A time-periodic reaction–diffusion–advection equation with a free boundary and sign-changing coefficients

We consider a reaction–diffusion–advection equation of the form: $u_t=u_{xx}-\beta \left(t\right)u_x+f(t,u)$ for $x\in [0,h\left(t\right))$, where $\beta \left(t\right)$ is a $T$-periodic function, $f(t,u)$ is a $T$-periodic Fisher–KPP type of nonlinearity with $a\left(t\right)≔f_u(t,0)$ changing sign, $h\left(t\right)$ is a free boundary satisfying the Stefan condition. We study the long time behavior of solutions and find that there are two critical numbers $\bar{c}$ and $B\left(\tilde{\beta }\right)$ with $B\left(\tilde{\beta }\right)>\bar{c}>0$, $\bar{\beta }≔\frac{1}{T}{\int }_0^T\beta \left(t\right)dt$ and $\tilde{\beta }\left(t\right)≔\beta \left(t\right)-\bar{\beta }$, such that a vanishing–spreading dichotomy result holds when $\left|\bar{\beta }\right|<\bar{c}$; a vanishing–transition–virtual spreading trichotomy result holds when $\bar{\beta }\in [\bar{c},B\left(\tilde{\beta }\right))$; all solutions vanish when $\bar{\beta }⩾B\left(\tilde{\beta }\right)$ or $\bar{\beta }⩽-\bar{c}$.     

Minimum energy with infinite horizon: From stationary to non-stationary states

We study a non-standard infinite horizon, infinite dimensional linear–quadratic control problem arising in the physics of non-stationary states (see e.g. Bertini et al. (2004, 2005)): finding the minimum energy to drive a given stationary state $\bar{x}=0$ (at time $t=-\infty$) into an arbitrary non-stationary state $x$ (at time $t=0$). This is the opposite to what is commonly studied in the literature on null controllability (where one drives a generic state $x$ into the equilibrium state $\bar{x}=0$). Consequently, the Algebraic Riccati Equation (ARE) associated with this problem is non-standard since the sign of the linear part is opposite to the usual one and since its solution is intrinsically unbounded. Hence the standard theory of AREs does not apply. The analogous finite horizon problem has been studied in the companion paper (Acquistapace and Gozzi, 2017). Here, similarly to such paper, we prove that the linear selfadjoint operator associated with the value function is a solution of the above mentioned ARE. Moreover, differently to Acquistapace and Gozzi (2017), we prove that such solution is the maximal one. The first main result (Theorem 5.8) is proved by approximating the problem with suitable auxiliary finite horizon problems (which are different from the one studied in Acquistapace and Gozzi (2017)). Finally in the special case where the involved operators commute we characterize all solutions of the ARE (Theorem 6.5) and we apply this to the Landau–Ginzburg model.     

Criteria on the existence of limit cycles in planar polynomial differential systems

We summarize known criteria for the non-existence, existence and on the number of limit cycles of autonomous real planar polynomial differential systems, and also provide new results. We give examples of systems which realize the maximum number of limit cycles provided by each criterion. In particular we consider the class of differential systems of the form $\stackrel{?}{x}=P_n(x,y)+P_m(x,y),\stackrel{?}{y}=Q_n(x,y)+Q_m(x,y),$ where $n,m$ are natural numbers with $m>n\ge 1$ and $(P_i,Q_i)$ for $i=n,m$, are quasi-homogeneous vector fields.     

Remarks on the distribution of colors in Gallai colorings

A Gallai coloring of a complete graph $K_n$ is an edge coloring without triangles colored with three different colors. A sequence $e_1\ge \cdots \ge e_k$ of positive integers is an $(n,k)$-sequence if ${\sum }_{i=1}^k{e}_i=\left(\genfrac{}{}{0ex}{}{n}{2}\right)$. An $(n,k)$-sequence is a G-sequence if there is a Gallai coloring of $K_n$ with $k$ colors such that there are $e_i$ edges of color $i$ for all $i,1\le i\le k$. Gyárfás, Pálvölgyi, Patkós and Wales proved that for any integer $k\ge 3$ there exists an integer $g\left(k\right)$ such that every $(n,k)$-sequence is a G-sequence if and only if $n\ge g\left(k\right)$. They showed that $g\left(3\right)=5,g\left(4\right)=8$ and $2k-2\le g\left(k\right)\le 8k^2+1$.We show that $g\left(5\right)=10$ and give almost matching lower and upper bounds for $g\left(k\right)$ by showing that with suitable constants $\alpha ,\beta >0$, $\frac{\alpha k^{1.5}}{lnk}\le g\left(k\right)\le \beta k^{1.5}$ for all sufficiently large $k$.     

