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A class of games for finding a leader among a group of candidates is studied in detail. This class covers games based on coin tossing and rock-paper-scissors as special cases and its complexity exhibits similar stochastic behaviors: either of logarithmic mean and bounded variance or of exponential mean and exponential variance. Many applications are also discussed.

In this note we re-examine the analysis of the paper "On the martingale property of stochastic exponentials" by B. Wong and C.C. Heyde, Journal of Applied Probability, 41(3):654-664, 2004. Some counterexamples are presented and alternative formulations are discussed., Comment: To appear in Journal of Applied Probability, 11 pages

Recently, Saleh claimed to have solved `a long standing open question' in Topology; namely, he proved that every almost continuous function is closure continuous (= $\theta$-continuous). Unfortunately, this problem was settled long time ago and even a better result is known., Comment: 2 pages, to appear in "Glasgow Math. J."

In a recent paper Weiss (1965) has suggested a simple model for a carrier-borne epidemic such as typhoid. He considers a population (of size m) of susceptibles into which a number (k) of carriers is introduced. These carriers exhibit no overt symptoms and are only detectable by the discovery of infected persons. He supposed that after the initial introduction of the carriers, the population remains entirely closed and no new carriers arise. The epidemic then progresses until either all the carriers have been traced and isolated or until the entire population has succumbed to the disease.

The activated sludge process is one of the major aerobic processes used in the biological treatment of wastewater. A significant drawback of this process is the production of excess sludge, the disposal of which can account for 50-60% of the running costs of a plant. Thus there is a growing interest in methods that reduce the volume and mass of excess sludge produced as part of biological wastewater treatment processes. In practice a target value is often set for the sludge content inside the bioreactor. If the sludge content is higher than the target value, the process is stopped and the reactor is cleaned. This is undesirable as it increases running costs. In chapter 2 we investigate a simple model for the activated sludge process in which the influent contains a mixture of soluble and biodegradable particulate substrate. Within the bioreactor the biodegradable particulate substrate is hydrolyzed to form soluble substrate. The soluble organics are used for energy and growth by the biomass. Biomass decay produces soluble substrate in addition to inert material. We use steady-state analysis to investigate how the amount of sludge formed depends upon the residence time and the use of a settling unit. We show that when the steady-state sludge content is plotted as a function of the residence time that there are five generic response diagrams, depending upon the value of the effective recycle parameter. Four of them are desirable because the sludge content is below the target value if the residence time is higher than some critical value that is not ‘too large’ in practice. In chapter 3 we investigate how the volume and mass of excess sludge produced by the activated sludge process can be reduced by coupling the bioreactor used in the process to a sludge disintegration unit. In chapter 4 a seemingly minor modification is made to the model in chapter 2.

Let $S \subset \Bbb R^n$ be a smooth compact hypersurface with a strictly positive second fundamental form, $E$ be the Fourier extension operator on $S$, and $X$ be a Lebesgue measurable subset of $\Bbb R^n$. If $X$ contains a ball of each radius, then the problem of determining the range of exponents $(p,q)$ for which the estimate $\| Ef \|_{L^q(X)} \leq C \| f \|_{L^p(S)}$ holds is equivalent to the restriction conjecture. In this paper, we study the estimate under the following assumption on the set $X$: there is a number $0 < \alpha \leq n$ such that $|X \cap B_R| \leq c \, R^\alpha$ for all balls $B_R$ in $\Bbb R^n$ of radius $R \geq 1$. On the left-hand side of this estimate, we are integrating the function $|Ef(x)|^q$ against the measure $\chi_X dx$. Our approach consists of replacing the characteristic function $\chi_X$ of $X$ by an appropriate weight function $H$, and studying the resulting estimate in three different regimes: small values of $\alpha$, intermediate values of $\alpha$, and large values of $\alpha$. In the first regime, we establish the estimate by using already available methods. In the second regime, we prove a weighted H\"{o}lder-type inequality that holds for general non-negative Lebesgue measurable functions on $\Bbb R^n$, and combine it with the result from the first regime. In the third regime, we borrow a recent fractal Fourier restriction theorem of Du and Zhang and combine it with the result from the second regime. In the opposite direction, the results of this paper improve on the Du-Zhang theorem in the range $0 < \alpha < n/2$., Comment: 31 pages. Minor revision

This paper presents an approach, based on interpolation theory of operators, to the study of interpolating sequences for interpolation Banach spaces between Hardy spaces. It is shown that the famous Carleson result forH∞can be lifted to a large class of abstract Hardy spaces. A description is provided of the range of the Carleson operator defined on interpolation spaces between the classical Hardy spaces in terms of uniformly separated sequences. A key role in this description is played by some general interpolation results proved in the paper. As by-products, novel results are obtained which extend the Shapiro–Shields result on the characterisation of interpolation sequences for the classical Hardy spacesHp. Applications to Hardy–Lorentz, Hardy–Marcinkiewicz and Hardy–Orlicz spaces are presented.

This is the first of a series of two papers dealing with local limit theorems in relatively hyperbolic groups. In this first paper, we prove rough estimates for the Green function. Along the way, we introduce the notion of relative automaticity which will be useful in both papers and we show that relatively hyperbolic groups are relatively automatic. We also define the notion of spectral positive recurrence for random walks on relatively hyperbolic groups. We then use our estimates for the Green function to prove that $p_n\asymp R^{-n}n^{-3/2}$ for spectrally positive-recurrent random walks, where $p_n$ is the probability of going back to the origin at time n and where R is the inverse of the spectral radius of the random walk.

