and December.
Scope: Publishes research in all areas of combinatorics, including graph theory, design theory, enumeration, algebraic combinatorics, combinatorial optimization and related fields.
Indexing & Abstracting: Indexed in MathSciNet, Zentralblatt MATH, and EBSCO, ensuring wide visibility and scholarly reach.
Rapid Publication: Submissions are processed efficiently, with accepted papers published promptly in the next available issue.
Print & Online Editions: Issues are available in both print and online formats to serve a broad readership.
- Research article
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- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 135
- Pages: 283-298
- Published: 31/10/2017
The harmonic index \(H(G)\) of a graph \(G\) is defined as the sum of the weights of all edges \(uv\) of \(G\), where the weight of \(uv\) is \(\frac{2}{d(u) + d(v)}\), with \(d(u)\) denoting the degree of the vertex \(u\) in \(G\). In this work, we compute the harmonic index of a graph with a cut-vertex and with more than one cut-vertex. As an application, this topological index is computed for Bethe trees and dendrimer trees. Also, the harmonic indices of Fasciagraph and a special type of trees, namely, polytree, are computed.
- Research article
- Full Text
- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 135
- Pages: 265-282
- Published: 31/10/2017
Let \(G^{\sigma}\) be an oriented graph obtained by assigning an orientation \(\sigma\) to the edge set of a simple undirected graph \(G\). Let \(S(G^{\sigma})\) be the skew adjacency matrix of \(G^{\sigma}\). The skew energy of \(G^{\sigma}\) is defined as the sum of the absolute values of all eigenvalues of \(S(G^{\sigma})\). In this paper, we give the skew energy order of a family of digraphs and determine the oriented bicyclic graphs of order \(n \geq 13\) with the first five largest skew energies, which extends the results of the paper [X. Shen, Y. Hou, C. Zhang, Bicyclic digraphs with extremal skew energy, Electron. J. Linear Algebra 23 (2012) 340-355].
- Research article
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- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 135
- Pages: 257-263
- Published: 31/10/2017
Let \(P_n\) denote the \(n\)-th Catalan-Larcombe-French number. Recently, the \(2\)-log-convexity of the Catalan-Larcombe-French sequence was proved by Sun and Wu. Moreover, they also conjectured that the quotient sequence \(\{\frac{P_{n}}{P_{n-1}}\}_{n= 0}^\infty\) of the Catalan-Larcombe-French sequence is log-concave. In this paper, this conjecture is confirmed by utilizing the upper and lower bounds for \(\frac{P_{n}}{P_{n-1}}\) and finding a middle function \(f(n)\).
- Research article
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- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 135
- Pages: 249-256
- Published: 31/10/2017
It is claimed in [13] that the metric dimension of the Möbius ladder \(M_n\) is \(3\) when \(n \not\equiv 2 \pmod{8}\), but it is wrong; we give a counterexample when \(n \equiv 6 \pmod{8}\). In this paper, we not only give the correct metric dimension in this case but also solve the open problem regarding the metric dimension of \(M_n\) when \(n \equiv 2 \pmod{8}\). Moreover, we conclude that \(M_n\) has two subfamilies with constant metric dimensions.
- Research article
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- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 135
- Pages: 243-247
- Published: 31/10/2017
An edge-colored graph \(G\) is (strong) rainbow connected if any two vertices are connected by a (geodesic) path whose edges have distinct colors. The (strong) rainbow connection number of a connected graph \(G\), denoted by \(\mathrm{src}(G)\) (resp. \(\mathrm{rc}(G)\)), is the smallest number of colors that are needed in order to make \(G\) (strong) rainbow connected. The join \(P_m \vee P_n\) of \(P_m\) and \(P_n\) is the graph consisting of \(P_m\cup P_n\), and all edges between every vertex of \(P_m\) and every vertex of \(P_n\), where \(P_m\) (resp. \(P_n\)) is a path of \(m\) (resp. \(n\)) vertices. In this paper, the precise values of \(\mathrm{rc}(P_m \vee P_n)\) and \(\mathrm{src}(P_m \vee P_n)\) are given for any positive integers \(m\) and \(n\).
