Categories of projective spaces

Starting with an abelian category , a natural construction produces a category such that, when is an abelian category of vector spaces, is the corresponding category of projective spaces. The process of forming the category destroys abelianess, but not completely, and the precise measure of what remains of it gives the possibility to reconstruct out from , and allows to characterize categories of the form , for an abelian (projective categories). The characterization is given in terms of the notion of “Puppe exact category” and of an appropriate notion of “weak biproducts”. The proof of the characterization theorem relies on the theory of “additive relations”.     

The Dempster–Shafer calculus for statisticians

The Dempster–Shafer (DS) theory of probabilistic reasoning is presented in terms of a semantics whereby every meaningful formal assertion is associated with a triple (p, q, r) where p is the probability “for” the assertion, q is the probability “against” the assertion, and r is the probability of “don’t know”. Arguments are presented for the necessity of “don’t know”. Elements of the calculus are sketched, including the extension of a DS model from a margin to a full state space, and DS combination of independent DS uncertainty assessments on the full space. The methodology is applied to inference and prediction from Poisson counts, including an introduction to the use of join-tree model structure to simplify and shorten computation. The relation of DS theory to statistical significance testing is elaborated, introducing along the way the new concept of “dull” null hypothesis.     

A quantum mechanical approach to a fuzzy theory

Recently, we proposed a general measurement theory for classical and quantum systems (i.e., “objective fuzzy measurement theory”). In this paper, we propose “subjective fuzzy measurement theory”, which is characterized as the statistical method of the objective fuzzy measurement theory. Our proposal of course has a lot of advantages. For example, we can directly see “membership functions” (= “fuzzy sets”) in this theory. Therefore, we can propose the objective and the subjective methods of membership functions. As one of the consequences, we assert the objective (i.e., individualistic) aspect of Zadeh's theory. Also, as a quantum application, we clarify Heisenberg's uncertainty relation.     

Trajectories of lattice particles using the new approach to no integrability

We study two systems which lead to a lattice when an integration path is specified in “aesthetic field theory”. One of these cases involves nonsoliton type particles (magnitudes of maxima and minima oscillate in time). The other system is made up of soliton type particles. The two systems are intrinsically three-dimensional. We speak of the third dimension as “time”. In one of our solutions, the particles move on straight line trajectories, insofar as our numerical work indicates. In the other solution, the soliton type particles undergo what appears to be simple harmonic motion in both the x- and y-directions (loop motion). We then study these two systems using the new approach to integrability which involves a superposition principle and is characterized by a unique change function at each point. We still find multi maxima and minima. The systems are not as symmetric as the lattice. The soliton characteristic is preserved by the new method. We investigated the motion of lattice particles. We found evidence of maxima (minima) regions coalescing so that the location of the maxima (minima) became difficult to follow. The concept of location of particles may not even have a well-defined meaning here. We find examples of soliton particles appearing and disappearing. We conclude that the manner of integration in a no integrability theory can transform a system with well-defined trajectories into a system where particles can no longer be followed in time.     

Levy and set theory

Azriel Levy (1934–) did fundamental work in set theory when it was transmuting into a modern, sophisticated field of mathematics, a formative period of over a decade straddling Cohen’s 1963 founding of forcing. The terms “Levy collapse”, “Levy hierarchy”, and “Levy absoluteness” will live on in set theory, and his technique of relative constructibility and connections established between forcing and definability will continue to be basic to the subject. What follows is a detailed account and analysis of Levy’s work and contributions to set theory.     

Tagged particle motion in a clustered random walk system

In this paper a new model is presented of a one-dimensional interacting particle system which we call “a clustered random walk system”, in which a tagged particle has an asymptotically Gaussian distribution with variance βt^1/ (1<2).     

On the theory of fracture of solids submitted to powerful pulsed electron beams

The irradiation of solids by pulsed (of nanosecond periodicity) relativistic electron beams (also by powerful optic laser beams) led to the discovery of a new type of fracture /1–14/, entirely different from viscous or brittle fracture type produced by mechanical loads /15/. A theory based on the assumption of formation in a solid subjected to such irradiation of clusters of electrons that act as “knives” or “wedges” cutting the solid. Basic model problems of this theory are formulated.     

General theory of information transfer: Updated

We report on ideas, problems and results, which occupied us during the past decade and which seem to extend the frontiers of information theory in several directions. The main contributions concern information transfer by channels. There are also new questions and some answers in new models of source coding. While many of our investigations are in an explorative state, there are also hard cores of mathematical theories. In particular we present a unified theory of information transfer, which naturally incorporates Shannon's theory of information transmission and the theory of identification in the presence of noise as extremal cases. It provides several novel coding theorems. On the source coding side we introduce data compression for identification. Finally we are led beyond information theory to new concepts of solutions for probabilistic algorithms.