The Σ-invariants of Bieri–Neumann–Strebel and Bieri–Renz involve an action of a discrete group G on a geometrically suitable space M. In the early versions, M was always a finite-dimensional Euclidean space on which G acted by translations. A substantial literature exists on this, connecting the invariants to group theory and to tropical geometry (which, actually, Σ-theory anticipated). More recently, we have generalized these invariants to the case where M is a proper CAT(0) space on which G acts by isometries. The “zeroth stage” of this was developed in our paper [BG16]. The present paper provides a higher-dimensional extension of the theory to the “nth stage” for any n.

In this paper we consider the following problem: letXk, be a Banach space with a normalised basis (e(k, j))j, whose biorthogonals are denoted by${(e_{(k,j)}^*)_j}$, for$k\in\N$, let$Z=\ell^\infty(X_k:k\kin\N)$be theirl∞-sum, and let$T:Z\to Z$be a bounded linear operator with a large diagonal,i.e.,$$\begin{align*}\inf_{k,j} \big|e^*_{(k,j)}(T(e_{(k,j)})\big|>0.\end{align*}$$Under which condition does the identity onZfactor throughT? The purpose of this paper is to formulate general conditions for which the answer is positive.

In this paper, to model cascading failures, a new stochastic failure model is proposed. In a system subject to cascading failures, after each failure of the component, the remaining component suffers from increased load or stress. This results in shortened residual lifetimes of the remaining components. In this paper, to model this effect, the concept of the usual stochastic order is employed along with the accelerated life test model, and a new general class of stochastic failure models is generated.

In this paper, we present a version of Guan-Zhou’s optimal $L^{2}$ extension theorem and its application. As a main application, we show that under a natural condition, the question posed by Ohsawa in his series paper VIII on the extension of $L^{2}$ holomorphic functions holds. We also give an explicit counterexample which shows that the question fails in general.

In this paper, we first use the distribution of the number of records to demonstrate that the right tail probabilities of counts of rare events are generally better approximated by the right tail probabilities of Poisson distribution than {those} of normal distribution. We then show the moderate deviations in Poisson approximation generally require an adjustment and, with suitable adjustment, we establish better error estimates of the moderate deviations in Poisson approximation than those in \cite{CFS}. Our estimates contain no unspecified constants and are easy to apply. We illustrate the use of the theorems in six applications: Poisson-binomial distribution, matching problem, occupancy problem, birthday problem, random graphs and 2-runs. The paper complements the works of \cite{CC92,BCC95,CFS}., 29 pages and 5 figures

Suppose that $G$ is a simple reductive group over $\mathbf{Q}$, with an exceptional Dynkin type and with $G(\mathbf{R})$ quaternionic (in the sense of Gross–Wallach). In a previous paper, we gave an explicit form of the Fourier expansion of modular forms on $G$ along the unipotent radical of the Heisenberg parabolic. In this paper, we give the Fourier expansion of the minimal modular form $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}_{Gan}$ on quaternionic $E_{8}$ and some applications. The $Sym^{8}(V_{2})$-valued automorphic function $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}_{Gan}$ is a weight 4, level one modular form on $E_{8}$, which has been studied by Gan. The applications we give are the construction of special modular forms on quaternionic $E_{7},E_{6}$ and $G_{2}$. We also discuss a family of degenerate Heisenberg Eisenstein series on the groups $G$, which may be thought of as an analogue to the quaternionic exceptional groups of the holomorphic Siegel Eisenstein series on the groups $\operatorname{GSp}_{2n}$.

We present a new method of proving the Diophantine extremality of various dynamically defined measures, vastly expanding the class of measures known to be extremal. This generalizes and improves the celebrated theorem of Kleinbock and Margulis [{\it Invent. Math.} {\bf 138}(3) (1999), 451--494] resolving Sprind\v zuk's conjecture, as well as its extension by Kleinbock, Lindenstrauss, and Weiss [On fractal measures and Diophantine approximation. {\it Selecta Math.} {\bf 10} (2004), 479--523], hereafter abbreviated KLW. As applications we prove the extremality of all hyperbolic measures of smooth dynamical systems with sufficiently large Hausdorff dimension, and of the Patterson--Sullivan measures of all nonplanar geometrically finite groups. The key technical idea, which has led to a plethora of new applications, is a significant weakening of KLW's sufficient conditions for extremality. In the first of this series of papers [{\it Selecta Math.} {\bf 24}(3) (2018), 2165--2206], we introduce and develop a systematic account of two classes of measures, which we call {\it quasi-decaying} and {\it weakly quasi-decaying}. We prove that weak quasi-decay implies strong extremality in the matrix approximation framework, as well as proving the ``inherited exponent of irrationality'' version of this theorem. In this paper, the second of the series, we establish sufficient conditions on various classes of conformal dynamical systems for their measures to be quasi-decaying. In particular, we prove the above-mentioned result about Patterson--Sullivan measures, and we show that equilibrium states (including conformal measures) of nonplanar infinite iterated function systems (including those which do not satisfy the open set condition) and rational functions are quasi-decaying., Comment: Link to Part I: arXiv:1504.04778

