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Matroids

Details:

Written by: emcd123

For: Undergraduate Thesis for Mathematical Science at NUIG(National University of Ireland Galway)

Project Description:

A matroid is a structure that abstracts and generalizes the notion of linear independence in vector spaces. There are many equivalent ways to define a matroid, the most significant being in terms of independent sets, bases, circuits,etc.

Our primary target is to explain the connection between matroids and the greedy algorithm. The Greedy algorithm is an interesting characterization of matroids in that it arises frequently in problems related to combinatorial optimzation. For example the well known graph optimization problem: finding the minimum spanning tree. Leading to a connection between Kruskal’s algorithm and matroids.

Further Reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matroid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greedy_algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weighted_matroid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanning_tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth-first_search https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_spanning_tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruskal's_algorithm

Contents:

Source code files for project

Will be written in Perl, Python, SageMath

Typeset Mathematical Articles

Written in LaTeX

Navigation:

All LaTex can be found in LaTeXPdfs folder.

Running the project

LaTeX

Can be run from https://www.sharelatex.com/

Or using TeX/ TeXmaker http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/

Perl

See https://www.perl.org/ for information on how to run Perl(5 not 6)

Ptyhon

Can be run in the python interpreter Installed from https://www.python.org/

SageMath

Can be installed from http://doc.sagemath.org/html/en/installation/
Or run in the CoCalc(SageMath cloud service) https://cocalc.com

Resources Used

What is a matroid by James Oxley

Matroid Theory by James Oxley

Graphs, Networks and Algorithms by Dieter Jungnickel

Also, expository notes from NUIG linear algebra seminars