Eigenvalue bounds of the Robin Laplacian with magnetic field

On a compact Riemannian manifold M with boundary, we give an estimate for the eigenvalues \((\lambda _k(\tau ,\alpha ))_k\) of the magnetic Laplacian with Robin boundary conditions. Here, \(\tau \) is a positive number that defines the Robin condition and \(\alpha \) is a real differential 1-form on M that represents the magnetic field. We express these estimates in terms of the mean curvature of the boundary, the parameter \(\tau \), and a lower bound of the Ricci curvature of M (see Theorem 1.3 and Corollary 1.5). The main technique is to use the Bochner formula established in Egidi et al. (Ricci curvature and eigenvalue estimates for the magentic Laplacian on manifolds, arXiv:1608.01955v1) for the magnetic Laplacian and to integrate it over M (see Theorem 1.2). In the last part, we compare the eigenvalues \(\lambda _k(\tau ,\alpha )\) with the first eigenvalue \(\lambda _1(\tau )=\lambda _1(\tau ,0)\) (i.e. without magnetic field) and the Neumann eigenvalues \(\lambda _k(0,\alpha )\) (see Theorem 1.6) using the min-max principle.     

Groups with a ternary equivalence relation

We consider in a group \((G,\cdot )\) the ternary relation

$$\begin{aligned} \kappa := \{(\alpha , \beta , \gamma ) \in G^3 \ | \ \alpha \cdot \beta ^{-1} \cdot \gamma = \gamma \cdot \beta ^{-1} \cdot \alpha \} \end{aligned}$$

and show that \(\kappa \) is a ternary equivalence relation if and only if the set \( \mathfrak Z \) of centralizers of the group G forms a fibration of G (cf. Theorems 2, 3). Therefore G can be provided with an incidence structure

$$\begin{aligned} \mathfrak G:= \{\gamma \cdot Z \ | \ \gamma \in G , Z \in \mathfrak Z(G) \}. \end{aligned}$$

We study the automorphism group of \((G,\kappa )\), i.e. all permutations \(\varphi \) of the set G such that \( (\alpha , \beta , \gamma ) \in \kappa \) implies \((\varphi (\alpha ),\varphi (\beta ),\varphi (\gamma ))\in \kappa \). We show \(\mathrm{Aut}(G,\kappa )=\mathrm{Aut}(G,\mathfrak G)\), \(\mathrm{Aut} (G,\cdot ) \subseteq \mathrm{Aut}(G,\kappa )\) and if \( \varphi \in \mathrm{Aut}(G,\kappa )\) with \(\varphi (1)=1\) and \(\varphi (\xi ^{-1})= (\varphi (\xi ))^{-1}\) for all \(\xi \in G\) then \(\varphi \) is an automorphism of \((G,\cdot )\). This allows us to prove a representation theorem of \(\mathrm{Aut}(G,\kappa )\) (cf. Theorem 6) and that for \(\alpha \in G \) the maps

$$\begin{aligned} \tilde{\alpha }\ : \ G \rightarrow G;~ \xi \mapsto \alpha \cdot \xi ^{-1} \cdot \alpha \end{aligned}$$

of the corresponding reflection structure \((G, \widetilde{G})\) (with \( \tilde{G} := \{\tilde{\gamma }\ | \ \gamma \in G \}\)) are point reflections. If \((G ,\cdot )\) is uniquely 2-divisible and if for \(\alpha \in G\), \(\alpha ^{1\over 2}\) denotes the unique solution of \(\xi ^2=\alpha \) then with \(\alpha \odot \beta := \alpha ^{1\over 2} \cdot \beta \cdot \alpha ^{1\over 2}\), the pair \((G,\odot )\) is a K-loop (cf. Theorem 5).

