We enumerate derangements with descents in prescribed positions. A generating function was given by Guo-Niu Han and Guoce Xin in 2007. We give a combinatorial proof of this result, and derive several explicit formulas. To this end, we consider fixed point λ-coloured permutations, which are easily enumerated. Several formulae regarding these numbers are given, as well as a generalisation of Euler's difference tables. We also prove that except in a trivial special case, if a permutation π is chosen uniformly among all permutations on n elements, the events that π has descents in a set S of positions, and that π is a derangement, are positively correlated.
The elements of a finite nonempty partially ordered set are exposed at independent uniform times in [0, 1] to a selector who, at any given time, can see the structure of the induced partial order on the exposed elements. The selector's task is to choose online a maximal element.This generalizes the classical linear order secretary problem, for which it is known that the selector can succeed with probability 1/e and that this is best possible.We describe a strategy for the general problem that achieves success probability at least 1/e for an arbitrary partial order.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.