A Unified Approach to Generalized Stirling Numbers

It is shown that various well-known generalizations of Stirling numbers of the first and second kinds can be unified by starting with transformations between generalized factorials involving three arbitrary parameters. Previous extensions of Stirling numbers due to Riordan, Carlitz, Howard, Charalambides-Koutras, Gould-Hopper, Tsylova, and others are included as particular cases of our unified treatment. We have also investigated some basic properties related to our general pattern.

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