     

On the approximation of dynamical indicators in systems with nonuniformly hyperbolic behavior

Let f be a \(C^{1+\alpha }\) diffeomorphism of a compact Riemannian manifold and \(\mu \) an ergodic hyperbolic measure with positive entropy. We prove that for every continuous potential \(\phi \) there exists a sequence of basic sets \(\Omega _n\) such that the topological pressure \(P(f|\Omega _n,\phi )\) converges to the free energy \(P_{\mu }(\phi ) = h(\mu ) + \int \phi {d\mu }\). We also prove that for a suitable class of potentials \(\phi \) there exists a sequence of basic sets \(\Omega _n\) such that \(P(f|\Omega _n,\phi ) \rightarrow P(\phi )\).     

Regularity for Inhomogeneous Dirichlet Problems of Some Schrödinger Equations on Domains

Let \(n\ge 3, \Omega \) be a bounded, simply connected and semiconvex domain in \({\mathbb {R}}^n\) and \(L_{\Omega }:=-\Delta +V\) a Schrödinger operator on \(L^2 (\Omega )\) with the Dirichlet boundary condition, where \(\Delta \) denotes the Laplace operator and the potential \(0\le V\) belongs to the reverse Hölder class \(RH_{q_0}({\mathbb {R}}^n)\) for some \(q_0\in (\max \{n/2,2\},\infty ]\). Assume that the growth function \(\varphi :\,{\mathbb {R}}^n\times [0,\infty ) \rightarrow [0,\infty )\) satisfies that \(\varphi (x,\cdot )\) is an Orlicz function and \(\varphi (\cdot ,t)\in {\mathbb {A}}_{\infty }({\mathbb {R}}^n)\) (the class of uniformly Muckenhoupt weights). Let \(H_{\varphi ,\,L_{{\mathbb {R}}^n},\,r}(\Omega )\) be the Musielak–Orlicz–Hardy space whose elements are restrictions of elements of the Musielak–Orlicz–Hardy space, associated with \(L_{{\mathbb {R}}^n}:=-\Delta +V\) on \({\mathbb {R}}^n\), to \(\Omega \). In this article, the authors show that the operators \(VL^{-1}_\Omega \) and \(\nabla ^2L^{-1}_\Omega \) are bounded from \(L^1(\Omega )\) to weak-\(L^1(\Omega )\), from \(L^p(\Omega )\) to itself, with \(p\in (1,2]\), and also from \(H_{\varphi ,\,L_{{\mathbb {R}}^n},\,r}(\Omega )\) to the Musielak–Orlicz space \(L^\varphi (\Omega )\) or to \(H_{\varphi ,\,L_{{\mathbb {R}}^n},\,r}(\Omega )\) itself. As applications, the boundedness of \(\nabla ^2{\mathbb {G}}_D\) on \(L^p(\Omega )\), with \(p\in (1,2]\), and from \(H_{\varphi ,\,L_{{\mathbb {R}}^n},\,r}(\Omega )\) to \(L^\varphi (\Omega )\) or to \(H_{\varphi ,\,L_{{\mathbb {R}}^n},\,r}(\Omega )\) itself is obtained, where \({\mathbb {G}}_D\) denotes the Dirichlet Green operator associated with \(L_\Omega \). All these results are new even for the Hardy space \(H^1_{L_{{\mathbb {R}}^n},\,r}(\Omega )\), which is just \(H_{\varphi ,\,L_{{\mathbb {R}}^n},\,r}(\Omega )\) with \(\varphi (x,t):=t\) for all \(x\in {\mathbb {R}}^n\) and \(t\in [0,\infty )\).     

