A combinatoric formula (Q1192548)

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A combinatoric formula
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    A combinatoric formula (English)
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    27 September 1992
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    A combinatoric problem is considered concerning the number of ways of throwing \(k\) balls into an array of \(n\times m\) cells in such a way that each row and each column of the cells must contain at least one ball and that each cell can contain at most one ball, where \(k\), \(n\), \(m\) are natural numbers. Let \(^ kB\) denote a set \(B\) with \(k\) elements, \(I_ n\) and \(J_ m\) the sets \(\{1,2,3\dots,n\}\) and \(\{1,2,\dots,m\}\) respectively. Further let \(^ k\Delta=\{(i_ s,j_ s):s=1,2,\dots,k\}\) be a subset of \(I_ n\times J_ m\). \(^ k\Delta\) is called a fully- projected subset of \(I_ n\times J_ m\) if \(\{i_ s:s=1,2,\dots,k\}=I_ n\) and \(\{j_ s:s=1,2,\dots,k\}=J_ m\). In this case, the following is proved: If \(t^ k_{n,m}\) denotes the number of all fully-projected subsets of \(I_ n\times J_ m\) then \[ \sum^{nm}_{k=1}(-1)^{k-1}t^ k_{n,m}=(-1)^{n+m}\quad (n,m\geq 1). \]
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    combinatoric formula
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    fully-projected subset
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