The original paper [R. Ahlswede, General theory of information transfer, Preprint 97-118, SFB 343 Diskrete Strukturen in der Mathematik, Universität Bielefeld, 1997] gave to and received from the ZIF-project essential stimulations which resulted in contributions added as GTIT-Supplements “Search and channels with feedback” and “Noiseless coding for multiple purposes: a combinatorial model”.

Other contributions—also to areas initiated—are published in the recent book [R. Ahlswede et al. (Eds.), General Theory of Information Transfer and Combinatorics, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 4123, Springer, Berlin, 2006].

The readers are advised to study always the pioneering papers in a field—in this case the papers [R. Ahlswede, G. Dueck, Identification via channels, IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory 35 (1989) 15–29; R. Ahlswede, G. Dueck, Identification in the presence of feedback—a discovery of new capacity formulas, IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory 35 (1989) 30–39] on identification. It is not only the most rewarding way to come to new ideas, but it also helps to more quickly grasp the more advanced formalisms without going through too many technicalities. Perhaps also the recent Shannon Lecture [R. Ahlswede, Towards a General Theory of Information Transfer, Shannon Lecture at ISIT in Seattle 13th July 2006, IEEE Information Theory Society Newsletter, 2007], aiming at an even wider scope, gives further impetus.     

Generic pairs of SU-rank 1 structures

For a supersimple SU-rank 1 theory T we introduce the notion of a generic elementary pair of models of T (generic T-pair). We show that the theory T^* of all generic T-pairs is complete and supersimple. In the strongly minimal case, T^* coincides with the theory of infinite dimensional pairs, which was used in (S. Buechler, Pseudoprojective strongly minimal sets are locally projective, J. Symbolic Logic 56(4) (1991) 1184–1194) to study the geometric properties of T. In our SU-rank 1 setting, we use T^* for the same purpose. In particular, we obtain a characterization of linearity for SU-rank 1 structures by giving several equivalent conditions on T^*, find a “weak” version of local modularity which is equivalent to linearity, show that linearity coincides with 1-basedness, and use the generic pairs to “recover” projective geometries over division rings from non-trivial linear SU-rank 1 structures.     

The Borda rule and Pareto stability: a further comment

In their paper “The Borda rule and Pareto stability: a comment” published in 1979 by Econometrica, Farkas and Nitzan revealed the “intimate relationship” between the Borda rule and the Pareto criterion. The idea was the following: in a profile of total orders, when there is a candidate who obviously wins under unanimous agreement of the voters, that candidate should be in the choice set. In a profile where there is no obvious winner, the candidates that are the closest to unanimity should be chosen. According to this principle, they defined a choice rule called “closeness to unanimity” and they showed that it is equivalent to the Borda rule. In our paper, we give an equivalent result for a ranking rule. Then we try to obtain similar results when aggregating profiles of tournaments, weak orders, semiorders, fuzzy relations, … and we show that the definition of an obvious winner is no more obvious.     

A covariance inequality under a two-part dependence assumption

A covariance inequality is proved under a certain “two-part” dependence assumption. It generalizes and sharpens, with a simpler and more transparent proof, two earlier covariance inequalities used in central limit theory under certain “two-part” strong mixing assumptions.     

Fundamentals of a new kind of mathematics based on the Golden Section

The attempt of build up the Fundamentals of a new mathematical direction, which is called Harmony Mathematics, is addressed in the present article. The article has a “strategic” importance for development of computer science and theoretical physics.     

A greedy-algorithm characterization of valuated Δ-matroids

We study a variant of the greedy algorithm for weight functions defined on the system of subsets of a given finite set E and show that this algorithm works exactly for “valuated Δ-matroids.” Examples come from valuation theory.     

Deterministic automata simulation, universality and minimality

Finite automata have been recently used as alternative, discrete models in theoretical physics, especially in problems related to the dichotomy between endophysical/intrinsic and exophysical/ extrinsic perception (see, for instance [3, 6, 18–21]). These studies deal with Moore experiments; the main result states that it is impossible to determine the initial state of an automaton, and, consequently, a discrete model of Heisenberg uncertainty has been suggested. For this aim the classical theory of finite automata — which considers automata with initial states — is not adequate, and a new approach is necessary. A study of finite deterministic automata without initial states is exactly the aim of this paper. We will define and investigate the complexity of various types of simulations between automata. Minimal automata will be constructed and proven to be unique up to an isomorphism. We will build our results on an extension of Myhill-Nerode technique; all constructions will make use of “automata responses” to simple experiments only, i.e., no information about the internal machinery will be considered available.     