Lifting Maps from the Symmetrized Polydisc in Small Dimensions

The spectral unit ball \(\Omega _n\) is the set of all \(n\times n\) matrices M with spectral radius less than 1. Let \(\pi (M) \in \mathbb {C}^n\) stand for the coefficients of the characteristic polynomial of a matrix M (up to signs), i.e. the elementary symmetric functions of its eigenvalues. The symmetrized polydisc is \({{\mathbb {G}}}_n:=\pi (\Omega _n)\). When investigating Nevanlinna–Pick problems for maps from the disk to the spectral ball, it is often useful to project the map to the symmetrized polydisc (for instance to obtain continuity results for the Lempert function): if \(\Phi \in {\mathrm {Hol}}(\mathbb {D}, \Omega _n)\), then \(\pi \circ \Phi \in {\mathrm {Hol}}(\mathbb {D}, {{\mathbb {G}}}_n)\). Given a map \(\varphi \in {\mathrm {Hol}}(\mathbb {D}, {{\mathbb {G}}}_n)\), we are looking for necessary and sufficient conditions for this map to “lift through given matrices”, i.e. find \(\Phi \) as above so that \(\pi \circ \Phi = \varphi \) and \(\Phi (\alpha _j) = A_j\), \(1\le j \le N\). A natural necessary condition is \(\varphi (\alpha _j)=\pi (A_j)\), \(1\le j \le N\). When the matrices \(A_j\) are derogatory (i.e. do not admit a cyclic vector) new necessary conditions appear, involving derivatives of \(\varphi \) at the points \(\alpha _j\). We prove that those conditions are necessary and sufficient for a local lifting. We give a formula which performs the global lifting in small dimensions (\(n \le 5\)), and a counter-example to show that the formula fails in dimensions 6 and above.     

On the image,characterization, and automatic continuity of $$\varvec{(\sigma }, \varvec{\tau }$$ )-derivations

The first main theorem of this paper asserts that any \((\sigma , \tau )\)-derivation d, under certain conditions, either is a \(\sigma \)-derivation or is a scalar multiple of (\(\sigma - \tau \)), i.e. \(d = \lambda (\sigma - \tau )\) for some \(\lambda \in \mathbb {C} \backslash \{0\}\). By using this characterization, we achieve a result concerning the automatic continuity of \((\sigma , \tau \))-derivations on Banach algebras which reads as follows. Let \(\mathcal {A}\) be a unital, commutative, semi-simple Banach algebra, and let \(\sigma , \tau : \mathcal {A} \rightarrow \mathcal {A}\) be two distinct endomorphisms such that \(\varphi \sigma (\mathbf e )\) and \(\varphi \tau (\mathbf e )\) are non-zero complex numbers for all \(\varphi \in \Phi _\mathcal {A}\). If \(d : \mathcal {A} \rightarrow \mathcal {A}\) is a \((\sigma , \tau )\)-derivation such that \(\varphi d\) is a non-zero linear functional for every \(\varphi \in \Phi _\mathcal {A}\), then d is automatically continuous. As another objective of this research, we prove that if \(\mathfrak {M}\) is a commutative von Neumann algebra and \(\sigma :\mathfrak {M} \rightarrow \mathfrak {M}\) is an endomorphism, then every Jordan \(\sigma \)-derivation \(d:\mathfrak {M} \rightarrow \mathfrak {M}\) is identically zero.     

Chains,antichains, and complements in infinite partition lattices

We consider the partition lattice \(\Pi (\lambda )\) on any set of transfinite cardinality \(\lambda \) and properties of \(\Pi (\lambda )\) whose analogues do not hold for finite cardinalities. Assuming AC, we prove: (I) the cardinality of any maximal well-ordered chain is always exactly \(\lambda \); (II) there are maximal chains in \(\Pi (\lambda )\) of cardinality \(> \lambda \); (III) a regular cardinal \(\lambda \) is strongly inaccessible if and only if every maximal chain in \(\Pi (\lambda )\) has size at least \(\lambda \); if \(\lambda \) is a singular cardinal and \(\mu ^{< \kappa } < \lambda \le \mu ^\kappa \) for some cardinals \(\kappa \) and (possibly finite) \(\mu \), then there is a maximal chain of size \(< \lambda \) in \(\Pi (\lambda )\); (IV) every non-trivial maximal antichain in \(\Pi (\lambda )\) has cardinality between \(\lambda \) and \(2^{\lambda }\), and these bounds are realised. Moreover, there are maximal antichains of cardinality \(\max (\lambda , 2^{\kappa })\) for any \(\kappa \le \lambda \); (V) all cardinals of the form \(\lambda ^\kappa \) with \(0 \le \kappa \le \lambda \) occur as the cardinalities of sets of complements to some partition \(\mathcal {P} \in \Pi (\lambda )\), and only these cardinalities appear. Moreover, we give a direct formula for the number of complements to a given partition. Under the GCH, the cardinalities of maximal chains, maximal antichains, and numbers of complements are fully determined, and we provide a complete characterisation.     

