Growth: A Journal of Mathematics and Mathematics Education
ISSN: xxxx-xxxx
Growth: A Journal of Mathematics and Mathematics Education aims to provide a publication platform for high quality undergraduate research in mathematics and in mathematical pedagogy. The technical scope of the journal is combinatorial mathematics, broadly interpreted—the editorial board will consider all submissions in their areas of interest. All submitted articles must have an undergraduate research component and must be certified by a senior researcher. All submissions will be peer reviewed according to standard practices in academic mathematics. Precise editorial policies are set by the editorial board.
- Research article
- Full Text
- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 106
- Pages: 65-78
- Published: 31/07/2012
Let \(G\) be a connected graph of order \(p \geq 2\). The closed interval \(I[x,y]\) consists of all vertices lying on some \(x-y\) geodesic of \(G\). If \(S\) is a set of vertices of \(G\), then \(I[S]\) is the union of all sets \(I\{x, y\}\) for \(x, y \in S\). The geodetic number \(g(G)\) is the minimum cardinality among the subsets \(S\) of \(V(G)\) with \(I[S] = V\). A geodetic set of cardinality \(g(G)\) is called a \(g\)-set of \(G\). For any vertex \(z\) in \(G\), a set \(S_x \subseteq V\) is an \(x\)-geodominating set of \(G\) if each vertex \(v \in V\) lies on an \(z-y\) geodesic for some element \(y\) in \(S_z\). The minimum cardinality of an \(x\)-geodominating set of \(G\) is defined as the \(x\)-geodomination number of \(G\), denoted by \(g_x(G)\) or simply \(g_x\). An \(x\)-geodominating set \(S_x\) of cardinality \(g_x(G)\) is called a \(g_x\)-set of \(G\). If \(S_x \cup \{x\}\) is a \(g\)-set of \(G\), then \(x\) is called a geo-vertex of \(G\). The set of all geo-vertices of \(G\) is called the geo-set of \(G\) and the number of geo-vertices of \(G\) is called the geo-number of \(G\) and it is denoted by \(gn(G)\). For positive integers \(r, d\) and \(n \geq 2\) with \(r < d \leq 2r\), there exists a connected graph \(G\) of radius \(r\), diameter \(d\) and \(gn(G) = n\). Also, for each triple \(p, d\) and \(n\) with \(3 \leq d \leq p – 1, 2 \leq n \leq p – 2\) and \(p – d – n + 1 \geq 0\), there exists a graph \(G\) of order \(p\), diameter \(d\) and \(gn(G) = n\). If the \(x\)-geodomination number \(g_x(G)\) is same for every vertex \(x\) in \(G\), then \(G\) is called a vertex geodomination regular graph or for short VGR-graph. If \(S \cup \{x\}\) is same for every vertex \(x\) in \(G\), then \(G\) is called a perfect vertex geodomination graph or for short PVG-graph. We characterize a PVG-graph.
- Research article
- Full Text
- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 106
- Pages: 59-64
- Published: 31/07/2012
The Wiener index, one of the oldest molecular topological descriptors used in mathematical chemistry, was well-studied during the past decades. For a graph \(G\), its Wiener index is defined as \(W(G) = \sum\limits_{\{u, v\} \subseteq V(G)} d_G(u, v)\), where \(d_G(u, v)\) is the distance between two vertices \(u\) and \(v\) in \(G\). In this paper, we study the Wiener index of a class of composite graph, namely, double graph. We reveal the relation between the Wiener index of a given graph and the one of its double graph as well as the relation between Wiener index of a given graph and the one of its \(k\)-iterated double graph. As a consequence, we determine the graphs with the maximum and minimum Wiener index among all double graphs and \(k\)-iterated double graphs of connected graphs of the same order, respectively.
- Research article
- Full Text
- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 106
- Pages: 47-58
- Published: 31/07/2012
The set of unicyclic graphs with \(n\) vertices and diameter \(d\) is denoted by \(\mathcal{U}_{n,d}\). For \(3 \leq i \leq d\), let \(P_{n-d-1}(i)\) be the graph obtained from path \(P_{d+1}: v_1 v_2 \ldots v_{d+1}\) by adding \(n-d-1\) pendant edges at \(v_i\), and \(U_{n-d-2}(i)\) be the graph obtained from \(P_{n-d-1}(i)\) by joining \(v_{i-2}\) and a pendant neighbor of \(v_{i}\). In this paper, we determine all unicyclic graphs in \(\mathcal{U}_{n,d}\) whose largest Laplacian eigenvalue is greater than \(n-d+2\). For \(n-d \geq 6\) and \(G \in \mathcal{U}_{n,d}\), we prove further that the largest Laplacian eigenvalue \(\mu(G) \leq \max\{\lambda(U_{n,d-2}(i)) \mid 3 \leq i \leq d\}\), and conjecture that \(\mathcal{U}_{n,d}.\) is the unique graph which has the greatest value of the greatest Laplacian eigenvalue in \(\mathcal{U}_{n,d}\). We also prove that the conjecture is true for \(3 \leq d \leq 6\).
