On local convexity of nonlinear mappings between Banach spaces

We find conditions for a smooth nonlinear map f: U → V between open subsets of Hilbert or Banach spaces to be locally convex in the sense that for some c and each positive ? < c the image f(B _?(x)) of each ?-ball B _?(x) ? U is convex. We give a lower bound on c via the second order Lipschitz constant Lip₂(f), the Lipschitz-open constant Lip_o(f) of f, and the 2-convexity number conv₂(X) of the Banach space X.     

Eigenvalue inequalities for convex and log-convex functions

We give a matrix version of the scalar inequality f(a + b) ? f(a) + f(b) for positive concave functions f on [0, ∞). We show that Choi’s inequality for positive unital maps and operator convex functions remains valid for monotone convex functions at the cost of unitary congruences. Some inequalities for log-convex functions are presented and a new arithmetic-geometric mean inequality for positive matrices is given. We also point out a simple proof of the Bhatia-Kittaneh arithmetic-geometric mean inequality.     

Entire solutions of sublinear elliptic equations in anisotropic media

We study the nonlinear elliptic problem −Δu=ρ(x)f(u) in RN (N?3), lim|x|→∞u(x)=?, where ??0 is a real number, ρ(x) is a nonnegative potential belonging to a certain Kato class, and f(u) has a sublinear growth. We distinguish the cases ?>0 and ?=0 and prove existence and uniqueness results if the potential ρ(x) decays fast enough at infinity. Our arguments rely on comparison techniques and on a theorem of Brezis and Oswald for sublinear elliptic equations.     

On some arithmetic properties of Mahler functions

Mahler functions are power series f(x) with complex coefficients for which there exist a natural number n and an integer ? ≥ 2 such that f(x), f(x^?),..., \(f({x^{{\ell ^{n - 1}}}}),f({x^{{\ell ^n}}})\) are linearly dependent over ?(x). The study of the transcendence of their values at algebraic points was initiated by Mahler around the’ 30s and then developed by many authors. This paper is concerned with some arithmetic aspects of these functions. In particular, if f(x) satisfies f(x) = p(x)f(x^?) with p(x) a polynomial with integer coefficients, we show how the behaviour of f(x) mirrors on the polynomial p(x). We also prove some general results on Mahler functions in analogy with G-functions and E-functions.     

Closure properties of operators on the Ma-Minda type starlike and convex functions

A normalized univalent function f is called Ma-Minda starlike or convex if zf^′(z)/f(z)?φ(z) or 1+zf^″(z)/f^′(z)?φ(z) where φ is a convex univalent function with φ(0)=1. The class of Ma-Minda convex functions is shown to be closed under certain operators that are generalizations of previously studied operators. Analogous inclusion results are also obtained for subclasses of starlike and close-to-convex functions. Connections with various earlier works are made.     

On some relative convexities

We study two types of relative convexities of convex functions f and g. We say that f is convex relative to g   in the sense of Palmer (2002, 2003), if f=h(g)$f=h(g)$, where h   is strictly increasing and convex, and denote it by f_?(1)g$f{?}_{(1)}g$. Similarly, if f is convex relative to g   in the sense studied in Rajba (2011), that is if the function f−g$f-g$ is convex then we denote it by f_?(2)g$f{?}_{(2)}g$. The relative convexity relation _?(2)${?}_{(2)}$ of a function f   with respect to the function g(x)=cx²$g(x)=c{x}^2$ means the strong convexity of f. We analyze the relationships between these two types of relative convexities. We characterize them in terms of right derivatives of functions f and g, as well as in terms of distributional derivatives, without any additional assumptions of twice differentiability. We also obtain some probabilistic characterizations. We give a generalization of strong convexity of functions and obtain some Jensen-type inequalities.     

The Cauchy problem for electromagnetic wave propagation in globally perturbed nonselfadjoint media

Let G be a subset of a locally convex separated topological vector space E with int(G) ≠ Ø, cl(G) convex and quasi-complete. Let f: cl(G) → E be a continuous condensing multifunction with compact and convex values and with a bounded range. It is shown that for each w? int(G), there exists a u = u(w) ??(cl(G)) such that p(f(u) ? u) = inf{p(x ? y): x?f(u), y? cl(G)}, where p is the Minkowski's functional of the set (cl(G) ? w). Several fixed point results are obtained as a consequence of this result.     

