The Factorial Basis method, initially designed for quasi-triangular, shift-compatible factorial bases, provides solutions to linear recurrence equations in the form of definite-sums. This paper extends the Factorial Basis method to its q-analog, enabling its application in q-calculus. We demonstrate the adaptation of the method to q-sequences and its utility in the realm of q-combinatorics. The extended technique is employed to automatically prove established identities and unveil novel ones, particularly some associated with the Rogers-Ramanujan identities.

McCallum-style Cylindrical Algebra Decomposition (CAD) is a major improvement on the original Collins version, and has had many subsequent advances, notably for total or partial equational constraints. But it suffers from a problem with nullification. The recently-justified Lazard-style CAD does not have this problem. However, transporting the equational constraints work to Lazard-style does reintroduce nullification issues. This paper explains the problem, and the solutions to it, based on the second author’s Ph.D. thesis and the Brown–McCallum improvement to Lazard.

In 2013, Pak and Panova proved the strict unimodality property of q-binomial coefficients (as polynomials in q) based on the combinatorics of Young tableaux and the semigroup property of Kronecker coefficients. They showed it to be true for all ℓ, m ≥ 8 and a few other cases. We propose a different approach to this problem based on computer algebra, where we establish a closed form for the coefficients of these polynomials and then use cylindrical algebraic decomposition to identify exactly the range of coefficients where strict unimodality holds. This strategy allows us to tackle generalizations of the problem, e.g., to show unimodality with larger gaps or unimodality of related sequences. In particular, we present proofs of two additional cases of a conjecture by Stanley and Zanello.