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
- Full Text
- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 133
- Pages: 179-195
- Published: 31/07/2017
A three-colored digraph \(D\) is primitive if and only if there exist nonnegative integers \(h\), \(k\), and \(v\) with \(h+k+v > 0\) such that for each pair \((i, j)\) of vertices there is an \((h, k, v)\)-walk in \(D\) from \(i\) to \(j\). The exponent of the primitive three-colored digraph \(D\) is defined to be the smallest value of \(h + k + v\) over all such \(h\), \(k\), and \(v\). In this paper, a class of special primitive three-colored digraphs with \(n\) vertices, consisting of one \(n\)-cycle and two \((n-1)\)-cycles, are considered. For the case \(a = c – 1\), some primitive conditions, the tight upper bound on the exponents, and the characterization of extremal three-colored digraphs are given.
- Research article
- Full Text
- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 133
- Pages: 163-177
- Published: 31/07/2017
Skew-quasi-cyclic codes over a finite field are viewed as skew-cyclic codes on a noncommutative ring of matrices over a finite field. This point of view gives a new construction of skew-quasi-cyclic codes. Let \(\mathbb{F}_q\) be the Galois field with \(q\) elements and \(\theta\) be an automorphism of \(\mathbb{F}_q\). We propose an approach to consider the relationship between left ideals in \(M_l(\mathbb{F}_q)[X, \theta]/(X^s – 1)\) and skew-quasi-cyclic codes of length \(ls\) and index \(l\) over \(\mathbb{F}_q\), under \(\theta\), which we denote by \(\theta\)-SQC codes (or SQC codes for short when there is no ambiguity). We introduce the construction of SQC codes from the reversible divisors of \(X^s – 1\) in \(M_l(\mathbb{F}_q)[X, \theta]\). In addition, we give an algorithm to search for the generator polynomials of general SQC codes.
- Research article
- Full Text
- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 133
- Pages: 155-161
- Published: 31/07/2017
In this paper, we investigate the concepts of \(k\)-limited packing and \(k\)-tuple domination in graphs and give several bounds on the size of them. These bounds involve many well-known parameters of graphs. Also, we establish a connection between these concepts that implies some new results in this area. Finally, we improve many bounds in the literature.
- Research article
- Full Text
- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 133
- Pages: 147-154
- Published: 31/07/2017
Let \(G = (V, E)\) be a simple graph. A paired-dominating set of a graph \(G\) is a dominating set whose induced subgraph contains a perfect matching. The paired domination number of a graph \(G\), denoted by \(\gamma_p(G)\), is the minimum cardinality of a paired-dominating set in \(G\). In this paper, we study the paired domination number of generalized Petersen graphs \(P(n,2)\) and prove that for any integer \(n \geq 6\), \(\gamma_p(P(n, 2)) = 2 \left\lfloor \frac{n}{3} \right\rfloor + n \pmod{3}\).
- Research article
- Full Text
- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 133
- Pages: 133-145
- Published: 31/07/2017
The Estrada index of a simple connected graph \(G\) of order \(n\) is defined as \(EE(G) = \sum_{i=1}^{n} e^{\lambda_i}\), where \(\lambda_1, \lambda_2, \ldots, \lambda_n\) are the eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix of \(G\). In this paper, we characterize all pentacyclic graphs of order \(n\) with maximal Estrada index.
- Research article
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- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 133
- Pages: 115-131
- Published: 31/07/2017
Let \(\Pi\) be a finite polar space of rank \(n \geq 2\) fully embedded into a projective space \(\Sigma\). In this note, we determine all tight sets of \(\Pi\) of the form \((\Sigma_1 \cap \mathcal{P}) \cup (\Sigma_2 \cap \mathcal{P})\), where \(\mathcal{P}\) denotes the point set of \(\Pi\) and \(\Sigma_1, \Sigma_2\) are two mutually disjoint subspaces of \(\Sigma\). In this way, we find two families of \(2\)-tight sets of elliptic polar spaces that were not described before in the literature.
- Research article
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- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 133
- Pages: 107-113
- Published: 31/07/2017
In this paper, we define a new matrix identity for bi-periodic Fibonacci and Lucas numbers. By using the matrix method, we give simple proofs of several properties of these numbers. Moreover, we obtain a new binomial sum formula for bi-periodic Fibonacci and Lucas numbers, which generalize the former results.
- Research article
- Full Text
- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 133
- Pages: 93-105
- Published: 31/07/2017
Hein and Sarvate show how to decompose \(\lambda\) copies of a complete graph \(K_n\), for some minimal value of \(\lambda\), into so-called LOE and OLE graphs. In this paper, we will show that for all possible values of \(\lambda\), the necessary conditions are sufficient for the LOE and OLE decompositions.
- Research article
- Full Text
- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 134
- Pages: 403-423
- Published: 31/07/2017
Let \(R\) be a commutative ring. The regular digraph of ideals of \(R\), denoted by \(\mathcal{R}(R)\), is a digraph whose vertex-set is the set of all non-trivial ideals of \(R\) and, for every two distinct vertices \(I\) and \(J\), there is an arc from \(I\) to \(J\), whenever \(I\) contains a non-zero divisor of \(J\). In this paper, we investigate the planarity of \(\mathcal{R}(R)\). We also completely characterize the rings \(R\) such that \(\mathcal{R}(R)\) is a ring graph, and the situations under which the genus of \(\mathcal{R}(R)\) is finite. Moreover, we study the independence number and the girth of \(\mathcal{R}(R)\), and also we find all cases that \(\mathcal{R}(R)\) is bipartite.
- Research article
- Full Text
- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 134
- Pages: 379-401
- Published: 31/07/2017
In this paper, the existence of Yang Hui type magic squares of order \(n\) with \(t\)-powered sum (YMS(\(n\), \(t\))) for general \(t\) is investigated. Some constructions of YMS(\(n\), \(t\)) are obtained by using strongly symmetric self-orthogonal diagonal Latin squares and magic rectangles. Applying these constructions, it is proved that for an integer \(t > 1\) there exist both a symmetric elementary YMS(\(2^t\), \(2t – 2\)) and a symmetric elementary YMS(\(2^t – k\), \(2t\)) for odd \(k > 1\), which improves the known result on YMSs.
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




