We present a seemingly new definition of flows and flow numbers for oriented matroids and prove that the flow number ΦL and the antisymmetric flow number ΦLas of an oriented matroid are bounded with its rank. In particular we show that if O is an oriented matroid of rank r then ΦL(O) ≤ r + 2 and ΦLas(O) ≤ 3b 9 2 rc+1. Furthermore, we introduce the notion of a semiflow and show that each oriente...

Many problems that can be correctly solved by greedy algorithms can be described in terms of an abstract combinatorial object called a matroid. Matroids were first described in 1935 by the mathematician Hassler Whitney as a combinatorial generalization of linear independence of vectors—‘matroid’ means ‘something sort of like a matrix’. A matroid M is a finite collection of finite sets that sati...

We give an upper bound and a class of lower bounds on the coefficients of the characteristic polynomial of a simple binary matroid. This generalizes the corresponding bounds for graphic matroids of Li and Tian (1978) [3], as well as a matroid lower bound of Björner (1980) [1] for simple binary matroids. As the flow polynomial of a graph G is the characteristic polynomial of the dual matroid M(G...

We prove that, for each positive integer k, every sufficiently large 3-connected regular matroid has a parallel minor isomorphic to M∗(K3,k), M(Wk), M(Kk), the cycle matroid of the graph obtained from K2,k by adding paths through the vertices of each vertex class, or the cycle matroid of the graph obtained from K3,k by adding a complete graph on the vertex class with three vertices.

We considered the possibility that the oriented matroid theory is connected with supersymmetry via the Grassmann-Plucker relations. The main reason for this, is that such relations arise in both in the chirotopes definition of an oriented matroid, and in maximally supersymmetric solutions of elevenand ten-dimensional supergravity theories. Taking this observation as a motivation, and using the ...

An intertwine of a pair of matroids is a matroid such that it, but none of its proper minors, has minors that are isomorphic to each matroid in the pair. For pairs for which neither matroid can be obtained, up to isomorphism, from the other by taking free extensions, free coextensions, and minors, we construct a family of rank-k intertwines for each sufficiently large integer k. We also treat s...

Many problems that can be correctly solved by greedy algorithms can be described in terms of an abstract combinatorial object called a matroid. Matroids were first described in 1935 by the mathematician Hassler Whitney as a combinatorial generalization of linear independence of vectors—‘matroid’ means ‘something sort of like a matrix’. A matroid M is a finite collection of finite sets that sati...

In the matroid secretary problem we are given a stream of elements in random order and asked to choose a set of elements that maximizes the total value of the set, subject to being an independent set of a matroid given in advance. The difficulty comes from the assumption that decisions are irrevocable: if we choose to accept an element when it is presented by the stream then we can never get ri...

Motivated by the question of when the characteristic polynomial of a matroid factorizes, we study join-factorizations of broken circuit complexes and rooted complexes (a more general class of complexes). Such factorizations of complexes induce factorizations not only of the characteristic polynomial but also of the Orlik-Solomon algebra of the matroid. The broken circuit complex of a matroid fa...

Rough set theory provides an effective tool to deal with uncertain, granular, and incomplete knowledge in information systems. Matroid theory generalizes the linear independence in vector spaces and has many applications in diverse fields, such as combinatorial optimization and rough sets. In this paper, we construct a matroidal structure of the generalized rough set based on a tolerance relati...