Let $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}$ be an irrational real number. The map $T_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}}:y\mapsto (y+\unicode[STIX]{x1D703})\!\hspace{0.6em}{\rm mod}\hspace{0.2em}1$ from the unit interval $\mathbf{I}= [\!0,1\![$ (endowed with the Lebesgue measure) to itself is ergodic. In a short paper [Parry, Automorphisms of the Bernoulli endomorphism and a class of skew-products. Ergod. Th. & Dynam. Sys.16 (1996), 519–529] published in 1996, Parry provided an explicit isomorphism between the measure-preserving map $[T_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}},\text{Id}]$ and the unilateral dyadic Bernoulli shift when $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}$ is extremely well approximated by the rational numbers, namely, if $$\begin{eqnarray}\inf _{q\geq 1}q^{4}4^{q^{2}}~\text{dist}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D703},q^{-1}\mathbb{Z})=0.\end{eqnarray}$$ A few years later, Hoffman and Rudolph [Uniform endomorphisms which are isomorphic to a Bernoulli shift. Ann. of Math. (2)156 (2002), 79–101] showed that for every irrational number, the measure-preserving map $[T_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}},\text{Id}]$ is isomorphic to the unilateral dyadic Bernoulli shift. Their proof is not constructive. In the present paper, we relax notably Parry’s condition on $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}$: the explicit map provided by Parry’s method is an isomorphism between the map $[T_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}},\text{Id}]$ and the unilateral dyadic Bernoulli shift whenever $$\begin{eqnarray}\inf _{q\geq 1}q^{4}~\text{dist}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D703},q^{-1}\mathbb{Z})=0.\end{eqnarray}$$ This condition can be relaxed again into $$\begin{eqnarray}\inf _{n\geq 1}q_{n}^{3}~(a_{1}+\cdots +a_{n})~|q_{n}\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}-p_{n}| where $[0;a_{1},a_{2},\ldots ]$ is the continued fraction expansion and $(p_{n}/q_{n})_{n\geq 0}$ the sequence of convergents of $\Vert \unicode[STIX]{x1D703}\Vert :=\text{dist}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D703},\mathbb{Z})$. Whether Parry’s map is an isomorphism for every $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}$ or not is still an open question, although we expect a positive answer.

This paper generalizes the Kunita–Watanabe decomposition of an $L^2$ space. The generalization comes from using nonlinear stochastic integrals where the integrator is a family of continuous martingales bounded in $L^2$ . This result is also the solution of an optimization problem in $L^2$ . First, martingales are assumed to be stochastic integrals. Then, to get the general result, it is shown that the regularity of the family of martingales with respect to its spatial parameter is inherited by the integrands in the integral representation of the martingales. Finally, an example showing how the results of this paper, with the Clark–Ocone formula, can be applied to polynomial functions of Brownian integrals.

The notion of quantized characters was introduced in our previous paper as a natural quantization of characters in the context of asymptotic representation theory forquantum groups. As in the case of ordinary groups, the representation associated with any extreme quantized character generates a von Neumann factor. From the viewpoint of operator algebras (and measurable dynamical systems), it is natural to ask what is the Murray–von Neumann–Connes type of the resulting factor. In this paper, we give a complete solution to this question when the inductive system is of quantum unitary groups $U_{q}(N)$.

We study a Markovian agent-based model (MABM) in this paper. Each agent is endowed with a local state that changes over time as the agent interacts with its neighbours. The neighbourhood structure is given by a graph. In a recent paper [Simon et al. 2011], the authors used the automorphisms of the underlying graph to generate a lumpable partition of the joint state space ensuring Markovianness of the lumped process for binary dynamics. However, many large random graphs tend to become asymmetric rendering the automorphism-based lumping approach ineffective as a tool of model reduction. In order to mitigate this problem, we propose a lumping method based on a notion of local symmetry, which compares only local neighbourhoods of vertices. Since local symmetry only ensures approximate lumpability, we quantify the approximation error by means of Kullback-Leibler divergence rate between the original Markov chain and a lifted Markov chain. We prove the approximation error decreases monotonically. The connections to fibrations of graphs are also discussed., Comment: 28 pages, 4 figures

This paper considers two variants of M/G/1 queues with impatient customers, which are denoted by M/G/1+Gw and M/G/1+Gs. In the M/G/1+Gw queue customers have deadlines for their waiting times, and they leave the system immediately if their services do not start before the expiration of their deadlines. On the other hand, in the M/G/1+Gs queue customers have deadlines for their sojourn times, where customers in service also immediately leave the system when their deadlines expire. In this paper we derive comparison results for performance measures of these models. In particular, we show that if the service time distribution is new better than used in expectation, then the loss probability in the M/G/1+Gs queue is greater than that in the M/G/1+Gw queue.

This paper concerns the study of the global structure of measure-preserving actions of countable groups on standard probability spaces. Weak containment is a hierarchical notion of complexity of such actions, motivated by an analogous concept in the theory of unitary representations. This concept gives rise to an associated notion of equivalence of actions, called weak equivalence, which is much coarser than the notion of isomorphism (conjugacy). It is well understood now that, in general, isomorphism is a very complex notion, a fact which manifests itself, for example, in the lack of any reasonable structure in the space of actions modulo isomorphism. On the other hand, the space of weak equivalence classes is quite well behaved. Another interesting fact that relates to the study of weak containment is that many important parameters associated with actions, such as the type, cost, and combinatorial parameters, turn out to be invariants of weak equivalence and in fact exhibit desirable monotonicity properties with respect to the pre-order of weak containment, a fact that can be useful in certain applications. There has been quite a lot of activity in this area in the last few years, and our goal in this paper is to provide a survey of this work.

This paper studies the regularity results of classical solutions to the two-dimensional critical Oldroyd-B model in the corotational case. The critical case refers to the full Laplacian dissipation in the velocity or the full Laplacian dissipation in the non-Newtonian part of the stress tensor. Whether or not their classical solutions develop finite time singularities is a difficult problem and remains open. The object of this paper is two-fold. Firstly, we establish the global regularity result to the case when the critical case occurs in the velocity and a logarithmic dissipation occurs in the non-Newtonian part of the stress tensor. Secondly, when the critical case occurs in the non-Newtonian part of the stress tensor, we first present many interesting global a priori bounds, then establish a conditional global regularity in terms of the non-Newtonian part of the stress tensor. This criterion comes naturally from our approach to obtain a global L∞-bound for the vorticity ω.

