Title: The Goulden-Jackson Cluster Method
Speaker: Brian Nakamura, Rutgers University
Date: Wednesday, October 6, 2010 12:10pm
Location: Graduate Student Lounge, 7th Floor, Hill Center, Rutgers University, Busch Campus, Piscataway, NJ
One type of problem in enumerative combinatorics is to count words that avoid some set of "bad words". The Goulden-Jackson Cluster method provides a way to often find generating functions for such problems. In this talk, I will give an overview of the Cluster method along with some of its extensions. If time permits, I will also discuss its applications in consecutive pattern avoidance in permutations.