Sequences of Weighted Composition Operators on the Hardy–Hilbert Space

Let \(\varphi \) be an analytic self map of the open unit disc \(\mathbb {D}\). Assume that \(\psi \) is an analytic map of \(\mathbb {D}\). Suppose that f is in the Hardy–Hilbert space of the open unit disc \(H^2\). The operator that takes f into \(\psi \cdot f \circ \varphi \) is a weighted composition operator, and is denoted by \(C_{\psi ,\varphi }\). In this paper we relate the convergence of the sequence \(\{ C_{\psi _n,\varphi _n}\}\) in different operator topologies to the convergence of the two sequences of maps \(\{\varphi _n \}\) and \(\{ \psi _n\}\).     

On the structure of modules of vector-valued modular forms

If \(\rho \) denotes a finite-dimensional complex representation of \(\mathbf {SL}_{2}(\mathbf {Z})\), then it is known that the module \(M(\rho )\) of vector-valued modular forms for \(\rho \) is free and of finite rank over the ring M of scalar modular forms of level one. This paper initiates a general study of the structure of \(M(\rho )\). Among our results are absolute upper and lower bounds, depending only on the dimension of \(\rho \), on the weights of generators for \(M(\rho )\), as well as upper bounds on the multiplicities of weights of generators of \(M(\rho )\). We provide evidence, both computational and theoretical, that a stronger three-term multiplicity bound might hold. An important step in establishing the multiplicity bounds is to show that there exists a free basis for \(M(\rho )\) in which the matrix of the modular derivative operator does not contain any copies of the Eisenstein series \(E_6\) of weight six.     

Dimensions of irreducible modules for partition algebras and tensor power multiplicities for symmetric and alternating groups

The partition algebra \(\mathsf {P}_k(n)\) and the symmetric group \(\mathsf {S}_n\) are in Schur–Weyl duality on the k-fold tensor power \(\mathsf {M}_n^{\otimes k}\) of the permutation module \(\mathsf {M}_n\) of \(\mathsf {S}_n\), so there is a surjection \(\mathsf {P}_k(n) \rightarrow \mathsf {Z}_k(n) := \mathsf {End}_{\mathsf {S}_n}(\mathsf {M}_n^{\otimes k})\), which is an isomorphism when \(n \ge 2k\). We prove a dimension formula for the irreducible modules of the centralizer algebra \(\mathsf {Z}_k(n)\) in terms of Stirling numbers of the second kind. Via Schur–Weyl duality, these dimensions equal the multiplicities of the irreducible \(\mathsf {S}_n\)-modules in \(\mathsf {M}_n^{\otimes k}\). Our dimension expressions hold for any \(n \ge 1\) and \(k\ge 0\). Our methods are based on an analog of Frobenius reciprocity that we show holds for the centralizer algebras of arbitrary finite groups and their subgroups acting on a finite-dimensional module. This enables us to generalize the above result to various analogs of the partition algebra including the centralizer algebra for the alternating group acting on \(\mathsf {M}_n^{\otimes k}\) and the quasi-partition algebra corresponding to tensor powers of the reflection representation of \(\mathsf {S}_n\).     

Two-step estimation of ergodic Lévy driven SDE

We consider high frequency samples from ergodic Lévy driven stochastic differential equation with drift coefficient \(a(x,\alpha )\) and scale coefficient \(c(x,\gamma )\) involving unknown parameters \(\alpha \) and \(\gamma \). We suppose that the Lévy measure \(\nu _{0}\), has all order moments but is not fully specified. We will prove the joint asymptotic normality of some estimators of \(\alpha \), \(\gamma \) and a class of functional parameter \(\int \varphi (z)\nu _0(dz)\), which are constructed in a two-step manner: first, we use the Gaussian quasi-likelihood for estimation of \((\alpha ,\gamma )\); and then, for estimating \(\int \varphi (z)\nu _0(dz)\) we make use of the method of moments based on the Euler-type residual with the the previously obtained quasi-likelihood estimator.     