Let${\mathcal{S}}$be the family of analytic and univalent functions$f$in the unit disk$\mathbb{D}$with the normalization$f(0)=f^{\prime }(0)-1=0$, and let$\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}_{n}(f)=\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}_{n}$denote the logarithmic coefficients of$f\in {\mathcal{S}}$. In this paper we study bounds for the logarithmic coefficients for certain subfamilies of univalent functions. Also, we consider the families${\mathcal{F}}(c)$and${\mathcal{G}}(c)$of functions$f\in {\mathcal{S}}$defined by$$\begin{eqnarray}\text{Re}\biggl(1+{\displaystyle \frac{zf^{\prime \prime }(z)}{f^{\prime }(z)}}\biggr)>1-{\displaystyle \frac{c}{2}}\quad \text{and}\quad \text{Re}\biggl(1+{\displaystyle \frac{zf^{\prime \prime }(z)}{f^{\prime }(z)}}\biggr)for some$c\in (0,3]$and$c\in (0,1]$, respectively. We obtain the sharp upper bound for$|\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}_{n}|$when$n=1,2,3$and$f$belongs to the classes${\mathcal{F}}(c)$and${\mathcal{G}}(c)$, respectively. The paper concludes with the following two conjectures:∙If$f\in {\mathcal{F}}(-1/2)$, then$|\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}_{n}|\leq 1/n(1-(1/2^{n+1}))$for$n\geq 1$, and$$\begin{eqnarray}\mathop{\sum }_{n=1}^{\infty }|\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}_{n}|^{2}\leq {\displaystyle \frac{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}^{2}}{6}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}~\text{Li}_{2}\biggl({\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\biggr)-\text{Li}_{2}\biggl({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\biggr),\end{eqnarray}$$where$\text{Li}_{2}(x)$denotes the dilogarithm function.∙If$f\in {\mathcal{G}}(c)$, then$|\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}_{n}|\leq c/2n(n+1)$for$n\geq 1$.

In 2005, using a famous lemma of Atkin and Swinnerton-Dyer (Some properties of partitions, Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3)4(1954), 84–106), Yesilyurt (Four identities related to third order mock theta functions in Ramanujan’s lost notebook, Adv. Math. 190(2005), 278–299) proved four identities for third order mock theta functions found on pages 2 and 17 in Ramanujan’s lost notebook. The primary purpose of this paper is to offer new proofs in the spirit of what Ramanujan might have given in the hope that a better understanding of the identities might be gained. Third order mock theta functions are intimately connected with ranks of partitions. We prove new dissections for two rank generating functions, which are keys to our proof of the fourth, and the most difficult, of Ramanujan’s identities. In the last section of this paper, we establish new relations for ranks arising from our dissections of rank generating functions.

This paper will be devoted to study a class of bilinear square-function Fourier multiplier operator associated with a symbol $m$ defined by $$\begin{eqnarray}\displaystyle & & \displaystyle \mathfrak{T}_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D706},m}(f_{1},f_{2})(x)\nonumber\\ \displaystyle & & \displaystyle \quad =\Big(\iint _{\mathbb{R}_{+}^{n+1}}\Big(\frac{t}{|x-z|+t}\Big)^{n\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}}\nonumber\\ \displaystyle & & \displaystyle \qquad \times \,\bigg|\int _{(\mathbb{R}^{n})^{2}}e^{2\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}ix\cdot (\unicode[STIX]{x1D709}_{1}+\unicode[STIX]{x1D709}_{2})}m(t\unicode[STIX]{x1D709}_{1},t\unicode[STIX]{x1D709}_{2})\hat{f}_{1}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D709}_{1})\hat{f}_{2}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D709}_{2})\,d\unicode[STIX]{x1D709}_{1}\,d\unicode[STIX]{x1D709}_{2}\bigg|^{2}\frac{dz\,dt}{t^{n+1}}\Big)^{1/2}.\nonumber\end{eqnarray}$$ A basic fact about $\mathfrak{T}_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D706},m}$ is that it is closely associated with the multilinear Littlewood–Paley $g_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}}^{\ast }$ function. In this paper we first investigate the boundedness of $\mathfrak{T}_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D706},m}$ on products of weighted Lebesgue spaces. Then, the weighted endpoint $L\log L$ type estimate and strong estimate for the commutators of $\mathfrak{T}_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D706},m}$ will be demonstrated.

Left restriction semigroups are the unary semigroups that abstractly characterize semigroups of partial maps on a set, where the unary operation associates to a map the identity element on its domain. This paper is the sequel to two recent papers by the author, melding the results of the first, on membership in the variety $\mathbf{B}$ of left restriction semigroups generated by Brandt semigroups and monoids, with the connection established in the second between subvarieties of the variety $\mathbf{B}_{R}$ of two-sided restriction semigroups similarly generated and varieties of categories, in the sense of Tilson. We show that the respective lattices ${\mathcal{L}}(\mathbf{B})$ and ${\mathcal{L}}(\mathbf{B}_{R})$ of subvarieties are almost isomorphic, in a very specific sense. With the exception of the members of the interval $[\mathbf{D},\mathbf{D}\vee \mathbf{M}]$, every subvariety of $\mathbf{B}$ is induced from a member of $\mathbf{B}_{R}$ and vice versa. Here $\mathbf{D}$ is generated by the three-element left restriction semigroup $D$ and $\mathbf{M}$ is the variety of monoids. The analogues hold for pseudovarieties.

In this paper, we study the singular fourth-order differential equation with a deviating argument:By using Mawhin's continuation theorem and some analytic techniques, we establish some criteria to guarantee the existence of positive periodic solutions. The significance of this paper is that g has a strong singularity at x = 0 and satisfies a small force condition at x = ∞, which is different from the known ones in the literature.

