A poset hierarchy

This article extends a paper of Abraham and Bonnet which generalised the famous Hausdorff characterisation of the class of scattered linear orders. They gave an inductively defined hierarchy that characterised the class of scattered posets which do not have infinite incomparability antichains (i.e. have the FAC). We define a larger inductive hierarchy ^κℌ* which characterises the closure of the class of all κ-well-founded linear orders under inversions, lexicographic sums and FAC weakenings. This includes a broader class of “scattered” posets that we call κ-scattered. These posets cannot embed any order such that for every two subsets of size < κ, one being strictly less than the other, there is an element in between. If a linear order has this property and has size κ it is unique and called ℚ(κ). Partial orders such that for every a < b the set {x: a < x < b} has size ≥ κ are called weakly κ-dense, and posets that do not have a weakly κ-dense subset are called strongly κ-scattered. We prove that ^κℌ* includes all strongly κ-scattered FAC posets and is included in the class of all FAC κ-scattered posets. For κ = ℵ₀ the notions of scattered and strongly scattered coincide and our hierarchy is exactly aug(ℌ) from the Abraham-Bonnet theorem. The authors warmly thank Uri Abraham for his many useful suggestions and comments. Mirna Džamonja thanks EPSRC for their support on an EPSRC Advanced Fellowship.     

Optimal buffer size for a stochastic processing network in heavy traffic

We consider a one-dimensional stochastic control problem that arises from queueing network applications. The state process corresponding to the queue-length process is given by a stochastic differential equation which reflects at the origin. The controller can choose the drift coefficient which represents the service rate and the buffer size b>0. When the queue length reaches b, the new customers are rejected and this incurs a penalty. There are three types of costs involved: A “control cost” related to the dynamically controlled service rate, a “congestion cost” which depends on the queue length and a “rejection penalty” for the rejection of the customers. We consider the problem of minimizing long-term average cost, which is also known as the ergodic cost criterion. We obtain an optimal drift rate (i.e. an optimal service rate) as well as the optimal buffer size b ^*>0. When the buffer size b>0 is fixed and where there is no congestion cost, this problem is similar to the work in Ata, Harrison and Shepp (Ann. Appl. Probab. 15, 1145–1160, 2005). Our method is quite different from that of (Ata, Harrison and Shepp (Ann. Appl. Probab. 15, 1145–1160, 2005)). To obtain a solution to the corresponding Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman (HJB) equation, we analyze a family of ordinary differential equations. We make use of some specific characteristics of this family of solutions to obtain the optimal buffer size b ^*>0. A.P. Weerasinghe’s research supported by US Army Research Office grant W911NF0510032.     

A broader context for monotonically monolithic spaces

This is a sequel of the work done on (strongly) monotonically monolithic spaces and their generalizations. We introduce the notion of monotonically κ-monolithic space for any infinite cardinal κ and present the relevant results. We show, among other things, that any σ-product of monotonically κ-monolithic spaces is monotonically κ-monolithic for any infinite cardinal κ; besides, it is consistent that any strongly monotonically ω-monolithic space with caliber ω ₁ is second countable. We also study (strong) monotone κ-monolithicity in linearly ordered spaces and subspaces of ordinals.     

Exponential decay rate of survival probability in a disastrous random environment

Summary. We study the exponential decay rate of the survival probability up to time t>0 of a random walker moving in Zopf; ^d in a temporally and spatially fluctuating random environment. When the random walker has a speed parameter κ>0, we investigate the influence of κ on the exponential decay rate λ(d,κ). In particular we prove that for any fixed d≥1, λ(d,κ) behaves like as logκ as κ↘0. Received: 21 May 1996 / In revised form: 2 February 1997     