The Finite Hankel Transform Operator: Some Explicit and Local Estimates of the Eigenfunctions and Eigenvalues Decay Rates

For fixed real numbers \(c>0,\)\(\alpha >-\frac{1}{2},\) the finite Hankel transform operator, denoted by \(\mathcal {H}_c^{\alpha }\) is given by the integral operator defined on \(L^2(0,1)\) with kernel \(K_{\alpha }(x,y)= \sqrt{c xy} J_{\alpha }(cxy).\) To the operator \(\mathcal {H}_c^{\alpha },\) we associate a positive, self-adjoint compact integral operator \(\mathcal Q_c^{\alpha }=c\, \mathcal {H}_c^{\alpha }\, \mathcal {H}_c^{\alpha }.\) Note that the integral operators \(\mathcal {H}_c^{\alpha }\) and \(\mathcal Q_c^{\alpha }\) commute with a Sturm-Liouville differential operator \(\mathcal D_c^{\alpha }.\) In this paper, we first give some useful estimates and bounds of the eigenfunctions \(\varphi ^{(\alpha )}_{n,c}\) of \(\mathcal H_c^{\alpha }\) or \(\mathcal Q_c^{\alpha }.\) These estimates and bounds are obtained by using some special techniques from the theory of Sturm-Liouville operators, that we apply to the differential operator \(\mathcal D_c^{\alpha }.\) If \((\mu _{n,\alpha }(c))_n\) and \(\lambda _{n,\alpha }(c)=c\, |\mu _{n,\alpha }(c)|^2\) denote the infinite and countable sequence of the eigenvalues of the operators \(\mathcal {H}_c^{(\alpha )}\) and \(\mathcal Q_c^{\alpha },\) arranged in the decreasing order of their magnitude, then we show an unexpected result that for a given integer \(n\ge 0,\)\(\lambda _{n,\alpha }(c)\) is decreasing with respect to the parameter \(\alpha .\) As a consequence, we show that for \(\alpha \ge \frac{1}{2},\) the \(\lambda _{n,\alpha }(c)\) and the \(\mu _{n,\alpha }(c)\) have a super-exponential decay rate. Also, we give a lower decay rate of these eigenvalues. As it will be seen, the previous results are essential tools for the analysis of a spectral approximation scheme based on the eigenfunctions of the finite Hankel transform operator. Some numerical examples will be provided to illustrate the results of this work.     

Congruences modulo 11 for broken 5-diamond partitions

The notion of broken k-diamond partitions was introduced by Andrews and Paule in 2007. For a fixed positive integer k, let \(\Delta _k(n)\) denote the number of broken k-diamond partitions of n. Recently, Paule and Radu conjectured two relations on \(\Delta _5(n)\) which were proved by Xiong and Jameson, respectively. In this paper, employing these relations, we prove that, for any prime p with \(p\equiv 1\ (\mathrm{mod}\ 4)\), there exists an integer \(\lambda (p)\in \{2,\ 3,\ 5,\ 6,\ 11\}\) such that, for \(n, \alpha \ge 0\), if \(p\not \mid (2n+1)\), then

$$\begin{aligned} \Delta _5\left( 11p^{\lambda (p)(\alpha +1)-1} n+\frac{11p^{\lambda (p)(\alpha +1)-1}+1}{2}\right) \equiv 0\ (\mathrm{mod}\ 11). \end{aligned}$$

Moreover, some non-standard congruences modulo 11 for \(\Delta _5(n)\) are deduced. For example, we prove that, for \(\alpha \ge 0\), \(\Delta _5\left( \frac{11\times 5^{5\alpha }+1}{2}\right) \equiv 7\ (\mathrm{mod}\ 11)\).

