Title: Matroid Theory
Editors: Joseph Bonin, James Oxley and Brigitte Servatius
Publisher: Contemporary Math., AMS, 1996.
ISBN 0-8218-0508-8
Preface to Text:
With his 1935 paper
On the abstract properties of linear dependence,
Hassler Whitney founded the theory of matroids. The richness of Whitney's
work can be attributed in part to the variety of fields from which he drew
inspiration, including algebra, geometry, and graph theory.
Since Whitney's paper,
numerous authors have recognized the natural occurrence
of matroids in a wide diversity of areas, and the interplay
between matroid theory and other fields has flourished.
This volume, the proceedings of the
1995 AMS--IMS--SIAM Summer Research Conference
Matroid Theory, features
three comprehensive surveys that bring the reader to
the forefront of
research in matroid theory.
-
Joseph Kung's encyclopedic treatment of the critical problem traces the
development of this problem from its origins through its numerous links with
other branches of mathematics to the current status of its many aspects.
-
James Oxley's survey of the role of connectivity and structure theorems
in matroid theory stresses the influence of the Wheels and Whirls Theorem
of Tutte and the Splitter Theorem of Seymour.
-
Walter Whiteley's article unifies applications of matroid theory to
constrained geometrical systems, including the rigidity of bar-and-joint
frameworks, parallel drawings, and splines.
These widely accessible articles
contain many new results
and
directions for further research and applications.
The surveys are complemented by selected short research
papers:
- Seth Chaiken:
Oriented Matroid Pairs,
Theory and an Electric Application
- Gary Gordon and Elizabeth McMahon:
A greedoid characteristic polynomial
- Jack Dharmatilake:
A min-max theorem using matroid separations
- Robert Jamison: Monotactic Matroids
- Sara Kingan:
On binary matroids with a $K_{3,3}$-minor
- Tiong-Seng Tay:Skeletal rigidity of p.l.-spheres
- Laura Lomeli and Dominic Welsh
Randomised Approximation of the Number of Bases
- Neil WhiteThe Coxeter Matroids of Gelfand et al.
- Charles Semple and Geoff Whittle
On Representable Matroids
Having Neither $U_{2,5}$--
Nor $U_{3,5}$--minors
The volume concludes with a chapter of open problems.
(other books)