Inspired by a method of La Bretèche relying on some unique factorisation, we generalise work of Blomer, Brüdern and Salberger to prove Manin's conjecture in its strong form conjectured by Peyre for some infinite family of varieties of higher dimension. The varieties under consideration in this paper correspond to the singular projective varieties defined by the following equation$$ x_1 y_2y_3\cdots y_n+x_2y_1y_3 \cdots y_n+ \cdots+x_n y_1 y_2 \cdots y_{n-1}=0 $$in ℙℚ2n−1for alln⩾ 3. This paper comes with an Appendix by Per Salberger constructing a crepant resolution of the above varieties.

In this paper we study the affine focal set, which is the bifurcation set of the affine distance to submanifolds Nn contained in hypersurfaces Mn+1 of the (n + 2)-space. We give conditions under which this affine focal set is a regular hypersurface and, for curves in 3-space, we describe its stable singularities. For a given Darboux vector field ξ of the immersion N ⊂ M, one can define the affine metric g and the affine normal plane bundle . We prove that the g-Laplacian of the position vector belongs to if and only if ξ is parallel. For umbilic and normally flat immersions, the affine focal set reduces to a single line. Submanifolds contained in hyperplanes or hyperquadrics are always normally flat. For N contained in a hyperplane L, we show that N ⊂ M is umbilic if and only if N ⊂ L is an affine sphere and the envelope of tangent spaces is a cone. For M hyperquadric, we prove that N ⊂ M is umbilic if and only if N is contained in a hyperplane. The main result of the paper is a general description of the umbilic and normally flat immersions: given a hypersurface f and a point O in the (n + 1)-space, the immersion (ν, ν · (f − O)), where ν is the co-normal of f, is umbilic and normally flat, and conversely, any umbilic and normally flat immersion is of this type.

SUMMARYIn this paper, a new family of 3-degree-of-freedom planar parallel manipulators (PPMs), namely U-shape fixed base PPMs starting with an active prismatic joint on each leg, is proposed. In order to identify the best manipulators of this family, comparative kinematic and dynamic performance studies are performed. The kinematic performances are quantified through the local performance index, namely the kinematic isotropy. From the kinematic isotropy analysis results, it is observed thatPPR-PRP-PRP,PRP-PRP-PRP andPRR-PRP-PRP configurations have better kinematic design aspects compared to other configurations of this family of U-shape fixed base parallel configurations. Further, from the workspace analysis, it is observed that thePPR-PRP-PRP configuration has a higher value of workspace to the total area required ratio compared to other configurations. This paper also presents a comparative dynamic performance analysis of these top-three U-shape fixed base configurations in terms of dynamic driving performance measures, and energy requirements for three different (fixed base size of the manipulators) aspect ratios under two different loading conditions. From the analyses results, it is perceived that thePRP-PRP-PRP configuration is requiring lower energy and dynamic driving performances than others. These analyses are done with the help of multi-body dynamic software, namely MSC ADAMS, and the results are validated through the help of real-time experiments conducted on in-house fabricated prototypes of these three PPMs. In specific, the energy consumption is measured and compared in this study. Experimental results demonstrated that thePRP-PRP-PRP manipulator displays a considerably better performance in terms of minimum energy requirement.

The scope of the paper is twofold. We show that for a large class of measurable vector fields in the sense of Weaver (i.e. derivations over the algebra of Lipschitz functions), called in the paper laminated, the notion of integral curves may be naturally defined and characterized (when appropriate) by an ordinary differential equation. We further show that for such vector fields the notion of a flow of the given positive Borel measure similar to the classical one generated by a smooth vector field (in a space with smooth structure) may be defined in a reasonable way, so that the measure ‘flows along’ the appropriately understood integral curves of the given vector field and the classical continuity equation is satisfied in the weak sense.

Tangential quadrilaterals are defined to be quadrilaterals in which a circle can be inscribed that is tangent to all four sides. It is well known and easy to prove that a convex quadrilateral is tangential if, and only if, the angle bisectors of all four vertex angles are concurrent at a point, which is the centre of the inscribed circle (incircle). The most well-known and in problem solving useful characterisation of tangential quadrilaterals is Pitot's theorem, which states that a convex quadrilateral is tangential if and only if its consecutive sides a, b, c, d satisfy the relation a + c = b + d [1, pp. 64-67]. If you want to have more background information about characterisations of tangential quadrilaterals, then we recommend you to check out the lovely papers [2, 3, 4], as well as our previous contributions on the subject [5, 6, 7]. These six papers together include about 30 characterisations that are either proved or reviewed there with references.

This paper deals with the Green ring $\mathcal{G}(\mathcal{C})$ of a finite tensor category $\mathcal{C}$ with finitely many isomorphism classes of indecomposable objects over an algebraically closed field. The first part of this paper deals with the question of when the Green ring $\mathcal{G}(\mathcal{C})$, or the Green algebra $\mathcal{G}(\mathcal{C})\otimes_{\mathbb {Z}}$K over a field K, is Jacobson semisimple (namely, has zero Jacobson radical). It turns out that $\mathcal{G}(\mathcal{C})\otimes_{\mathbb {Z}}$K is Jacobson semisimple if and only if the Casimir number of $\mathcal{C}$ is not zero in K. For the Green ring $\mathcal{G}(\mathcal{C})$ itself, $\mathcal{G}(\mathcal{C})$ is Jacobson semisimple if and only if the Casimir number of $\mathcal{C}$ is not zero. The second part of this paper focuses on the case where $\mathcal{C}=\text{Rep}(\mathbb {k}G)$ for a cyclic group G of order p over a field $\mathbb {k}$ of characteristic p. In this case, the Casimir number of $\mathcal{C}$ is computable and is shown to be 2p2. This leads to a complete description of the Jacobson radical of the Green algebra $\mathcal{G}(\mathcal{C})\otimes_{\mathbb {Z}}$K over any field K.