- Research article
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- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 135
- Pages: 235-242
- Published: 31/10/2017
Let \(MG(i,n)\) be a connected molecular graph without multiple edges on \(n\)vertices whose minimum degree of vertices is \(i\), where \(i \leq i \leq 4\). One of the newest topological indices is the first Geometric-Arithmetic index. In this paper, we determine the graph with the minimum and the maximum value of the first Geometric-Arithmetic index in the family of graphs \(M{G}(i,n)\),\(l\leq i \leq 3\).
- Research article
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- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 135
- Pages: 223-234
- Published: 31/10/2017
Two graphs are said to be Tutte-equivalent if their Tutte polynomials are equal. In this paper, we provide several different constructions for Tutte-equivalent graphs, including some that are not self-complementary but Tutte-equivalent to their complements (the Akiyama-Harary problem) and some “large” Tutte-equivalent graphs obtained from “small” Tutte-equivalent graphs by \(2\)-sum operations.
- Research article
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- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 135
- Pages: 213-221
- Published: 31/10/2017
Let \(s(n, k) = \binom{6k}{3k} \binom{3k}{k} (\binom{3(n-k)}{n-k} / (2n-1) \binom{3n}{n})\). Recently, Guo confirmed a conjecture of \(Z.-W\). Sun by showing that \(s(n, k)\) is an integer for \(k = 0, 1, \ldots, n\). Let \(d = (3n + 2) / \gcd(3n + 2, 2n – 1)\). In this paper, we prove that \(s(n, k)\) is a multiple of the odd part of \(d\) for \(k = 0, 1, \ldots, n\). Furthermore, if \(\gcd(k, n) = 1\), then \(s(n, k)\) is also a multiple of \(n\). We also show that the \(2\)-adic order of \(s(n, k)\) is at least the sum of the digits in the binary expansion of \(3n\).
- Research article
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- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 135
- Pages: 197-211
- Published: 31/10/2017
For any non-trivial abelian group \(A\) under addition, a graph \(G\) is said to be strong \(A\)-magic if there exists a labeling \(f\) of the edges of \(G\) with non-zero elements of \(A\) such that the vertex labeling \(f^+\) defined as \(f^+(v) = \sum f(uv)\) taken over all edges \(uv\) incident at \(v\) is a constant, and the constant is same for all possible values of \(|V(G)|\). A graph is said to be strong \(A\)-magic if it admits strong \(A\)-magic labeling. In this paper, we consider \((\mathbb{Z}_4, +)\) as an abelian group and we prove strong \(\mathbb{Z}_4\)-magic labeling for various graphs and generalize strong \(\mathbb{Z}_{4p}\)-magic labeling for those graphs. The graphs which admit strong \(\mathbb{Z}_{4p}\)-magic labeling are called as strong \(\mathbb{Z}_{4p}\)-magic graphs.
- Research article
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- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 135
- Pages: 187-195
- Published: 31/10/2017
The well-known Mantel’s Theorem states that a graph on \(n\) vertices and \(m\) edges contains a triangle if \(m > \frac{n^2}{4}\). Nosal proved that every graph on \(m\) edges contains a triangle if the spectral radius \(\lambda_1 > \sqrt{m}\), which is a spectral analog of Mantel’s Theorem. Furthermore, by using Motzkin-Straus Inequality, Nikiforov sharpened Nosal’s result and characterized the extremal graphs when the equality holds. Our first contribution in this note is to give two new proofs of the spectral concise Mantel’s Theorem due to Nikiforov (without help of Motzkin-Straus Inequality). Nikiforov also obtained some results concerning the existence of consecutive cycles and spectral radius. Second, we prove a theorem concerning the existence of consecutive even cycles and spectral radius, which slightly improves a result of Nikiforov. At last, we focus on spectral radius inequalities. Hong proved his famous bound for spectral radius. Later, Hong, Shu, and Fang generalized Hong’s bound to connected graphs with given minimum degree. By using quite different techniques, Nikiforov proved Hong et al.’s bound for general graphs independently. In this note, we prove a new spectral inequality by applying the technique of Nikiforov. Our result extends Stanley’s spectral inequality.
Call for papers
- Proceedings of International Conference on Discrete Mathematics (ICDM 2025) – Submissions are closed
- Proceedings of International Conference on Graph Theory and its Applications (ICGTA 2026)
- Special Issue of Ars Combinatoria on Graph Theory and its Applications (ICGTA 2025)
- MWTA 2025 – Proceedings in Ars Combinatoria