On the precise growth, covering, and distortion theorems for normalized biholomorphic mappings

In this paper, we consider a normalized biholomorphic mapping f(x) defined on the unit ball in a complex Banach space, where the origin 0 is a zero of order k+1 of f(x)−x. The precise growth and covering theorem for f(x) is obtained when f(x) is a starlike mapping or a starlike mapping of order α. Especially, the precise growth and covering theorem for f(x) is also established when f(x) is a quasi-convex mapping. Moreover, the precise distortion theorem for f(x) is given when f(x) is a convex mapping. Our result includes many known results.     

Asymptotically stable sets and the stability of ω-limit sets

Let C be the collection of continuous self-maps of the unit interval I=[0,1] to itself. For f∈C and x∈I, let ω(x,f) be the ω-limit set of f generated by x, and following Block and Coppel, we take Q(x,f) to be the intersection of all the asymptotically stable sets of f containing ω(x,f). We show that Q(x,f) tells us quite a bit about the stability of ω(x,f) subject to perturbations of either x or f, or both. For example, a chain recurrent point y is contained in Q(x,f) if and only if there are arbitrarily small perturbations of f to a new function g that give us y as a point of ω(x,g). We also study the structure of the map Q taking (x,f)∈I×C to Q(x,f). We prove that Q is upper semicontinuous and a Baire 1 function, hence continuous on a residual subset of I×C. We also consider the map given by x?Q(x,f), and find that this map is continuous if and only if it is a constant map; that is, only when the set is a singleton.     

Regularity of the extremal solution for some elliptic problems with singular nonlinearity and advection

In this note, we investigate the regularity of the extremal solution u^? for the semilinear elliptic equation −△u+c(x)⋅∇u=λf(u) on a bounded smooth domain of Rn with Dirichlet boundary condition. Here f is a positive nondecreasing convex function, exploding at a finite value a∈(0,∞). We show that the extremal solution is regular in the low-dimensional case. In particular, we prove that for the radial case, all extremal solutions are regular in dimension two.     

Valuations and closure operators on finite lattices

Let L be a lattice. A function f:L→R (usually called evaluation) is submodular if f(x∧y)+f(x∨y)≤f(x)+f(y), supermodular if f(x∧y)+f(x∨y)≥f(x)+f(y), and modular if it is both submodular and supermodular. Modular functions on a finite lattice form a finite dimensional vector space. For finite distributive lattices, we compute this (modular) dimension. This turns out to be another characterization of distributivity (Theorem 3.9). We also present a correspondence between isotone submodular evaluations and closure operators on finite lattices (Theorem 5.5). This interplay between closure operators and evaluations should be understood as building a bridge between qualitative and quantitative data analysis.     

Periodic decomposition of measurable integer valued functions

We study those functions that can be written as a sum of (almost everywhere) integer valued periodic measurable functions with given periods. We show that being (almost everywhere) integer valued measurable function and having a real valued periodic decomposition with the given periods is not enough. We characterize those periods for which this condition is enough. We also get that the class of bounded measurable (almost everywhere) integer valued functions does not have the so-called decomposition property. We characterize those periods a₁,…,ak for which an almost everywhere integer valued bounded measurable function f has an almost everywhere integer valued bounded measurable (a₁,…,ak)-periodic decomposition if and only if Δa₁?Δakf=0, where Δaf(x)=f(x+a)−f(x).     

Optimum designs when the observations are second-order processes

Let the process {Y(x,t) : t?T} be observable for each x in some compact set X. Assume that Y(x, t) = θ₀f₀(x)(t) + … + θ_kf_k(x)(t) + N(t) where f_i are continuous functions from X into the reproducing kernel Hilbert space H of the mean zero random process N. The optimum designs are characterized by an Elfving's theorem with $\text{R}$ the closed convex hull of the set {(φ, f(x))_H : 6φ 6_H ≤ 1, x?X}, where (·, ·)_H is the inner product on H. It is shown that if X is convex and f_i are linear the design points may be chosen from the extreme points of X. In some problems each linear functional c′θ can be optimally estimated by a design on one point x(c). These problems are completely characterized. An example is worked and some partial results on minimax designs are obtained.     