The action of any group on itself by conjugation and the corresponding conjugacy relation play an important role in group theory. There have been many attempts to find notions of conjugacy in semigroups that would be useful in special classes of semigroups occurring in various areas of mathematics, such as semigroups of matrices, operator and topological semigroups, free semigroups, transition monoids for automata, semigroups given by presentations with prescribed properties, monoids of graph endomorphisms, etc. In this paper we study four notions of conjugacy for semigroups, their interconnections, similarities and dissimilarities. They appeared originally in various different settings (automata, representation theory, presentations or transformation semigroups). Here we study them in maximum generality. The paper ends with a large list of open problems., Comment: The paper is now more focused on abstract semigroups and a fourth notion of conjugacy was introduced for its importance in representation theory and finite semigroups

Suppose that a countable group $G$ admits a cusp-uniform action on a hyperbolic space $(X,d)$ such that $G$ is of divergent type. The main result of the paper is characterizing the purely exponential growth type of the orbit growth function by a condition introduced by Dal'bo-Otal-Peign\'e. For geometrically finite Cartan-Hadamard manifolds with pinched negative curvature this condition ensures the finiteness of Bowen-Margulis-Sullivan measures. In this case, our result recovers a theorem of Roblin (in a weaker form). Our main tool is the Patterson-Sullivan measures on the Gromov boundary of $X$, and a variant of the Sullivan shadow lemma called partial shadow lemma. This allows us to prove that the purely exponential growth of either cones, or partial cones or horoballs is also equivalent to the condition of Dal'bo-Otal-Peign\'e. These results are further used in the paper \cite{YANG7}., Comment: Version 2: 34 pages, 2 figures. Sections 4 and 5 was rewritten following suggestions of the referee. Paper accepted by Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems

The general class of quadrilaterals where one diagonal is bisected by the other diagonal has appeared very rarely in the geometrical literature, but they have been named several times in connection with quadrilateral classifications. Günter Graumann strangely gave these objects two different names in [1, pp. 192, 194]: sloping-kite and sliding-kite. A. Ramachandran called them slant kites in [2, p. 54] and Michael de Villiers called them bisecting quadrilaterals in [3, pp. 19, 206]. The latter is a pretty good name, although a bit confusing: what exactly is bisected?We have found no papers and only two books where any theorems on such quadrilaterals are studied. In each of the books, one necessary and sufficient condition for such quadrilaterals is proved (see Theorem 1 and 2 in the next section). The purpose of this paper is to investigate basic properties of convex bisecting quadrilaterals, but we have chosen to give them a slightly different name. Let us first remind the reader that a quadrilateral whose diagonals have equal lengths is called an equidiagonal quadrilateral and one whose diagonals are perpendicular is called an orthodiagonal quadrilateral.

This is a sequel to the papers Oh and Wang (Real and Complex Submanifolds, Springer Proceedings in Mathematics and Statistics 106 (2014), 43–63, eds. by Y.-J. Suh and et al. for ICM-2014 satellite conference, Daejeon, Korea, August 2014; arXiv:1212.4817; Analysis of contact Cauchy–Riemann maps I: a priori$C^{k}$estimates and asymptotic convergence, submitted, preprint, 2012, arXiv:1212.5186v3). In Oh and Wang (Real and Complex Submanifolds, Springer Proceedings in Mathematics and Statistics 106 (2014), 43–63, eds. by Y.-J. Suh and et al. for ICM-2014 satellite conference, Daejeon, Korea, August 2014; arXiv:1212.4817), the authors introduced a canonical affine connection on $M$ associated to the contact triad $(M,\unicode[STIX]{x1D706},J)$. In Oh and Wang (Analysis of contact Cauchy–Riemann maps I: a priori$C^{k}$estimates and asymptotic convergence, submitted, preprint, 2012, arXiv:1212.5186v3), they used the connection to establish a priori$W^{k,p}$-coercive estimates for maps $w:\dot{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F4}}\rightarrow M$ satisfying $\overline{\unicode[STIX]{x2202}}^{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}}w=0$, $d(w^{\ast }\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}\circ j)=0$without involving symplectization. We call such a pair $(w,j)$ a contact instanton. In this paper, we first prove a canonical neighborhood theorem of the locus $Q$ foliated by closed Reeb orbits of a Morse–Bott contact form. Then using a general framework of the three-interval method, we establish exponential decay estimates for contact instantons $(w,j)$ of the triad $(M,\unicode[STIX]{x1D706},J)$, with $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}$ a Morse–Bott contact form and $J$ a CR-almost complex structure adapted to $Q$, under the condition that the asymptotic charge of $(w,j)$ at the associated puncture vanishes.We also apply the three-interval method to the symplectization case and provide an alternative approach via tensorial calculations to exponential decay estimates in the Morse–Bott case for the pseudoholomorphic curves on the symplectization of contact manifolds. This was previously established by Bourgeois (A Morse–Bott approach to contact homology, Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 2002) (resp. by Bao (On J-holomorphic curves in almost complex manifolds with asymptotically cylindrical ends, Pacific J. Math. 278(2) (2015), 291–324)), by using special coordinates, for the cylindrical (resp. for the asymptotically cylindrical) ends. The exponential decay result for the Morse–Bott case is an essential ingredient in the setup of the moduli space of pseudoholomorphic curves which plays a central role in contact homology and symplectic field theory (SFT).

In this paper we continue our earlier investigations on normal families of meromorphic functions\cite{CS2}. Here, we prove some value distribution results which lead to some normality criteria for a family of meromorphic functions involving the sharing of a holomorphic function by more general differential polynomials generated by members of the family and get some recently known results extended and improved. In particular, the main result of this paper leads to a counterexample to the converse of Bloch's principle.

Some classes of finitely generated hyperabelian groups defined in terms of semipermutability and S-semipermutability are studied in the paper. The classification of finitely generated hyperabelian groups all of whose finite quotients are PST-groups recently obtained by Robinson is behind our results. An alternative proof of such a classification is also included in the paper.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the behaviour of uncountable groups of cardinality $\aleph$ in which all proper subgroups of cardinality $\aleph$ are nilpotent. It is proved that such a group $G$ is nilpotent, provided that $G$ has no infinite simple homomorphic images and either $\aleph$ has cofinality strictly larger than $\aleph _{0}$ or the generalized continuum hypothesis is assumed to hold. Furthermore, groups whose proper subgroups of large cardinality are soluble are studied in the last part of the paper.

In a recent paper [1], the authors gave a combinatorial interpretation to sums of equally spaced binomial coefficients. Others have been interested in finding such sums, known as multisection of series. For example, Gould [2] derived interesting formulas but much of his work involved complicated manipulations of series. When the combinatorial approach can be implemented, it is neat and efficient. In this paper, we present another approach for finding equally spaced sums. We consider both infinite sums and partial finite sums based on generating functions and extracting coefficients.While generating functions were first introduced by Abraham de Moivre at the end of seventeen century, its systematic use in combinatorial analysis was inspired by Leonhard Euler. Generating functions got a new birth in the twentieth century as a part of symbolic methods. As a central mathematical tool in discrete mathematics, generating functions are an essential part of the curriculum in the analysis of algorithms [3, 4]. They provide a bridge between discrete and continuous mathematics, as illustrated by the fact that the generating functions presented here appear as solutions to corresponding differential equations.

SUMMARYThis paper studies bifurcations in the solution structure of an optimal control problem for mobile robotic formation control. In particular, this paper studies a group of mobile robots operating in a two-dimensional environment. Each robot has a predefined initial state and final state and we compute an optimal path between the two states for every robot. The path is optimized with respect to two factors, the control effort and the deviation from a desired “formation,” and a bifurcation parameter gives the relative weight given to each factor. Using an asymptotic analysis, we show that for small values of the bifurcation parameter (corresponding to heavily weighting the control effort) a single unique solution is expected, and that as the bifurcation parameter becomes large (corresponding to heavily weighting maintaining the formation) a large number of solutions is expected. Between the asymptotic extremes, a numerical investigation indicates a solution bifurcation structure with a cascade of increasing numbers of solutions, reminiscent, but not the same as, period-doubling bifurcations leading to chaos in dynamical systems. Furthermore, we show that if the system is symmetric, the bifurcation structure possesses symmetries, and also present a symmetry-breaking example of a non-holonomic system. Knowledge and understanding of the existence and structure of bifurcations in the solutions of this type of formation control problem are important for robotics engineers because common optimization approaches based on gradient-descent are only likely to converge to the single nearest solution, and a more global study provides a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the nature of this important problem in robotics.

One of the many definite integrals that Euler was the first to evaluate was(1)He did this, almost as an afterthought, at the end of his short, seven-page paper catalogued as E675 in [1] and with the matter-of-fact title, On the values of integrals from x = 0 to x = ∞. It is a beautiful Euler miniature which neatly illustrates the unexpected twists and turns in the history of mathematics. For Euler's derivation of (1) emerges as the by-product of a solution to a problem in differential geometry concerning the clothoid curve which he had first encountered nearly forty years earlier in his paper E65, [1]. As highlighted in the recent Gazette article [2], E675 is notable for Euler's use of a complex number substitution to evaluate a real-variable integral. He used this technique in about a dozen of the papers written in the last decade of his life. The rationale for this manoeuvre caused much debate among later mathematicians such as Laplace and Poisson and the technique was only put on a secure footing by the work of Cauchy from 1814 onwards on the foundations of complex function theory, [3, Chapter 1]. Euler's justification was essentially pragmatic (in agreement with numerical evidence) and by what Dunham in [4, p. 68] characterises as his informal credo, ‘Follow the formulas, and they will lead to the truth.’ Smithies, [3, p. 187], contextualises Euler's approach by noting that, at that time, ‘a function was usually thought of as being defined by an analytic expression; by the principle of the generality of analysis, which was widely and often tacitly accepted, such an expression was expected to be valid for all values, real or complex, of the independent variable’. In this article, we examine E675 closely. We have tweaked notation and condensed the working in places to reflect modern usage. At the end, we outline what is, with hindsight, needed to make Euler's arguments watertight: it is worth noting that all of his conclusions survive intact and that the intermediate functions of one and two variables that he introduces in E675 remain the key ingredients for much subsequent work on these integrals.

In a previous paper, we studied the homogenized enveloping algebra of the Lie algebrasℓ(2,ℂ) and the homogenized Verma modules. The aim of this paper is to study the homogenization$\mathcal{O}$Bof the Bernstein–Gelfand–Gelfand category$\mathcal{O}$of sℓ(2,ℂ), and to apply the ideas developed jointly with J. Mondragón in our work on Groebner basis algebras, to give the relations between the categories$\mathcal{O}$Band$\mathcal{O}$as well as, between the derived categories$\mathcal{D}$b($\mathcal{O}$B) and$\mathcal{D}$b($\mathcal{O}$).

In this paper we demonstrate thatnon-commutative localizationsof arbitrary additive categories (generalizing those defined by Cohn in the setting of rings) are closely (and naturally) related to weight structures. Localizing an arbitrary triangulated category$\text{}\underline{C}$by a set$S$of morphisms in the heart$\text{}\underline{Hw}$of a weight structure$w$on it one obtains a triangulated category endowed with a weight structure$w^{\prime }$. The heart of$w^{\prime }$is a certain version of the Karoubi envelope of the non-commutative localization$\text{}\underline{Hw}[S^{-1}]_{\mathit{add}}$(of$\text{}\underline{Hw}$by$S$). The functor$\text{}\underline{Hw}\rightarrow \text{}\underline{Hw}[S^{-1}]_{\mathit{add}}$is the natural categorical version of Cohn’s localization of a ring, i.e., it is universal among additive functors that make all elements of$S$invertible. For any additive category$\text{}\underline{A}$, taking$\text{}\underline{C}=K^{b}(\text{}\underline{A})$we obtain a very efficient tool for computing$\text{}\underline{A}[S^{-1}]_{\mathit{add}}$; using it, we generalize the calculations of Gerasimov and Malcolmson (made for rings only). We also prove that$\text{}\underline{A}[S^{-1}]_{\mathit{add}}$coincides with the ‘abstract’ localization$\text{}\underline{A}[S^{-1}]$(as constructed by Gabriel and Zisman) if$S$contains all identity morphisms of$\text{}\underline{A}$and is closed with respect to direct sums. We apply our results to certain categories of birational motives$DM_{gm}^{o}(U)$(generalizing those defined by Kahn and Sujatha). We define$DM_{gm}^{o}(U)$for an arbitrary$U$as a certain localization of$K^{b}(Cor(U))$and obtain a weight structure for it. When$U$is the spectrum of a perfect field, the weight structure obtained this way is compatible with the corresponding Chow and Gersten weight structures defined by the first author in previous papers. For a general$U$the result is completely new. The existence of the correspondingadjacent$t$-structure is also a new result over a general base scheme; its heart is a certain category of birational sheaves with transfers over$U$.

A setisshyorHaar null(in the sense of Christensen) if there exists a Borel setand a Borel probability measureμonC[0, 1] such thatandfor allf∈C[0, 1]. The complement of a shy set is called aprevalentset. We say that a set isHaar ambivalentif it is neither shy nor prevalent.The main goal of the paper is to answer the following question: what can we say about the topological properties of the level sets of the prevalent/non-shy manyf∈C[0, 1]?The classical Bruckner–Garg theorem characterizes the level sets of the generic (in the sense of Baire category)f∈C[0, 1] from the topological point of view. We prove that the functionsf∈C[0, 1] for which the same characterization holds form a Haar ambivalent set.In an earlier paper, Balkaet al. proved that the functionsf∈C[0, 1] for which positively many level sets with respect to the Lebesgue measure λ are singletons form a non-shy set inC[0, 1]. The above result yields that this set is actually Haar ambivalent. Now we prove that the functionsf∈C[0, 1] for which positively many level sets with respect to the occupation measure λ ◦f–1are not perfect form a Haar ambivalent set inC[0, 1].We show that for the prevalentf∈C[0, 1] for the genericy∈f([0, 1]) the level setf–1(y) is perfect. Finally, we answer a question of Darji and White by showing that the set of functionsf∈C[0, 1] for which there exists a perfect setPf⊂ [0, 1] such thatfʹ(x) = ∞ for allx∈Pfis Haar ambivalent.

This paper contributes to the regular covers of a complete bipartite graph minus a matching, denoted $K_{n,n}-nK_{2}$, whose fiber-preserving automorphism group acts 2-arc-transitively. All such covers, when the covering transformation group $K$ is either cyclic or $\mathbb{Z}_{p}^{2}$ with $p$ a prime, have been determined in Xu and Du [‘2-arc-transitive cyclic covers of $K_{n,n}-nK_{2}$’, J. Algebraic Combin.39 (2014), 883–902] and Xu et al. [‘2-arc-transitive regular covers of $K_{n,n}-nK_{2}$ with the covering transformation group $\mathbb{Z}_{p}^{2}$’, Ars. Math. Contemp.10 (2016), 269–280]. Finally, this paper gives a classification of all such covers for $K\cong \mathbb{Z}_{p}^{3}$ with $p$ a prime.

In this paper a non-convex vector optimization problem among infinite-dimensional spaces is presented. In particular, a generalized Lagrange multiplier rule is formulated as a necessary and sufficient optimality condition for weakly minimal solutions of a constrained vector optimization problem, without requiring that the ordering cone that defines the inequality constraints has non-empty interior. This paper extends the result of Donato (J. Funct. Analysis261 (2011), 2083–2093) to the general setting of vector optimization by introducing a constraint qualification assumption that involves the Fréchet differentiability of the maps and the tangent cone to the image set. Moreover, the constraint qualification is a necessary and sufficient condition for the Lagrange multiplier rule to hold.

In an earlier paper, Romanowska, Ślusarski and Smith described a duality between the category of polytopes (finitely generated real convex sets considered as barycentric algebras) and a certain category of intersections of hypercubes, considered as barycentric algebras with additional constant operations. The present paper provides an extension of this duality to a much more general class of so-called quasipolytopes, that is, convex sets with polytopes as closures. The dual spaces of quasipolytopes are Płonka sums of open polytopes, which are considered as barycentric algebras with some additional operations. In constructing this duality, we use several known and new dualities: the Hofmann–Mislove–Stralka duality for semilattices; the Romanowska–Ślusarski–Smith duality for polytopes; a new duality for open polytopes; and a new duality for injective Płonka sums of polytopes.