The Astronaut Problem is an open problem in the field of rendezvous search. The premise is that two astronauts randomly land on a planet and want to find one another. Research explores what strategies accomplish this in the least expected time.
To investigate this problem, we create a discrete model which takes place on the edges of the Platonic solids. Some baseline assumptions of the model are:

1. The agents can see all of the faces around them.
2. The agents travel along the edges from vertex to vertex and cannot jump.
3. The agents move at a rate of one edge length per unit time.

The 3-dimensional nature of our model makes it different from previous work. We explore multi-step strategies, which are strategies where both agents move randomly for one step, and then follow a pre-determined sequence.

For the cube and octahedron, we are able to prove optimality of the “Left Strategy,” in which the agents move in a random direction for the first step and then turn left. In an effort to find lower expected times, we explore mixed strategies. Mixed strategies incorporate an asymmetric case which, under certain conditions, can result in lower expected times.

Most of the calculations were done using first-step decompositions for Markov chains.

Our research focuses on the winning probability of a novel problem posted on a question-and-answer website. There are \( n \) people in a line at positions \( 1, 2, \ldots, n \). For each round, we randomly select a person at position \( i \), where \( i \) is odd, to leave the line, and shift each person at a position \( j \) such that \( j > i \) to position \( j – 1 \). We continue to select people until there is only one person left, who then becomes the winner.

We are interested in which initial position has the greatest chance to survive, that is, the highest probability to be the last one remaining. Specifically, we have derived recursions to solve for exact values and the formula of the winning probabilities.

We have also considered variations of the problem, where people are grouped into triples, quadruples, etc., and the first person in each group is at the risk of being selected. We will also present various sequences we have discovered while solving for the winning probabilities of the different variations, as well as other possible extensions and related findings concerning this problem.

Our research studies the expected survival time in a novel problem posted on a question-and-answer website. There are \( n \) people in a line at positions \( 1, 2, \ldots, n \). For each round, we randomly select a person at position \( k \), where \( k \) is odd, to leave the line, and shift the person at each position \( i > k \) to position \( i-1 \). We continue to select people until there is only one person left, who then becomes the winner.

We are interested in which initial position has the largest expected number of turns to stay in the line before being selected, which we refer to as “expected survival time.” In this paper, we use a recursive approach to solve for exact values of the expected survival time. We have proved the exact formula of the expected survival time of the first and the last position as well. We will also present our work on the expected survival time of the other positions, \( 2, 3, 4, \ldots \) from an asymptotic perspective.

A set \( S \subseteq V \) is a dominating set of \( G \) if every vertex in \( V – S \) is adjacent to at least one vertex in \( S \). The domination number \( \gamma(G) \) of \( G \) equals the minimum cardinality of a dominating set \( S \) in \( G \); we say that such a set \( S \) is a \( \gamma \)-set.

A generalization of this is partial domination, which was introduced in 2017 by Case, Hedetniemi, Laskar, and Lipman. In \emph{partial domination}, a set \( S \) is a \( p \)-dominating set if it dominates a proportion \( p \) of the vertices in \( V \). The \( p \)-domination number \( \gamma_p(G) \) is the minimum cardinality of a \( p \)-dominating set in \( G \).

In this paper, we investigate further properties of partial dominating sets, particularly ones related to graph products and locating partial dominating sets. We also introduce the concept of a \( p \)-influencing set as the union of all \( p \)-dominating sets for a fixed \( p \) and investigate some of its properties.

For bipartite graphs \( F \) and \( H \) and a positive integer \( s \), the \( s \)-bipartite Ramsey number \( BR_s(F,H) \) of \( F \) and \( H \) is the smallest integer \( t \) with \( t \geq s \) such that every red-blue coloring of \( K_{s,t} \) results in a red \( F \) or a blue \( H \). We evaluate this number for all positive integers \( s \) when \( F \) and \( H \) are both stars, are both matchings, or one is a star and the other is a matching, as well as when \( F = H \) is an arbitrary double star.

In a graph \( G \), the Steiner distance \( d(S) \) of the vertex subset \( S \subseteq V(G) \) is the minimum size among all connected subgraphs whose vertex sets contain \( S \). The Steiner \( k \)-diameter of a connected graph \( G \) is the maximum \( d(S) \) among all \( k \)-element vertex subsets \( S \subseteq V(G) \).

In this paper, we examine the Steiner \( k \)-diameter for large \( k \) and then discuss the applications of the results.

A set of vertices, \( S \), in a digraph \( D \), is split dominating provided it is:

1. dominating and
2. \( D[V(D) \setminus S] \) is either trivial or has a lower level of connection than \( D \).

In this paper, we consider split dominating sets in strongly connected tournaments. The split domination number of a strongly connected tournament \( T \), denoted by \( \gamma_s(T) \), is the minimum cardinality of a split dominating set for that tournament.

The authors previously gave a tight lower bound for \( \gamma_s(T) \) when \( T \) is regular. In this paper, we show that when \( T \) is a nearly regular \( 2k \)-tournament, then \( \gamma_s(T) \geq \lceil \frac{2k}{3} \rceil \) and this bound is tight.

Redrawing lines for redistricting plans that represent U.S. congressional districts is a tricky business. There are many laws that dictate how lines can and cannot be drawn, such as contiguity. In fact, building all redistricting plans for a single U.S. state is an intractable problem. Researchers have turned to heuristics in order to analyze current redistricting plans. Many of these heuristics (e.g. local search heuristics and Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms) used by researchers form new congressional districts by switching the smaller pieces (e.g. precincts or census blocks) that make up congressional districts from one congressional district to another.
In this paper, we discuss the various natural definitions involved in satisfying rules for contiguity and simply connectedness of precincts or census blocks and how these relate to contiguity and simply connectedness of congressional districts. We also propose and analyze several constructions to alleviate violations of contiguity and simply connectedness in precincts and census blocks. Finally, we develop efficient algorithms that allow practitioners to assess redistricting plans using local search heuristics or Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms efficiently.

A set \( S \subseteq V \) is \( \alpha \)-dominating if for all \( v \in V – S \), \( |N(v) \cap S| \geq \alpha |N(v)| \). The \( \alpha \)-domination number of \( G \) equals the minimum cardinality of an \( \alpha \)-dominating set \( S \) in \( G \). Since being introduced by Dunbar et al. in 2000, \( \alpha \)-domination has been studied for various graphs and a variety of bounds have been developed.

In this paper, we propose a new parameter derived by flipping the inequality in the definition of \( \alpha \)-domination. We say a set \( S \subset V \) is a \( \beta \)-packing set of a graph \( G \) if \( S \) is a proper, maximal set having the property that for all vertices \( v \in V – S \), \( |N(v) \cap S| \leq \beta |N(v)| \) for some \( 0 < \beta \leq 1 \). The \( \beta \)-\emph{packing number} of \( G \), denoted \( \beta\text{-pack}(G) \), equals the maximum cardinality of a \( \beta \)-packing set in \( G \).

In this research, we determine \( \beta\text{-pack}(G) \) for several classes of graphs, and we explore some properties of \( \beta \)-packing sets.

A perfect matching of a graph is a subset of edges in the graph such that each vertex is contained in exactly one edge. We study the number of perfect matchings of a given graph. In particular, we are interested in the power of two that divides this number. A new type of vertex set, called a channel, is considered, whose presence is associated with powers of two in the perfect matching count. This provides a method for determining lower bounds on such powers. Algebraic and involutive proofs are given for these results, and methods for channel identification are provided. We specialize to perfect matchings on subgraphs of the square lattice, which are identified with domino tilings of the plane, and apply channels to some conjectures by Pachter.