Exponents of someN-compact spaces

For any topological spaceT, S. Mrówka has defined Exp (T) to be the smallest cardinal κ (if any such cardinals exist) such thatT can be embedded as a closed subset of the productN ^κ of κ copies ofN (the discrete space of cardinality ℵ₀). We prove that forQ, the space of the rationals with the inherited topology, Exp (Q) is equal to a certain covering number, and we show that by modifying some earlier work of ours it can be seen that it is consistent with the usual axioms of set theory including the choice that this number equal any uncountable regular cardinal less than or equal to 2^ℵ ₀. Mrówka has also defined and studied the class ℳ={κ: Exp (N _κ)=κ} whereN _κ is the discrete space of cardinality κ. It is known that the first cardinal not in ℳ must not only be inaccessible but cannot even belong to any of the first ω Mahlo classes. However, it is not known whether every cardinal below 2^ℵ ₀ is contained in ℳ. We prove that if there exists a maximal family of almost-disjoint subsets ofN of cardinality κ, then κ∈ℳ, and we then use earlier work to prove that if it is consistent that there exist cardinals which are not in the first ω Mahlo classes, then it is consistent that there exist such cardinals below 2^ℵ ₀ and that ℳ nevertheless contain all cardinals no greater than 2^ℵ ₀. Finally, we consider the relationship between ℳ and certain “large cardinals”, and we prove, for example, that if μ is any normal measure on a measurable cardinal, then μ(ℳ)=0.     

A BMAP/SM/1 queue with service times depending on the arrival process

We study a BMAP/>SM/1 queue with batch Markov arrival process input and semi‐Markov service. Service times may depend on arrival phase states, that is, there are many types of arrivals which have different service time distributions. The service process is a heterogeneous Markov renewal process, and so our model necessarily includes known models. At first, we consider the first passage time from level {κ+1} (the set of the states that the number of customers in the system is κ+1) to level {κ} when a batch arrival occurs at time 0 and then a customer service included in that batch simultaneously starts. The service descipline is considered as a LIFO (Last‐In First‐Out) with preemption. This discipline has the fundamental role for the analysis of the first passage time. Using this first passage time distribution, the busy period length distribution can be obtained. The busy period remains unaltered in any service disciplines if they are work‐conserving. Next, we analyze the stationary workload distribution (the stationary virtual waiting time distribution). The workload as well as the busy period remain unaltered in any service disciplines if they are work‐conserving. Based on this fact, we derive the Laplace–Stieltjes transform for the stationary distribution of the actual waiting time under a FIFO discipline. In addition, we refer to the Laplace–Stieltjes transforms for the distributions of the actual waiting times of the individual types of customers. Using the relationship between the stationary waiting time distribution and the stationary distribution of the number of customers in the system at departure epochs, we derive the generating function for the stationary joint distribution of the numbers of different types of customers at departures. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Boundary Behavior of Harmonic Functions for Truncated Stable Processes

For any α∈(0,2), a truncated symmetric α-stable process in ℝ ^d is a symmetric Lévy process in ℝ ^d with no diffusion part and with a Lévy density given by c|x|^−d−α 1_{|x|<1} for some constant c. In (Kim and Song in Math. Z. 256(1): 139–173, [2007]) we have studied the potential theory of truncated symmetric stable processes. Among other things, we proved that the boundary Harnack principle is valid for the positive harmonic functions of this process in any bounded convex domain and showed that the Martin boundary of any bounded convex domain with respect to this process is the same as the Euclidean boundary. However, for truncated symmetric stable processes, the boundary Harnack principle is not valid in non-convex domains. In this paper, we show that, for a large class of not necessarily convex bounded open sets in ℝ ^d called bounded roughly connected κ-fat open sets (including bounded non-convex κ-fat domains), the Martin boundary with respect to any truncated symmetric stable process is still the same as the Euclidean boundary. We also show that, for truncated symmetric stable processes a relative Fatou type theorem is true in bounded roughly connected κ-fat open sets. The research of P. Kim is supported by the Korea Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korean Government (MOEHRD, Basic Research Promotion Fund) (KRF-2007-331-C00037). The research of R. Song is supported in part by a joint US-Croatia grant INT 0302167.     

Antichains in partially ordered sets of singular cofinality

In their paper from 1981, Milner and Sauer conjectured that for any poset , if , then P must contain an antichain of size κ. We prove that for λ > cf(λ) = κ, if there exists a cardinal μ < λ such that cov(λ, μ, κ, 2) = λ, then any poset of cofinality λ contains λ ^κ antichains of size κ. The hypothesis of our theorem is very weak and is a consequence of many well-known axioms such as GCH, SSH and PFA. The consistency of the negation of this hypothesis is unknown.      