Cellular automata study of high burn-up structures

We propose a new approach, based on the cellular automata, for processing and modeling the structure dynamics of UO₂ at different cross-section averaged burn-ups. Micrographs of the material surface, subjected to both “as-polished” and “as-etched” treatments, with a magnification of 1250× have been used in our study. It has been shown that this approach provides efficient tools for investigation of the surface structure dynamics both at local and global levels.     

A theory of tensor products for module categories for a vertex operator algebra, III

This is the third part in a series of papers developing a tensor product theory for modules for a vertex operator algebra. The goal of this theory is to construct a “vertex tensor category” structure on the category of modules for a suitable vertex operator algebra. The notion of vertex tensor category is essentially a “complex analogue” of the notion of symmetric tensor category, and in fact a vertex tensor category produces a braided tensor category in a natural way. In this paper, we focus on a particular element P(z) of a certain moduli space of three-punctured Riemann spheres; in general, every element of this moduli space will give rise to a notion of tensor product, and one must consider all these notions in order to construct a vertex tensor category. Here we present the fundamental properties of the P(z)-tensor product of two modules for a vertex operator algebra. We give two constructions of a P(z)-tensor product, using the results, established in Parts I and II of this series, for a certain other element of the moduli space. The definitions and results in Parts I and II are recalled.     

Fuzzy probability system: fuzzy-probability space (1)

The present paper discusses “The major objective of the theory of probability”, and hence provides a fuzzy probability system, which links both Von Mises's probability system and Kolmogorov's probability system to be a new one. Such a probability system has a more original theoretical starting point, and appears to deal with such uncertainty as has subjectivity and fuzziness. In addition, this probability system has some softness too. This paper attempts to induct the subject and the subjective factor into mathematics.     

Gravitational instanton in Hilbert space and the mass of high energy elementary particles

While the theory of relativity was formulated in real spacetime geometry, the exact formulation of quantum mechanics is in a mathematical construction called Hilbert space. For this reason transferring a solution of Einstein’s field equation to a quantum gravity Hilbert space is far of being a trivial problem.

On the other hand ^(∞) spacetime which is assumed to be real is applicable to both, relativity theory and quantum mechanics. Consequently, one may expect that a solution of Einstein’s equation could be interpreted more smoothly at the quantum resolution using the Cantorian ^(∞) theory.

In the present paper we will attempt to implement the above strategy to study the Eguchi–Hanson gravitational instanton solution and its interpretation by ‘t Hooft in the context of quantum gravity Hilbert space as an event and a possible solitonic “extended” particle. Subsequently we do not only reproduce the result of ‘t Hooft but also find the mass of a fundamental “exotic” symplictic-transfinite particle m1.8 MeV as well as the mass M_x and M (Planck) which are believed to determine the GUT and the total unification of all fundamental interactions respectively. This may be seen as a further confirmation to an argument which we put forward in various previous publications in favour of an alternative mass acquisition mechanism based on unification and duality considerations. Thus even in case that we never find the Higgs particle experimentally, the standard model would remain substantially intact as we can appeal to tunnelling and unification arguments to explain the mass. In fact a minority opinion at present is that finding the Higgs particle is not a final conclusive argument since one could ask further how the Higgs particle came to its mass which necessitates a second Higgs field. By contrast the present argument could be viewed as an ultimate theory based on the existence of a “super” force, beyond which nothing else exists.     

Systems of first-order chemical reactions

We consider the classical model in chemical kinetics of a system of n species in which each species is converted to every other species by a first-order reaction. Solutions to the initial-value problem are given in matrix form and the properties of the n × n matrix K representing the system are analysed. For arbitrary (i.e. non-negative) values of the first-order rate constants, zero is an eigenvalue, and the other eigenvalues are complex with negative real parts. Thus, in this case the system generally oscillates to equilibrium. However, if the principle of microscopic reversibility is applied, and if each species is converted directly to every other species, then the system cannot oscillate but must converge “exponentially” to equilibrium. We discuss when K is diagonalizable, and we calculate a bound for the eigenvalues of K. Special forms of K, corresponding to special systems of reactions, are also examined; these include reactions in the configuration of a “chain”, a “cycle”, a “node” and reactions comprising combinations of these. We find again that if the principle of microscopic reversibility is rigorously applied then oscillations cannot take place, but that if this principle is not applied then oscillations may take place. The system of rate equations considered can be used to model various chemical, physical and biological phenomena.