- Research article
- Full Text
- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 106
- Pages: 33-46
- Published: 31/07/2012
The Padmakar-Ivan \((PI)\) index is a Wiener-Szeged-like topological index which reflects certain structural features of organic molecules. In this paper, we study the PI index with respect to the extremal simple pericondensed hexagonal systems and we solve it completely.
- Research article
- Full Text
- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 106
- Pages: 11-32
- Published: 31/07/2012
Let \(\lambda K_v\) be the complete multigraph with \(v\) vertices. Let \(G\) be a finite simple graph. A \(G\)-design (\(G-GD_\lambda)(v)\) (\(G\)-packing (\(G-PD_\lambda)(v)\), \(G\)-covering (\(G-CD_\lambda)(v)\)) of \(K_v\) is a pair \((X, \mathcal{B})\), where \(X\) is the vertex set of \(K_v\), and \(\mathcal{B}\) is a collection of subgraphs of \(K_v\), called blocks, such that each block is isomorphic to \(G\) and any two distinct vertices in \(K_v\) are joined exactly (at most, at least) in \(\lambda\) blocks. In this paper, we will discuss the maximum packing designs and the minimum covering designs for four particular graphs each with six vertices and nine edges.
- Research article
- Full Text
- Ars Combinatoria
- Volume 106
- Pages: 3-9
- Published: 31/07/2012
Let \(a\) and \(b\) be integers such that \(1 \leq a < b\), and let \(G\) be a graph of order \(n\) with \(n \geq \frac{(a+b)(2a+2b-3)}{a+1}\) and the minimum degree \(\delta(G) \geq \frac{(b-1)^2-(a+1)(b-a-2)}{a+1} \). Let \(g(x)\) and \(f(x)\) be two nonnegative integer-valued functions defined on \(V(G)\) such that \(a \leq g(x) \leq f(x) \leq b\) for each \(x \in V(G)\). We prove that if \(|N_G(x) \cup N_G(y)| \geq \frac{(b-1)n}{a+b} \) for any two nonadjacent vertices \(x\) and \(y\) in \(G\), then \(G\) has a \((g, f)\)-factor. Furthermore, it is shown that the result in this paper is best possible in some sense.
- Research article
- Full Text
- Journal of Combinatorial Mathematics and Combinatorial Computing
- Volume 081
- Pages: 273-279
- Published: 31/05/2012
Figueroa-Centeno, Ichishima, and Muntaner-Batle [3, 4] proved some results on felicitous graphs and raised the following conjectures:
- The one-point union of \( m \) copies of \( C_n \) is felicitous if and only if \( mn \equiv 2 \pmod{4} \).
- \( mC_n \) is felicitous if and only if \( mn \not\equiv 2 \pmod{4} \).
In this paper, the conjectures are partially settled by proving the following results:
- For any odd positive integers \( m \) and \( n \), the one-point union of \( m \) copies of \( C_n \) is felicitous if \( mn \equiv 1, 3 \).
- For any positive integer \( m \), the one-point union of \( m \) copies of \( C_4 \) is felicitous.
- For any two odd positive integers \( m \) and \( n \), \( mC_n \) is felicitous if \( mn \equiv 1, 3 \pmod{4} \).
- For any positive integer \( m \), \( mC_4 \) is felicitous.
- Research article
- Full Text
- Journal of Combinatorial Mathematics and Combinatorial Computing
- Volume 081
- Pages: 261-272
- Published: 31/05/2012
In this paper, we characterize the graphs \( G \) and \( H \) for which the Cartesian product \( G \Box H \) is a divisor graph. We show that divisor graphs form a proper subclass of perfect graphs. Additionally, we prove that cycle permutation graphs of order at least 8 are divisor graphs if and only if they are perfect. Some results concerning amalgamation operations for obtaining new divisor graphs from old ones are presented. We view block graphs as vertex amalgams.
- Research article
- Full Text
- Journal of Combinatorial Mathematics and Combinatorial Computing
- Volume 081
- Pages: 257-260
- Published: 31/05/2012
This note will complete the computation of all Ramsey numbers \( r(G, H) \) for graphs \( G \) of order at most five and disconnected graphs \( H \) of order six.
- Research article
- Full Text
- Journal of Combinatorial Mathematics and Combinatorial Computing
- Volume 081
- Pages: 243-255
- Published: 31/05/2012
For a graph \( G \) and a real number \( \alpha \neq 0 \), the graph invariant \( s_\alpha^+(G) \) is the sum of the \( \alpha \)th power of the non-zero signless Laplacian eigenvalues of \( G \). In this paper, several lower and upper bounds for \( s_\alpha^+(G) \) with \( \alpha \neq 0, 1 \) are obtained. Applying these results, we also derive some bounds for the incidence energy of graphs, which generalize and improve on some known results.