The <Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis>-Body Problem in Spaces of Constant Curvature. Part I: Relative Equilibria

We extend the Newtonian n-body problem of celestial mechanics to spaces of curvature κ=constant and provide a unified framework for studying the motion. In the 2-dimensional case, we prove the existence of several classes of relative equilibria, including the Lagrangian and Eulerian solutions for any κ≠0 and the hyperbolic rotations for κ<0. These results lead to a new way of understanding the geometry of the physical space. In the end we prove Saari’s conjecture when the bodies are on a geodesic that rotates elliptically or hyperbolically.     

Discretization of Compact Riemannian Manifolds Applied to the Spectrum of Laplacian

For κ ⩾ 0 and r₀ > 0 let ℳ(n, κ, r₀) be the set of all connected, compact n-dimensional Riemannian manifolds (Mⁿ, g) with Ricci (M, g) ⩾ −(n−1) κ g and Inj (M) ⩾ r₀. We study the relation between the kth eigenvalue λ_k(M) of the Laplacian associated to (Mⁿ,g), Δ = −div(grad), and the kth eigenvalue λ_k(X) of a combinatorial Laplacian associated to a discretization X of M. We show that there exist constants c, C > 0 (depending only on n, κ and r₀) such that for all M ∈ ℳ(n, κ, r₀) and X a discretization of for all k < |X|. Then, we obtain the same kind of result for two compact manifolds M and N ∈ ℳ(n, κ, r₀) such that the Gromov–Hausdorff distance between M and N is smaller than some η > 0. We show that there exist constants c, C > 0 depending on η, n, κ and r₀ such that for all . Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 58J50, 53C20 Supported by Swiss National Science Foundation, grant No. 20-101 469     

Polynomial Birth–Death Distribution Approximation in the Wasserstein Distance

The polynomial birth–death distribution (abbreviated, PBD) on ℐ={0,1,2,…} or ℐ={0,1,2,…,m} for some finite m introduced in Brown and Xia (Ann. Probab. 29:1373–1403, 2001) is the equilibrium distribution of the birth–death process with birth rates {α _i } and death rates {β _i }, where α _i ≥0 and β _i ≥0 are polynomial functions of i∈ℐ. The family includes Poisson, negative binomial, binomial, and hypergeometric distributions. In this paper, we give probabilistic proofs of various Stein’s factors for the PBD approximation with α _i =a and β _i =i+bi(i−1) in terms of the Wasserstein distance. The paper complements the work of Brown and Xia (Ann. Probab. 29:1373–1403, 2001) and generalizes the work of Barbour and Xia (Bernoulli 12:943–954, 2006) where Poisson approximation (b=0) in the Wasserstein distance is investigated. As an application, we establish an upper bound for the Wasserstein distance between the PBD and Poisson binomial distribution and show that the PBD approximation to the Poisson binomial distribution is much more precise than the approximation by the Poisson or shifted Poisson distributions.      

On the maximal operator of (<Emphasis Type="Italic">C</Emphasis>, α)-means of Walsh–Kaczmarz–Fourier series

Simon [J. Approxim. Theory, 127, 39–60 (2004)] proved that the maximal operator σ^α,κ,* of the (C, α)-means of the Walsh–Kaczmarz–Fourier series is bounded from the martingale Hardy space H _p to the space L _p for p > 1 / (1 + α), 0 < α ≤ 1. Recently, Gát and Goginava have proved that this boundedness result does not hold if p ≤ 1 / (1 + α). However, in the endpoint case p = 1 / (1 + α ), the maximal operator σ^α,κ,* is bounded from the martingale Hardy space H _1/(1+α) to the space weak- L _1/(1+α). The main aim of this paper is to prove a stronger result, namely, that, for any 0 < p ≤ 1 / (1 + α), there exists a martingale f ∈ H _p such that the maximal operator σ^α,κ,* f does not belong to the space L _p .     