Generalizations of methods of best approximation to convex optimization in locally convex spaces. II: Hyperplane theorems

We show that for a continuous convex functional f on a locally convex space E and a convex subset G of E such that inf f(E) < inf f(G), the problems of computing inf f(G) and of characterizing the elements g₀?G with f(g₀) = inf f(G) can be reduced to the same problems for a suitable hyperplane H₀ in E.     

The set of periodic scalar differential equations with cubic nonlinearities

We study the structure induced by the number of periodic solutions on the set of differential equations x^′=f(t,x) where f∈C³(R²) is T-periodic in t, fx³(t,x)<0 for every (t,x)∈R², and f(t,x)→?∞ as x→∞, uniformly on t. We find that the set of differential equations with a singular periodic solution is a codimension-one submanifold, which divides the space into two components: equations with one periodic solution and equations with three periodic solutions. Moreover, the set of differential equations with exactly one periodic singular solution and no other periodic solution is a codimension-two submanifold.     

Hoffman polynomials of nonnegative irreducible matrices and strongly connected digraphs

For a nonnegative n × n matrix A, we find that there is a polynomial f(x)∈R[x] such that f(A) is a positive matrix of rank one if and only if A is irreducible. Furthermore, we show that the lowest degree such polynomial f(x) with tr f(A) = n is unique. Thus, generalizing the well-known definition of the Hoffman polynomial of a strongly connected regular digraph, for any irreducible nonnegative n × n matrix A, we are led to define its Hoffman polynomial to be the polynomial f(x) of minimum degree satisfying that f(A) is positive and has rank 1 and trace n. The Hoffman polynomial of a strongly connected digraph is defined to be the Hoffman polynomial of its adjacency matrix. We collect in this paper some basic results and open problems related to the concept of Hoffman polynomials.     

Representations of positive polynomials on noncompact semialgebraic sets via KKT ideals

This paper studies the representation of a positive polynomial f(x) on a noncompact semialgebraic set S={x∈Rⁿ:g₁(x)≥0,…,g_s(x)≥0} modulo its KKT (Karush-Kuhn-Tucker) ideal. Under the assumption that the minimum value of f(x) on S is attained at some KKT point, we show that f(x) can be represented as sum of squares (SOS) of polynomials modulo the KKT ideal if f(x)>0 on S; furthermore, when the KKT ideal is radical, we argue that f(x) can be represented as a sum of squares (SOS) of polynomials modulo the KKT ideal if f(x)≥0 on S. This is a generalization of results in [J. Nie, J. Demmel, B. Sturmfels, Minimizing polynomials via sum of squares over the gradient ideal, Mathematical Programming (in press)], which discusses the SOS representations of nonnegative polynomials over gradient ideals.     

Epigraph of operator functions

It is known that a real function f is convex if and only if the set E(f) = {(x, y) ∈ ? × ?; f (x) ≤ y}, the epigraph of f is a convex set in ?². We state an extension of this result for operator convex functions and C^?-convex sets as well as operator log-convex functions and C^?-log-convex sets. Moreover, the C^?-convex hull of a Hermitian matrix has been represented in terms of its eigenvalues.     

Cone superadditivity of discrete convex functions

A function f is said to be cone superadditive if there exists a partition of R ⁿ into a family of polyhedral convex cones such that f(z?+?x) + f(z?+?y) ≤ f(z) + f(z?+?x?+?y) holds whenever x and y belong to the same cone in the family. This concept is useful in nonlinear integer programming in that, if the objective function is cone superadditive, the global minimality can be characterized by local optimality criterion involving Hilbert bases. This paper shows cone superadditivity of L-convex and M-convex functions with respect to conic partitions that are independent of particular functions. L-convex and M-convex functions in discrete variables (integer vectors) as well as in continuous variables (real vectors) are considered.     

Super-vertex-antimagic total labelings of disconnected graphs

Let G=(V,E) be a finite, simple and non-empty (p,q)-graph of order p and size q. An (a,d)-vertex-antimagic total labeling is a bijection f from V(G)∪E(G) onto the set of consecutive integers 1,2,…,p+q, such that the vertex-weights form an arithmetic progression with the initial term a and the common difference d, where the vertex-weight of x is the sum of values f(xy) assigned to all edges xy incident to vertex x together with the value assigned to x itself, i.e. f(x). Such a labeling is called super if the smallest possible labels appear on the vertices.In this paper, we will study the properties of such labelings and examine their existence for disconnected graphs.