Carlitz, Handa, and Mohanty proved determinantal formulas for counting partitions contained in a fixed bounding shape by area. Gessel and Viennot introduced a combinatorial method for proving such formulas by interpreting the determinants as counting suitable configurations of signed lattice paths. This note describes an alternative combinatorial approach that uses sign-reversing involutions to...

Strongly Rayleigh distributions are natural generalizations of product and determinantal probability distributions and satisfy the strongest form of negative dependence properties. We show that the “natural” Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) algorithm mixes rapidly in the support of a homogeneous strongly Rayleigh distribution. As a byproduct, our proof implies Markov chains can be used to effici...

We give an introduction to the theory of determinantal ideals and rings, their Gröbner bases, initial ideals and algebras, respectively. The approach is based on the straightening law and the Knuth-Robinson-Schensted correspondence. The article contains a section treating the basic results about the passage to initial ideals and algebras. Let K be a field and X an m×n matrix of indeterminates o...