Small Time One-Sided LIL Behavior for Lévy Processes at Zero

We specify a function b ₀(t) in terms of the Lévy triplet such that lim sup  _t→0 X _t /b ₀(t)∈[1,1.8] a.s. iff ò₀¹[` \varPi ]⁽⁺⁾(b₀(t)) dt < ￥\int_{0}^{1}\overline{ \varPi }^{(+)}(b_{0}(t))\,dt<\infty for any Lévy process X with unbounded variation and a Brownian component σ=0. We show with an example that there are cases where lim sup  _t→0 X _t /b(t)=1 a.s. but b(t) is not asymptotically equivalent to b ₀(t) as t tends to 0. We achieve this by introducing an integral criterion which checks whether lim sup  _t→0 X _t /b(t) is 0, infinity, or a finite positive value for b(t) satisfying very mild conditions and any Lévy process.     

Further cardinal arithmetic

We continue the investigations in the author’s book on cardinal arithmetic, assuming some knowledge of it. We deal with the cofinality of (S _{≤ℵ 0}(κ), ⊆) for κ real valued measurable (Section 3), densities of box products (Section 5,3), prove the equality cov(λ,λ,θ⁺,2) in more cases even when cf(λ)=ℵ₀ (Section 1), deal with bounds of pp(λ) for λ limit of inaccessible (Section 4) and give proofs to various claims I was sure I had already written but did not find (Section 6). Done mainly 1–4/1991. I thank Alice Leonhardt for typing and retyping so beautifully and accurately. Partially supported by the Basic Research Fund, Israel Academy of Sciences. Publication number 430.     

Reflecting topological properties in continuous images

Given a topological property P, we study when it reflects in small continuous images, i.e., when for some infinite cardinal κ, a space X has P if and only if all its continuous images of weight less or equal to κ have P. We say that a cardinal invariant η reflects in continuous images of weight κ ⁺ if η(X) ≤ κ provided that η(Y) ≤ κ whenever Y is a continuous image of X of weight less or equal to κ ⁺. We establish that, for any infinite cardinal κ, the spread, character, pseudocharacter and Souslin number reflect in continuous images of weight κ ⁺ for arbitrary Tychonoff spaces. We also show that the tightness reflects in continuous images of weight κ ⁺ for compact spaces.     

Continuity of the SLE trace in simply connected domains

We prove that the SLE _κ trace in any simply connected domain G is continuous (except possibly near its endpoints) if κ < 8. We also prove an SLE analog of Makarov’s Theorem about the support of harmonic measure.     

A review of existence criteria for parameter estimation of the Michaelis–Menten regression model

In this paper we consider the least squares (LS) and total least squares (TLS) problems for a Michaelis–Menten enzyme kinetic model f(x; a, b) = ax/(b + x), a, b > 0. In various applied research such as biochemistry, pharmacology, biology and medicine there are lots of different applications of this model. We will systematize some of our results pertaining to the existence of the LS and TLS estimate, which were proved in Hadeler et al. (Math Method Appl Sci 30:1231–1241, 2007) and Jukić et al. (J Comput Appl Math 201:230–246, 2007). Finally, we suggest a choice of good initial approximation and give one numerical example.      

The Rν-generalized solution of a boundary value problem with a singularity belongs to the space W2,ν+β2+κ+1/κ+2 (Ω, δ)

In the present paper, for a boundary value problem with noncoordinated degeneration of the data and a singularity in the solution, we show that the R _ν -generalized solution belongs to the weighted space W _2,ν+gb ^2+κ+1/κ+2 (Ω, δ)(κ > 0). Original Russian Text ? V.A. Rukavishnikov, E.V. Kuznetsova, 2009, published in Differentsial’nye Uravneniya, 2009, Vol. 45, No. 6, pp. 894–898.     

Finite combinations of Baire numbers

Letκ be a regular cardinal. Consider the Bair numbers of the spaces (2^θ)κ for variousθ≥κ. Letl be the number of such different Baire numbers. Models of set theory withl=1 orl=2 are known and it is also known thatl is finite. We show here that ifκ>ω, thenl could be any given finite number.     

A necessary and sufficient condition for singular nonlinear second-order boundary value problems to have positive solutions

In this paper the following result is obtained: Suppose f(g,u,v) is nonnegative, continuous in (a, 6) ×R⁺ ×R ⁺ ; f may be singular at κ = a(and/or κ = b) and υ = 0; f is nondecreasing on u for each κ,υ,nonincreasing on υ for each κ,u; there exists a constant q ε (0,1) such that