     

The Fischer–Marsden conjecture and contact geometry

In this paper, we consider the Fischer–Marsden conjecture within the frame-work of K-contact manifolds and \((\kappa ,\mu )\)-contact manifolds. First, we prove that a complete K-contact metric satisfying \(\mathcal {L}^{*}_g(\lambda )=0\) is Einstein and is isometric to a unit sphere \(S^{2n+1}\). Next, we prove that if a non-Sasakian \((\kappa ,\mu )\)-contact metric satisfies \(\mathcal {L}^{*}_g(\lambda )=0\), then \( M^{3} \) is flat, and for \(n > 1\), \(M^{2n+1}\) is locally isometric to the product of a Euclidean space \(E^{n+1}\) and a sphere \(S^n(4)\) of constant curvature \(+\,4\).     

Group divisible designs with large block sizes

For positive integers n, k with \(3\le k\le n\), let \(X=\mathbb {F}_{2^n}\setminus \{0,1\}\), \({\mathcal {G}}=\{\{x,x+1\}:x\in X\}\), and \({\mathcal {B}}_k=\left\{ \{x_1,x_2,\ldots ,x_k\}\!\subset \!X:\sum \limits _{i=1}^kx_i=1,\ \sum \limits _{i\in I}x_i\!\ne \!1\ \mathrm{for\ any}\ \emptyset \!\ne \!I\!\subsetneqq \!\{1,2,\ldots ,k\}\right\} \). Lee et al. used the inclusion–exclusion principle to show that the triple \((X,{\mathcal {G}},{\mathcal {B}}_k)\) is a \((k,\lambda _k)\)-GDD of type \(2^{2^{n-1}-1}\) for \(k\in \{3,4,5,6,7\}\) where \(\lambda _k=\frac{\prod _{i=3}^{k-1}(2^n-2^i)}{(k-2)!}\) (Lee et al. in Des Codes Cryptogr,  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10623-017-0395-8, 2017). They conjectured that \((X,{\mathcal {G}},{\mathcal {B}}_k)\) is also a \((k,\lambda _k)\)-GDD of type \(2^{2^{n-1}-1}\) for any integer \(k\ge 8\). In this paper, we use a similar construction and counting principles to show that there is a \((k,\lambda _k)\)-GDD of type \((q^2-q)^{(q^{n-1}-1)/(q-1)}\) for any prime power q and any integers k, n with \(3\le k\le n\) where \(\lambda _k=\frac{\prod _{i=3}^{k-1}(q^n-q^i)}{(k-2)!}\). Consequently, their conjecture holds. Such a method is also generalized to yield a \((k,\lambda _k)\)-GDD of type \((q^{\ell +1}-q^{\ell })^{(q^{n-\ell }-1)/(q-1)}\) where \(\lambda _k=\frac{\prod _{i=3}^{k-1}(q^n-q^{\ell +i-1})}{(k-2)!}\) and \(k+\ell \le n+1\).     

Some Ricci-flat ($$\alpha ,\beta $$)-metrics

In this paper, we study a special class of Finsler metrics, \((\alpha ,\beta )\)-metrics, defined by \(F=\alpha \phi (\beta /\alpha )\), where \(\alpha \) is a Riemannian metric and \(\beta \) is a 1-form. We find an equation that characterizes Ricci-flat \((\alpha ,\beta )\)-metrics under the condition that the length of \(\beta \) with respect to \(\alpha \) is constant.     

Calderón–Zygmund Type Singular Operators in Weighted Generalized Morrey Spaces

We find conditions for the weighted boundedness of a general class of multidimensional singular integral operators in generalized Morrey spaces \(\mathcal {L}^{p,\varphi }(\mathbb {R}^n,w),\) defined by a function \(\varphi (x,r)\) and radial type weight \(w(|x-x_0|), x_0\in {\mathbb {R}}^{n}.\) These conditions are given in terms of inclusion into \(\mathcal {L}^{p,\varphi }(\mathbb {R}^n,w),\) of a certain integral constructions defined by \(\varphi \) and w. In the case of \(\varphi =\varphi (r)\) we also provide easy to check sufficient conditions for that in terms of indices of \(\varphi \) and w.     

