1.

Let A be an nxn matrix with zero in the main diagonal

and 1 elsewhere. Show that determinant of A is
(n-1)*(-1)^{n-1}.
As you know that a determinant of an nxn matrix has n!
terms. Of these terms for Det(A) how many are 1, how many
are 0 and how many are -1?
2. Consider three permutations of 0 to 9
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 2 3 4 0 6 7 8 9 5
a0 a1 a2 a3 a4 a5 a6 a7 a8 a9
How many permutations can be written in the row three so that
no column has any number repeated?
3. Let f(n) is a function defined for positive integers.
If
SUM{d|n} f(d) = log n, i.e., sum of all f(d) where d divides n.
then determine f().
4. N couples are to be seated around a circular table so that
men and women sit alternately, but no husband should sit
on either side of his wife. How many ways can they be seated
if N > 2?
5. A shipping company has a large number of wooden crates (boxes)
in sizes 1 to 10 units. Card-board boxes are packed inside the
crates
to avoid damage. For handling convenience, one crate is packed with
card-board boxes of the same size. A crate is shipped only when it
is
completely full. Assume that dimensions of the crates and boxes are
such that n/m boxes of size m properly fit in a crate of size n
where m divides n. When card-board boxes of size m are waiting for
shipping, packers select a crate of size m, or 2m, or 3m ... etc.
to pack them, with equal probability. Following table gives the
number
of crates shipped in one week.
Size || 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
Count || 3 | 4 | 9 | 9 | 5 | 18 | 7 | 10 | 16 | 7
How many card-board boxes of size 3 are shipped during this period.
Show all steps.
Solution of Combinatorial Problem Set1
1. Let An = 011111
determinant.
101111
.....
111110

be the given nxn matrix. Let Un denote its

Let Bn = 111111
101111
110111
...
111110
The determinant of Bn = Un-1 + Un.
Show that

the recurrence

relation Un = -(n-1)(Un-1 + Un-2).

4. Let us label women and men as follows. Pick any one location where
a woman
is sitting. This will be referred as the first location. Starting
from
the woman at this seat, label all women 1, 2,..., n in the clockwise
order and give the woman's label to her husband as well. Suppose
the man sitting
to the left of woman-1 has label-a1; the man sitting to the left of
woman-2 has
label a2, so on. Let A = a1 a2 .... an. Then for all j, aj should
be neither
equal to j nor should it be equal to j+1. Then each permutation A
of 1,...,n
is a valid seating arrangement for men (give that women are already
seated)
if A disagrees with the following permutations at all positions.
B1 = 1 2 3...........n-1 n
B2 = 2 3 4 ..........n
1
So the problem is to find the number of permutations that disagree
with B1 and B2
at all positions. We use inclusion-exclusion technique to find the
number. Let us
define P1 to be the permutation in which first location has either
1 or 2, ...
Pi is the set of permutations in which i-th location has either i
or i+1, so on.
In other words Pi is the set of permutations where i-th position
has the violation.
Nr denotes the number of permutations in which at least r positions
have

violations. To compute Nr we proceed as follows.

Assume that we chose 1 in the first column (position) and now we

want

to choose r-1 more violating values. Consider following sequence

12233445....n-1 n-1 n n
if we choose any r-1 non-consecutive Numbers from it then we would
have chosen
a set of r violating values. To see it, consider the following
example
...................................................................
.............
Example
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1

Let r = 5.
After selecting 1 for the first column consider the sequence
233445566778899
suppose we choose
x x
x
x
then its interpretation it as follows
partition the sequence
|23|34|45|56|67|78|89|9|
the selection gives
1| |3 |4 | | 7| | 9|
..................................................................
.............
See that p non-consecutive objects can be selected from a
sequence of m objects in
(m-p+1)C(p) (i.e. choose p from m-p+1) ways.
So in the above case the number of ways is (2n-r-1)C(r-1). Now
if we did the same
by choosing 1 for the last column then we will have another (2nr-1)C(r-1) ways.
This can be repeated by taking any k as the first violation.
So total number of ways is 2n.(2n-r-1)C(r-1). Now note that a
particular
choice of violation will also be created as ,
and when started at b,c,d respectively. So the choice of r
violation
will be computed r times. Thus the number of ways is
(2n/r)(2n-r-1)C(r-1). Now we fill in the remaining (n-r)
places by (n-r)
numbers in all possible ways. So total number of ways to have at
least r
violations is
SUM{i1,i2,...,ir} Ni1,i2,..,ir = Nr = (2n/r).(2n-r-1)C(r1).(n-r)!.
Now from inclusion/exclusion method find the number of ways in
which no violations
occur. Finally multiply the result by n!/n = (n-1)! which is the
number of ways
in which women could seated initially (ignoring its circular
permutation).
2.
We use the above result to solve this problem. Again we use
inclusion-exclusion
method. In this case Nr will include permutations where p
violation are in the first
half and q in the second where p+q = r. So
Nr = SUM{p+q=r} [(10/p).(10-p-1)C(p-1)+(10/q).(10-q-1)C(q1)].(n-r)!
Now find the number of ways with no violations.
5.
Let f(n) denote the number of crates of size n shipped during
this period. Let
g(m) denote the number of crates of size m containing box of size
m shipped.

Due to equal probability, g(m) crates of size k*m containing

boxes of size m
were shipped, for all k. Therefore f(n) = SUM_{m|n}g(m). Find g()
from Mobius
inversion. The solution is floor(10/3)*g(3) = 3*g(3).