Combinatorics and Matrix Theory have a symbiotic, or mutually beneficial, relationship. This relationship is discussed in my paper The symbiotic relationship of combinatorics and matrix theoryl where I attempted to justify this description. One could say that a more detailed justification was given in my book with H. J. Ryser entitled Combinatorial Matrix Theon? where an attempt was made to give a broad picture of the use of combinatorial ideas in matrix theory and the use of matrix theory in proving theorems which, at least on the surface, are combinatorial in nature. In the book by Liu and Lai, this picture is enlarged and expanded to include recent developments and contributions of Chinese mathematicians, many of which have not been readily available to those of us who are unfamiliar with Chinese journals. Necessarily, there is some overlap with the book Combinatorial Matrix Theory. Some of the additional topics include: spectra of graphs, eulerian graph problems, Shannon capacity, generalized inverses of Boolean matrices, matrix rearrangements, and matrix completions. A topic to which many Chinese mathematicians have made substantial contributions is the combinatorial analysis of powers of nonnegative matrices, and a large chapter is devoted to this topic. This book should be a valuable resource for mathematicians working in the area of combinatorial matrix theory. Richard A. Brualdi University of Wisconsin - Madison 1 Linear Alg. Applies., vols. 162-4, 1992, 65-105 2Camhridge University Press, 1991.

Synopsis

The first chapter of this book provides a brief treatment of the basics of the subject. The other chapters deal with the various decompositions of non-negative matrices, Birkhoff type theorems, the study of the powers of non-negative matrices, applications of matrix methods to other combinatorial problems, and applications of combinatorial methods to matrix problems and linear algebra problems. The coverage of prerequisites has been kept to a minimum. Nevertheless, the book is basically self-contained (an Appendix provides the necessary background in linear algebra, graph theory and combinatorics). There are many exercises, all of which are accompanied by sketched solutions. The book is suitable for a graduate course as well as being an excellent reference and a valuable resource for mathematicians working in the area of combinatorial matrix theory.

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