Affine-inscribed and affine-circumscribed polygons and polytopes

Five theorems on polygons and polytopes inscribed in (or circumscribed about) a convex compact set in the plane or space are proved by topological methods. In particular, it is proved that for every interior point O of a convex compact set in ℝ³, there exists a two-dimensional section through O circumscribed about an affine image of a regular octagon. It is also proved that every compact convex set in ℝ³ (except the cases listed below) is circumscribed about an affine image of a cube-octahedron (the convex hull of the midpoints of the edges of a cube). Possible exceptions are provided by the bodies containing a parallelogram P and contained in a cylinder with directrix P. Bibliography: 29 titles. Translated fromZapiski Nauchnykh Seminarov POMI, Vol. 231, 1995, pp. 286–298. Translated by B. M. Bekker.     

Partitions and pairwise sums and products

A seven cell partition of N is constructed with the property that no infinite set has all of its pairwise sums and products in any one cell. A related Ramsey Theory question is shown to have different answers for two and three cell partitions.     

Linear birth and death models and associated Laguerre and Meixner polynomials

We study birth and death processes with linear rates λ_n = n + α + c + 1, μ_{n + 1} = n + c, n 0 and μ₀ is either zero or c. The spectral measures of both processes are found using generating functions and the integral transforms of Laplace and Stieltjes. The corresponding orthogonal polynomials generalize Laguerre polynomials and the choice μ₀ = c generates the associated Laguerre polynomials of Askey and Wimp. We investigate the orthogonal polynomials in both cases and give alternate proofs of some of the results of Askey and Wimp on the associated Laguerre polynomials. We also identify the spectra of the associated Charlier and Meixner polynomials as zeros of certain transcendental equations.     

Distributive and Multiplication Modules and Rings

We study rings in which every ideal is a finitely generated multiplication right ideal.     

Beliefs and beyond: affect and the teaching and learning of mathematics

The importance of beliefs for the teaching and learning of mathematics is widely recognized among mathematics educators. In this special issue, we explicitly address what we call “beliefs and beyond” to indicate the larger field surrounding beliefs in mathematics education. This is done to broaden the discussion to related concepts (which may not originate in mathematics education) and to consider the interconnectedness of concepts. In particular, we present some new developments at the conceptual level, address different approaches to investigate beliefs, highlight the role of student beliefs in problem-solving activities, and discuss teacher beliefs and their significance for professional development. One specific intention is to consider expertise from colleagues in the fields of educational research and psychology, side by side with perspectives provided by researchers from mathematics education.     

Fibonacci and Lucas congruences and their applications

In this paper we obtain some new identities containing Fibonacci and Lucas numbers. These identities allow us to give some congruences concerning Fibonacci and Lucas numbers such as L _2mn+k ≡ (−1)^(m+1)n L _k (mod L _m ), F _2mn+k ≡ (−1)^(m+1)n F _k (mod L _m ), L _2mn+k ≡ (−1) ^mn L _k (mod F _m ) and F _2mn+k ≡ (−1) ^mn F _k (mod F _m ). By the achieved identities, divisibility properties of Fibonacci and Lucas numbers are given. Then it is proved that there is no Lucas number L _n such that L _n = L ₂ ^k t L _m x ² for m > 1 and k ≥ 1. Moreover it is proved that L _n = L _m L _r is impossible if m and r are positive integers greater than 1. Also, a conjecture concerning with the subject is given.     

Edges and switches,tunnels and bridges

Edge casing is a well-known method to improve the readability of drawings of non-planar graphs. A cased drawing orders the edges of each edge crossing and interrupts the lower edge in an appropriate neighborhood of the crossing. Certain orders will lead to a more readable drawing than others. We formulate several optimization criteria that try to capture the concept of a “good” cased drawing. Further, we address the algorithmic question of how to turn a given drawing into an optimal cased drawing. For many of the resulting optimization problems, we either find polynomial time algorithms or NP-hardness results.     

Diversity and Popularity in Organizations and Communities

This paper examines social groupings whose structure depends only on the distribution of ability to attract attention. When people‘s attention is a scarce resource, those individuals who are rated highest by a large number of other individuals will have to ration their attention, resulting in constraints on the social structure of the group. The incidence of popular individuals by that definition reflects the extent to which individuals agree on who their highest-rated colleague is. We propose three basic distributions or ways to generate the matrix of perceived ability so as to yield popularity profiles that can be parametrically adjusted to match observations. We demonstrate that each of these assumption sets leads to a slightly different correlation between the value of the assumption‘s parameter and the set of observable popularity patterns. Since popularity, in real life, often determines such things as power, centrality, over-utilization and perhaps reduced accessibility, having more realistic ways of representing it is important for modeling and understanding virtual organizations and communities.     

E—matrices and Several Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

AER-x.,Aiscalledanonnegative(nonPositive)matrixifau>O(a,jO(aiirtO),markedA>O(AO(i#j),auO,wecallp(A)=max{IA,l,lA,l'.-.,lAnl},(whereA,,A2,..',A"areeigenva1ueofA)asspectralradiusofA.LemmalIfAe7'.,thenareanonnegativesquarematrxBandapositivenumberksuchthatA=B-kI(whereIistheidentitymatrixofordern).ProofLetbti=…     

Stationary and invariant densities and disintegration kernels

Let \(G\) be a locally compact topological group, acting measurably on some Borel spaces \(S\) and \(T\) , and consider some jointly stationary random measures \(\xi \) on \(S\times T\) and \(\eta \) on \(S\) such that \(\xi (\cdot \times T)\ll \eta \) a.s. Then there exists a stationary random kernel \(\zeta \) from \(S\) to \(T\) such that \(\xi =\eta \otimes \zeta \) a.s. This follows from the existence of an invariant kernel \(\varphi \) from \(S\times {\mathcal {M}}_{S\times T}\times {\mathcal {M}}_S\) to \(T\) such that \(\mu =\nu \otimes \varphi (\cdot ,\mu ,\nu )\) whenever \(\mu (\cdot \times T)\ll \nu \) . Also included are some related results on stationary integration, absolute continuity, and ergodic decomposition.     

Bloch and normal functions and their relation

Following a brief introduction to Bloch and normal functions, several conditions, including a convergence theorem, are shown for determining them. In addition, since an exponential of any constant multiple of a Bloch function is always normal, we investigate whether or not the converse holds, and construct an example of a non-Bloch function such that the exponential of any constant multiple of it is normal.     

Singular quasilinear and Hessian equations and inequalities

We solve the existence problem in the renormalized, or viscosity sense, and obtain global pointwise estimates of solutions for quasilinear and Hessian equations with measure coefficients and data, including the following model problems: