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Even fairly good students, when they have obtained the solution of the problem and written down neatly the argument, shut their books and look for something else. Doing so, they miss an important a...

The variability and interdependence of local porosity and local mean geodesic tortuosity, which is a measure for the sinuosity of shortest transportation paths, is investigated at the example of the microstructure in sack paper. By means of statistical image analysis, these two morphological characteristics are computed for several cutouts of 3D image data obtained by X-ray microcomputed tomography. Considering cutouts of different sizes allows us to study the influence of the sample size on the local variability of the considered characteristics. Moreover, the interdependence between local porosity and local mean geodesic tortuosity is quantified by modeling their joint distribution parametrically using Archimedean copulas. It turns out that the family of Gumbel copulas is an appropriate model type, which is formally validated by a goodness of fit test. Besides mean geodesic tortuosity, we consider further related morphological characteristics, describing the sinuosity of those shortest transportation paths, whose minimum diameter exceeds a predefined threshold. Moreover, we show that the copula approach investigated in this paper can also be used to quantify the negative correlation between local porosity and these modified versions of local mean geodesic tortuosity. Our results elucidate the impact of local porosity on various kinds of morphological characteristics, which are not experimentally accessible and which are important for local air permeance – a key property of sack paper.

Very recently Bordelles, Dai, Heyman, Pan and Shparlinski studied asymptotic behaviour of the quantity $$\begin{aligned} S_f(x) := \sum _{n\leqslant x} f\left( \left[ \frac{x}{n}\right] \right) , \end{aligned}$$and established some asymptotic formulas for $$S_f(x)$$ under three different types of assumptions on f. In this short note we improve some of their results.

The paper alluded to in the title contains the following striking result: Let $I$ be the unit interval and $\Delta$ the Cantor set. If $X$ is a quasi Banach space containing no copy of $c_0$ which is isomorphic to a closed subspace of a space with a basis and $C(I, X)$ is linearly homeomorphic to $C(\Delta, X)$, then $X$ is locally convex, i.e., a Banach space. It is shown that Kalton result is sharp by exhibiting non locally convex quasi Banach spaces X with a basis for which $C(I, X)$ and $C(\Delta, X)$ are isomorphic. Our examples are rather specific and actually in all cases X is isomorphic to $C(\Delta, X)$ if $K$ is a metric compactum of finite covering dimension., Comment: 4 pages

P values linked to null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) is the most widely (mis)used method of statistical inference. Empirical data suggest that across the biomedical literature (1990–2015)...

Propositions 1.1–1.3 stated below contribute to results and certain problems considered in [E-S], on the behavior of products $$\Pi^n_1(1-z^{a_j}),1\leq{a_1}...\leq{a_n}$$ integers. In the discussion below, {a1,..., an} will be either a proportional subset of {1,..., n} or a set of large arithmetic diameter.

In this short note, we show that Theorem 4.3 of Liu and Yu (Monatshefte Math 195:173–176, 2021) is a consequence of Lemma 2 of Ballester-Bolinches and Esteban-Romero (J Aust Math Soc 75:181–191, 2003).

In 1903, Epstein published his proof of meromorphic continuation and a functional equation for Dirichlet series associated with quadratic forms, now called Epstein zeta-functions. However, already in 1889 (or even earlier) Hurwitz was aware of these results as his mathematical diaries and some unpublished notes (in an almost final form) found in his estate at the ETH Zurich show. In this article we present and analyze Hurwitz's notes and compare his reasoning with Epstein's paper in detail.

We congratulate the authors Bertsimas, Pauphilet and van Parys (hereafter BPvP) and Hastie, Tibshirani and Tibshirani (hereafter HTT) for providing fresh and insightful views on the problem of variable selection and prediction in linear models. Their contributions at the fundamental level provide guidance for more complex models and procedures.

International audience; This survey was written by students of L. D. Faddeev under the editorship of L. A. Takhtajan. Sections 1.1, 1.2, 2–4, and 6 were written by Takhtajan, §§1.3 and 1.4 by F. A. Smirnov, §§5.1 and 5.2 by E. K. Sklyanin, §§5.3–5.6 by Sklyanin, Smirnov, and Takhtajan, §7.1 by M. A. Semenov- Tian-Shansky, §§7.2–7.6 by Takhtajan and S. L. Shatashvili, §7.7 by A. Yu. Alekseev and Shatashvili, and §8 by I. Ya. Aref'eva.

The translation into English of Aleksandr Yakovlevich Khinchin's (1894–1959) 1926 paper entitled ‘Ideas of intuitionism and the struggle for a subject matter in contemporary mathematics’ is made available for the first time. Here, Khinchin presented the famous foundational debate between L.E.J. Brouwer and David Hilbert of the 1920s in terms of a search for a mathematics with content. His main aim seems to have been to make intuitionism ideologically acceptable to his audience at the Communist Academy by means of the claim that insofar as Brouwer's intuitionism had a clear ‘subject matter’ and Hilbert's new program was a concession to intuitionism, the alleged victory of intuitionism not only implied the defeat of ‘empty’ formalism, but also showed the compatibility and affinity of Marxism with the newest developments in modern mathematics. This introduction provides a tentative exploration of the issue of what was tactical (or due to ideological pressure) and what was real scientific interest (or due to ignorance) (or what was both) in Khinchin's 1926 paper in the form of a detailed commentary, especially, on the tactical side of his presentation of the positions of Brouwer and Hilbert.

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.

We correct an error in the paper of Z. Shen, S. Li, and J. Zhang published in [4]. In addition, we give an answer to a question posed by the authors.

Let a(n) be the Fourier coefficient of a holomorphic cusp form on some discrete subgroup of \(SL_2({\mathbb R})\). This note is to refine a recent result of Hofmann and Kohnen on the non-positive (resp. non-negative) product of \(a(n)a(n+r)\) for a fixed positive integer r.

For any discrete valuation ring R, any R-linear mapping u from an R-module E into an R-module F and any \(y_0\in F\), a necessary and sufficient condition for the solvability of the equation \(u(x)=y_0\) is established, and an application of this result is presented.

Let [Formula: see text] be a projective variety of dimension [Formula: see text] over an algebraically closed field of arbitrary characteristic. We prove a Fujiki–Lieberman type theorem on the structure of the automorphism group of [Formula: see text]. Let [Formula: see text] be a group of zero entropy automorphisms of [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] the set of elements in [Formula: see text] which are isotopic to the identity. We show that after replacing [Formula: see text] by a suitable finite-index subgroup, [Formula: see text] is a unipotent group of the derived length at most [Formula: see text]. This result was first proved by Dinh et al. for compact Kähler manifolds.

We characterize functions of finite energy in the plane in terms of their traces on the lines that make up "graph paper" with squares of side length $mn$ for all $n$, and certain $\12-$order Sobolev norms on the graph paper lines. We also obtain analogous results for functions of finite energy on two classical fractals: the Sierpinski gasket and the Sierpinski carpet.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the main result in the paper by D.Y. Gao and X. Lu [On the extrema of a nonconvex functional with double-well potential in 1D, Z. Angew. Math. Phys. (2016) 67:62]. More precisely we provide a detailed study of the problem considered in that paper, pointing out the importance of the norm on the space $C^{1}[a,b]$; because no norm (topology) is mentioned on $C^{1}[a,b]$ we look at it as being a subspace of $W^{1,p}(a,b)$ for $p\in [1,\infty]$ endowed with its usual norm. We show that the objective function has not local extrema with the mentioned constraints for $p\in [1,4)$, and has (up to an additive constant) only a local maximizer for $p=\infty$, unlike the conclusion of the main result of the discussed paper where it is mentioned that there are (up to additive constants) two local minimizers and a local maximizer. We also show that the same conclusions are valid for the similar problem treated in the preprint by X. Lu and D.Y. Gao [On the extrema of a nonconvex functional with double-well potential in higher dimensions, arXiv:1607.03995]., 12 pages; in this version we added the forgotten condition $F(x) \ne 0$ for $x\in (a,b)$ on page 3

We show that a relative entropy condition recently shown by Leger and Vasseur to imply uniqueness and stable $L^2$ dependence on initial data of Lax 1- or $n$-shock solutions of an $n\times n$ system of hyperbolic conservation laws with convex entropy implies Lopatinski stability in the sense of Majda. This means in particular that Leger and Vasseur's relative entropy condition represents a considerable improvement over the standard entropy condition of decreasing shock strength and increasing entropy along forward Hugoniot curves, which, in a recent example exhibited by Barker, Freist\"uhler and Zumbrun, was shown to fail to imply Lopatinski stability, even for systems with convex entropy. This observation bears also on the parallel question of existence, at least for small $BV$ or $H^s$ perturbations, Comment: to appear in Proceedings of the AMS

In this paper, we discuss the validity of the result of Khuangsatung and Kangtunyakarn [Existence and convergence theorem for fixed point problem of various nonlinear mappings and variational inequality problems without some assumptions, Filomat 32(1) (2018) 305–309].

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

The abstract results and applications presented in “Controllability of fractional neutral stochastic functional differential systems, Z. Angew. Math. Phys. 65 (2014), no. 5, 941–959, are not correct. Moreover, the class of differential control problems studied in [1] is not H-controllable.

Congruences mod p for a prime p and partial products of the numbers 1,…, p − 1 are obtained. Bibliography: 2 titles.

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."

The preeminent target of present study is to reveal the speed characteristic of ongoing outbreak COVID-19 due to novel coronavirus. On January 2020, the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) detected in India, and the total statistic of cases continuously increased to 7 128 268 cases including 109 285 deceases to October 2020, where 860 601 cases are active in India. In this study, we use the Hermite wavelets basis in order to solve the COVID-19 model with time- arbitrary Caputo derivative. The discussed framework is based upon Hermite wavelets. The operational matrix incorporated with the collocation scheme is used in order to transform arbitrary-order problem into algebraic equations. The corrector scheme is also used for solving the COVID-19 model for distinct value of arbitrary order. Also, authors have investigated the various behaviors of the arbitrary-order COVID-19 system and procured developments are matched with exiting developments by various techniques. The various illustrations of susceptible, exposed, infected, and recovered individuals are given for its behaviors at the various value of fractional order. In addition, the proposed model has been also supported by some numerical simulations and wavelet-based results.

Månsson and Shukur (Econ Model 28:1475–1481, 2011) proposed a Poisson ridge regression estimator (PRRE) to reduce the negative effects of multicollinearity. However, a weakness of the PRRE is its relatively large bias. Therefore, as a remedy, Türkan and Özel (J Appl Stat 43:1892–1905, 2016) examined the performance of almost unbiased ridge estimators for the Poisson regression model. These estimators will not only reduce the consequences of multicollinearity but also decrease the bias of PRRE and thus perform more efficiently. The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to derive the mean square error properties of the Modified Almost Unbiased PRRE (MAUPRRE) and Almost Unbiased PRRE (AUPRRE) and then propose new ridge estimators for MAUPRRE and AUPRRE. Secondly, to compare the performance of the MAUPRRE with the AUPRRE, PRRE and maximum likelihood estimator. Using both simulation study and real-world dataset from the Swedish football league, it is evidenced that one of the proposed, MAUPRRE ($$ \hat{k}_{q4} $$ k ^ q 4 ) performed better than the rest in the presence of high to strong (0.80–0.99) multicollinearity situation.

Funder: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/100005851, Funder: Einstein Visiting Fellow Program, The Rayleigh–Bénard system with stress-free boundary conditions is shown to have a global attractor in each affine space where velocity has fixed spatial average. The physical problem is shown to be equivalent to one with periodic boundary conditions and certain symmetries. This enables a Gronwall estimate on enstrophy. That estimate is then used to bound the L 2 norm of the temperature gradient on the global attractor, which, in turn, is used to find a bounding region for the attractor in the enstrophy–palinstrophy plane. All final bounds are algebraic in the viscosity and thermal diffusivity, a significant improvement over previously established estimates. The sharpness of the bounds are tested with numerical simulations.

It is pointed out that the proof of the basic result of Rahmanov's paper has a serious gap. It is documented by original sources that a statement he relied on in the proof contains a misprint, and it is shown by a counterexample that this statement (with the misprint) is, in fact, false. A somewhat weaker statement is proved true.

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 main goal of this short paper is to prove the existence of rank 2 simple and special Ulrich bundles on a wide class of elliptic surfaces: namely, on regular Weierstrass fibrations \(\pi : S\rightarrow \mathbb {P}^1\). Alongside we also show the existence of rank 2 weakly Ulrich sheaves on arbitrary Weierstrass fibrations \(S\rightarrow C_0\) and we deal with the (non-)existence of rank one Ulrich bundles on them.

© 2019, Pleiades Publishing, Ltd. It is well known that the classical and Sobolev wave fronts were extended to nonequivalent global versions by the use of the short-time Fourier transform. In this very short paper, we give complete characterizations of the former wave front sets in terms of the short-time Fourier transform.

The first symptomatic infected individuals of coronavirus (Covid-19) was confirmed in December 2020 in the city of Wuhan, China. In India, the first reported case of Covid-19 was confirmed on 30 January 2020. Today, coronavirus has been spread out all over the world. In this manuscript, we studied the coronavirus epidemic model with a true data of India by using Predictor-Corrector scheme. For the proposed model of Covid-19, the numerical and graphical simulations are performed in a framework of the new generalised Caputo sense non-integer order derivative. We analysed the existence and uniqueness of solution of the given fractional model by the definition of Chebyshev norm, Banach space, Schauder's second fixed point theorem, Arzel's-Ascoli theorem, uniform boundedness, equicontinuity and Weissinger's fixed point theorem. A new analysis of the given model with the true data is given to analyse the dynamics of the model in fractional sense. Graphical simulations show the structure of the given classes of the non-linear model with respect to the time variable. We investigated that the mentioned method is copiously strong and smooth to implement on the systems of non-linear fractional differential equation systems. The stability results for the projected algorithm is also performed with the applications of some important lemmas. The present study gives the applicability of this new generalised version of Caputo type non-integer operator in mathematical epidemiology. We compared that the fractional order results are more credible to the integer order results.

In a recent paper Robinson has obtained an explicit formula for the expression of an invariant matrix of an invariant matrix as a direct sum of invariant matrices. The object of the present note is to show that this formula may be deduced from known properties of Schur functions, with the aid of a result which the author has proved elsewhere.

In this short paper, we consider the exceptional set of integers, not restricted by elementary congruence conditions, which cannot be represented as sums of two squares of primes and a k-th power of prime for any integer $$k \ge 3$$ . Our results improve the recent results due to Brudern (in: Sander, Steuding, Steuding (eds) From arithmetic to zeta-functions, Springer, Cham 2016). The similar method can be also applied to some related questions in this direction, and this can improve the previous results.

This short paper is motivated by the paper of Bu et al. [C. Bu, C. Feng, P. Dong, A note on computational formulas for the Drazin inverse of certain block matrices, J. Appl. Math. Comput.(38) (2012) 631-640], where the authors gave additive formula for Drazin inverse for matrices under new conditions, and two representations under some specific conditions. Here is shown that the additive formula is not valid for all matrices which satisfy given conditions. Also, here is proved that the representations which were given in mentioned paper do not extend the results given by Hartwig et al. [R. Hartwig, X. Li, Y. Wei, Representations for the Drazin inverse of a 2 _ 2 block matrix, SIAM J. Matrix. Anal. Appl. (27)(2006) 757-771 ], in fact they are equivalent.

In this short paper, we will show that the space of real valued uniformly continuous functions defined on a metric space (X,d) is a ring if and only if every subset A ? X has one of the following properties: ? A is Bourbaki-bounded, i.e., every uniformly continuous function on X is bounded on A. ? A contains an infinite uniformly isolated subset, i.e., there exist ? > 0 and an infinite subset F ? A such that d(a,x) ? ? for every a ? F, x ? X n \{a}.

We show that bounded self-contracted curves are rectifiable in metric spaces with weak lower curvature bound in a sense we introduce in this article. This class of spaces is wide and includes, for example, finite-dimensional Alexandrov spaces of curvature bounded below and Berwald spaces of nonnegative flag curvature. (To be more precise, our condition is regarded as a strengthened doubling condition and holds also for a certain class of metric spaces with upper curvature bound.) We also provide the non-embeddability of large snowflakes into (balls in) metric spaces in the same class. We follow the strategy of the last author's previous paper based on the small rough angle condition, where spaces with upper curvature bound are considered. The results in this article show that such a strategy applies to spaces with lower curvature bound as well., Comment: A goofy mistake in formulations of Theorem 2 and 4 is fixed

We propose a complete-search algorithm for solving a class of non-convex, possibly infinite-dimensional, optimization problems to global optimality. We assume that the optimization variables are in a bounded subset of a Hilbert space, and we determine worst-case run-time bounds for the algorithm under certain regularity conditions of the cost functional and the constraint set. Because these run-time bounds are independent of the number of optimization variables and, in particular, are valid for optimization problems with infinitely many optimization variables, we prove that the algorithm converges to an \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\varepsilon $$\end{document}ε-suboptimal global solution within finite run-time for any given termination tolerance \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\varepsilon > 0$$\end{document}ε>0. Finally, we illustrate these results for a problem of calculus of variations.

In this short paper we study the d-Hermite condition about stably free modules for skew $$\textit{PBW}$$ extensions. For this purpose, we estimate the stable rank of these non-commutative rings. In addition, and closely related with these questions, we will prove Kronecker’s theorem about the radical of finitely generated ideals for some particular types of skew $$\textit{PBW}$$ extensions.

Let I be the Stanley–Reisner ideal of a simplicial complex Δ. In this short paper, we shall give a formula of vanishing of the local cohomology modules for S/I(r) in the case Δ is a union of disjoint matroids, where I(r) is the rth symbolic power of I. As an application, we will improve a previous result in Minh and Nakamura (Nagoya Math. J. 213, 127–140, 2014) for the k-Buchsbaumness of S/I(r).

We study the classical \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathsf {NP}}$$\end{document}NP-hard problems of finding maximum-size subsets from given sets of k terminal pairs that can be routed via edge-disjoint paths (MaxEDP) or node-disjoint paths (MaxNDP) in a given graph. The approximability of MaxEDP/MaxNDP is currently not well understood; the best known lower bound is \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${2^{\varOmega (\sqrt{\log n})}}$$\end{document}2Ω(logn), assuming \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathsf {NP}\not \subseteq \mathsf {DTIME}(n^{\mathcal {O}(\log n)})}$$\end{document}NP⊈DTIME(nO(logn)). This constitutes a significant gap to the best known approximation upper bound of \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {O}(\sqrt{n})}$$\end{document}O(n) due to Chekuri et al. (Theory Comput 2:137–146, 2006), and closing this gap is currently one of the big open problems in approximation algorithms. In their seminal paper, Raghavan and Thompson (Combinatorica 7(4):365–374, 1987) introduce the technique of randomized rounding for LPs; their technique gives an \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {O}(1)}$$\end{document}O(1)-approximation when edges (or nodes) may be used by \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {O}\left( \log n/\log \log n\right) }$$\end{document}Ologn/loglogn paths. In this paper, we strengthen the fundamental results above. We provide new bounds formulated in terms of the feedback vertex set number r of a graph, which measures its vertex deletion distance to a forest. In particular, we obtain the following results:For MaxEDP, we give an \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {O}(\sqrt{r} \log ({k}r))}$$\end{document}O(rlog(kr))-approximation algorithm. Up to a logarithmic factor, our result strengthens the best known ratio \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {O}(\sqrt{n})}$$\end{document}O(n) due to Chekuri et al., as \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${r\le n}$$\end{document}r≤n.Further, we show how to route \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\varOmega ({\text {OPT}}^{*})}$$\end{document}Ω(OPT∗) pairs with congestion bounded by \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {O}(\log (kr)/\log \log (kr))}$$\end{document}O(log(kr)/loglog(kr)), strengthening the bound obtained by the classic approach of Raghavan and Thompson.For MaxNDP, we give an algorithm that gives the optimal answer in time \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${(k+r)^{\mathcal {O}(r)}\cdot n}$$\end{document}(k+r)O(r)·n. This is a substantial improvement on the run time of \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${2^kr^{\mathcal {O}(r)}\cdot n}$$\end{document}2krO(r)·n, which can be obtained via an algorithm by Scheffler. We complement these positive results by proving that MaxEDP is \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathsf {NP}}$$\end{document}NP-hard even for \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${r=1}$$\end{document}r=1, and MaxNDP is \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathsf {W}[1]}$$\end{document}W[1]-hard when r is the parameter. This shows that neither problem is fixed-parameter tractable in r unless \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathsf {FPT}= \mathsf {W}[1]}$$\end{document}FPT=W[1] and that our approximability results are relevant even for very small constant values of r.

0.1. How it all began. When the second author translated a result on algebraic sur faces into the language of lattice polygons using toric geometry, he got a simple inequality for lattice polygons. This inequality had originally been discovered by Scott [12]. The first author then found a third proof. Subsequently, both authors went through a phase of polygon addiction. Once you get started drawing lattice polygons on graph paper and discovering relations between their numerical invariants, it is not so easy to stop! (The gentle reader has been warned.) Thus, it was just unavoidable that the authors came up with new inequalities: Scott's inequality can be sharpened if one takes into account another invariant, which is de fined by peeling off the skins of the polygons like an onion (see Section 3).

In this short note we show that non-negative Ricci curvature is not preserved under Ricci flow for closed manifolds of dimensions four and above, strengthening a previous result of Knopf in \cite{K} for complete non-compact manifolds of bounded curvature. This brings down to four dimensions a similar result B\"ohm and Wilking have for dimensions twelve and above, \cite{BW}. Moreover, the manifolds constructed here are \Kahler manifolds and relate to a question raised by Xiuxiong Chen in \cite{XC}, \cite{XCL}., Comment: New version with added references and corrected typos