Lengths of words in transformation semigroups generated by digraphs

Given a simple digraph D on n vertices (with \(n\ge 2\)), there is a natural construction of a semigroup of transformations \(\langle D\rangle \). For any edge (a, b) of D, let \(a\rightarrow b\) be the idempotent of rank \(n-1\) mapping a to b and fixing all vertices other than a; then, define \(\langle D\rangle \) to be the semigroup generated by \(a \rightarrow b\) for all \((a,b) \in E(D)\). For \(\alpha \in \langle D\rangle \), let \(\ell (D,\alpha )\) be the minimal length of a word in E(D) expressing \(\alpha \). It is well known that the semigroup \(\mathrm {Sing}_n\) of all transformations of rank at most \(n-1\) is generated by its idempotents of rank \(n-1\). When \(D=K_n\) is the complete undirected graph, Howie and Iwahori, independently, obtained a formula to calculate \(\ell (K_n,\alpha )\), for any \(\alpha \in \langle K_n\rangle = \mathrm {Sing}_n\); however, no analogous non-trivial results are known when \(D \ne K_n\). In this paper, we characterise all simple digraphs D such that either \(\ell (D,\alpha )\) is equal to Howie–Iwahori’s formula for all \(\alpha \in \langle D\rangle \), or \(\ell (D,\alpha ) = n - \mathrm {fix}(\alpha )\) for all \(\alpha \in \langle D\rangle \), or \(\ell (D,\alpha ) = n - \mathrm {rk}(\alpha )\) for all \(\alpha \in \langle D\rangle \). We also obtain bounds for \(\ell (D,\alpha )\) when D is an acyclic digraph or a strong tournament (the latter case corresponds to a smallest generating set of idempotents of rank \(n-1\) of \(\mathrm {Sing}_n\)). We finish the paper with a list of conjectures and open problems.     

On finitely generated modules over quasi-Euclidean rings

Let R be a unital commutative ring, and let M be an R-module that is generated by k elements but not less. Let \(\text {E}_n(R)\) be the subgroup of \(\text {GL}_n(R)\) generated by the elementary matrices. In this paper we study the action of \(\text {E}_n(R)\) by matrix multiplication on the set \(\text {Um}_n(M)\) of unimodular rows of M of length \(n \ge k\). Assuming R is moreover Noetherian and quasi-Euclidean, e.g., R is a direct product of finitely many Euclidean rings, we show that this action is transitive if \(n > k\). We also prove that \(\text {Um}_k(M) /\text {E}_k(R)\) is equipotent with the unit group of \(R/\mathfrak {a}_1\) where \(\mathfrak {a}_1\) is the first invariant factor of M. These results encompass the well-known classification of Nielsen non-equivalent generating tuples in finitely generated Abelian groups.     

Integrated likelihood computation methods

Suppose a model has parameter \(\theta =(\psi , \lambda )\), where \(\psi \) is the parameter of interest and \(\lambda \) is a nuisance parameter. The integrated likelihood method eliminates \(\lambda \) from the likelihood function \(L(\psi , \lambda )\) by integrating with respect to a weight function \(\pi (\lambda | \psi )\). The resulting integrated likelihood function \(\bar{L}(\psi )\) can be used for inference for \(\psi \). However, the analytical form for the integrated likelihood is not always available. This paper discusses 12 different approaches to computing the integrated likelihood. Some methods were originally developed for other computation purposes and they are modified to fit in the integrated likelihood framework. Methods considered include direct numerical integration methods such as Monte Carlo integration method, importance sampling, Laplace method; marginal likelihood computation methods; and methods for computing the marginal posterior density. Simulation studies and real data example are presented to evaluate and compare these methods empirically.