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In 2017, Krenn reported that certain problems related to the perfect matchings and colourings of graphs emerge out of studying the constructability of general quantum states using modern photonic technologies. He realized that if we can prove that the \emph{weighted matching index} of a graph, a parameter defined in terms of perfect matchings and colourings of the graph is at most 2, that could lead to exciting insights on the potential of resources of quantum inference. Motivated by this, he conjectured that the {weighted matching index} of any graph is at most 2. The first result on this conjecture was by Bogdanov, who proved that the \emph{(unweighted) matching index} of graphs (non-isomorphic to $K_4$) is at most 2, thus classifying graphs non-isomorphic to $K_4$ into Type 0, Type 1 and Type 2. By definition, the weighted matching index of Type 0 graphs is 0. We give a structural characterization for Type 2 graphs, using which we settle Krenn's conjecture for Type 2 graphs. Using this characterization, we provide a simple $O(|V||E|)$ time algorithm to find the unweighted matching index of any graph. In view of our work, Krenn's conjecture remains to be proved only for Type 1 graphs. We give upper bounds for the weighted matching index in terms of connectivity parameters for such graphs. Using these bounds, for a slightly simplified version, we settle Krenn's conjecture for the class of graphs with vertex connectivity at most 2 and the class of graphs with maximum degree at most 4. Krenn has been publicizing his conjecture in various ways since 2017. He has even declared a reward for a resolution of his conjecture. We hope that this article will popularize the problem among computer scientists., 17 pages, 4 figures

A code is called a $q$-query locally decodable code (LDC) if there is a randomized decoding algorithm that, given an index $i$ and a received word $w$ close to an encoding of a message $x$, outputs $x_i$ by querying only at most $q$ coordinates of $w$. Understanding the tradeoffs between the dimension, length and query complexity of LDCs is a fascinating and unresolved research challenge. In particular, for $3$-query binary LDCs of dimension $k$ and length $n$, the best known bounds are: $2^{k^{o(1)}} \geq n \geq \tilde{\Omega}(k^2)$. In this work, we take a second look at binary $3$-query LDCs. We investigate a class of 3-uniform hypergraphs that are equivalent to strong binary 3-query LDCs. We prove an upper bound on the number of edges in these hypergraphs, reproducing the known lower bound of $\tilde{\Omega}(k^2)$ for the length of strong $3$-query LDCs. In contrast to previous work, our techniques are purely combinatorial and do not rely on a direct reduction to $2$-query LDCs, opening up a potentially different approach to analyzing 3-query LDCs., Comment: 10 pages

Special issue PRIMA 2013, Let ℤn denote the ring of integers modulo n. A permutation of ℤn is a sequence of n distinct elements of ℤn. Addition and subtraction of two permutations is defined element-wise. In this paper we consider two extremal problems on permutations of ℤn, namely, the maximum size of a collection of permutations such that the sum of any two distinct permutations in the collection is again a permutation, and the maximum size of a collection of permutations such that no sum of two distinct permutations in the collection is a permutation. Let the sizes be denoted by s(n) and t(n) respectively. The case when n is even is trivial in both the cases, with s(n)=1 and t(n)=n!. For n odd, we prove (nφ(n))/2k≤s(n)≤n!· 2-(n-1)/2((n-1)/2)! and 2(n-1)/2·(n-1 / 2)!≤t(n)≤ 2k·(n-1)!/φ(n), where k is the number of distinct prime divisors of n and φ is the Euler's totient function.

International audience; A proper edge-coloring with the property that every cycle contains edges of at least three distinct colors is called an acyclic edge-coloring. The acyclic chromatic index of a graph G, denoted χa′(G), is the minimum k such that G admits an acyclic edge-coloring with k colors. We conjecture that if G is planar and Δ(G) is large enough, then χa′(G) = Δ(G). We settle this conjecture for planar graphs with girth at least 5. We also show that χa′(G) ≤ Δ(G)+12 for all planar G, which improves a previous result by Fiedorowicz, Haluszczak, and Narayan [Inform. Process. Lett., 108 (2008), pp. 412-417].