On strong unimodality of multivariate discrete distributions

A discrete function f defined on Zⁿ is said to be logconcave if for , , . A more restrictive notion is strong unimodality. Following Barndorff-Nielsen [O. Barndorff-Nielsen, Unimodality and exponential families, Commun. Statist. 1 (1973) 189-216] a discrete function is called strongly unimodal if there exists a convex function such that  if . In this paper sufficient conditions that ensure the strong unimodality of a multivariate discrete distribution, are given. Examples of strongly unimodal multivariate discrete distributions are presented.     

Forwarding and optical indices of a graph

Motivated by wavelength-assignment problems for all-to-all traffic in optical networks, we study graph parameters related to sets of paths connecting all pairs of vertices. We consider sets of both undirected and directed paths, under minimisation criteria known as edge congestion and wavelength count; this gives rise to four parameters of a graph G: its edge forwarding index π(G), arc forwarding index , undirected optical index , and directed optical index .In the paper we address two long-standing open problems: whether the equality holds for all graphs, and whether indices π(G) and are hard to compute. For the first problem, we give an example of a family of planar graphs {G_k} such that . For the second problem, we show that determining either π(G) or is NP-hard.