Waring-Hilbert problem on Cantor sets

Analogs of Waring–Hilbert problem on Cantor sets are explored. The focus of this paper is on the Cantor ternary set $C$. It is shown that, for each $m\ge 3$, every real number in the unit interval $[0,1]$ is the sum $x_1^m+x_2^m+?+x_n^m$ with each $x_j$ in $C$ and some $n\le 6^m$. Furthermore, every real number $x$ in the interval $[0,8]$ can be written as $x=x_1^3+x_2^3+?+x_8^3$, the sum of eight cubic powers with each $x_j$ in $C$. Another Cantor set $C\times C$ is also considered. More specifically, when $C\times C$ is embedded into the complex plane $?$, the Waring–Hilbert problem on $C\times C$ has a positive answer for powers less than or equal to 4.     

Dynamical behavior of solutions of a reaction–diffusion model in river network

In this paper, we study the long-time behavior of solutions of a reaction–diffusion model in a one-dimensional river network, where the river network has two branches, and the water flow speeds in each branch are the same constant $\beta$. We show the existence of two critical values $c_0$ and 2 with $0<c_0<2$, and prove that when $-c_0\le \beta <2$, the population density in every branch of the river goes to 1 as time goes to infinity; when $-2<\beta <-c_0$, then, as time goes to infinity, the population density in every river branch converges to a positive steady state strictly below 1; when $\left|\beta \right|\ge 2$, the species will be washed down the stream, and so locally the population density converges to 0. Our result indicates that only if the water-flow speed is suitably small (i.e., $\left|\beta \right|<2$), the species will survive in the long run.     

Some new results on dimension and Bose distance for various classes of BCH codes

In this paper, we give the dimension and the minimum distance of two subclasses of narrow-sense primitive BCH codes over ${\mathbb{F}}_q$ with designed distance $\delta =a{q}^{m-1}-1(\text{resp. }\delta =a\frac{q^m-1}{q-1})$ for all $1\le a\le q-1$, where q is a prime power and $m>1$ is a positive integer. As a consequence, we obtain an affirmative answer to two conjectures proposed by C. Ding in 2015. Furthermore, using the previous part, we extend some results of Yue and Hu [16], and we give the dimension and, in some cases, the Bose distance for a large designed distance in the range $[a\frac{q^m-1}{q-1},a\frac{q^m-1}{q-1}+T]$ for $0\le a\le q-2$, where $T=q^{\frac{m+1}{2}}-1$ if m is odd, and $T=2q^{\frac{m}{2}}-1$ if m is even.     

Two solutions for a singular elliptic equation with critical growth at infinity

We look for positive solutions for the singular equation $-\Delta u-\frac{1}{2}\left(x\cdot \nabla u\right)=\mu h\left(x\right)u^{q-1}+\lambda u+u^{(N+2)/(N-2)},\text{in }{\mathbb{R}}^N,$ where $N\ge 3$, $\lambda >0$, $\mu >0$ is a parameter, $0<q<1$ and $h$ has some summability properties. By using a perturbation method and critical point theory, we obtain two solutions when $max\{1,N/4\}<\lambda <N/2$ and the parameter $\mu >0$ is small.     

Large blocking sets in PG(2,q2)

Minimal blocking sets in $\mathrm{PG}(2,q^2)$ have size at most $q^3+1$. This result is due to Bruen and Thas and the bound is sharp, sets attaining this bound are called unitals. In this paper, we show that the second largest minimal blocking sets have size at most $q^3+1-(p-3)/2$, if $q=p$, $p\ge 67$, or $q=p^h$, $p>7$, $h>1$. Our proof also works for sets having at least one tangent at each of its points (that is, for tangency sets).     

On circular–linear one-factorizations of the complete graph

In Korchmáros et al. (2018)one-factorizations of the complete graph $K_n$ are constructed for $n=q+1$ with any odd prime power $q$ such that either $q\equiv 1(mod4)$ or $q=2^h?1$. The arithmetic restriction $n=q+1$ is due to the fact that the vertices of $K_n$ in the construction are the points of a conic $\Omega$ in the finite plane of order $q$. Here we work on the Euclidean plane and describe an analogous construction where the role of $\Omega$ is taken by a regular $n$-gon. This allows us to remove the above constraints and construct one-factorizations of $K_n$ for every even $n\ge 6$.     

Projective well orders and coanalytic witnesses

We further develop a forcing notion known as Coding with Perfect Trees and show that this poset preserves, in a strong sense, definable P-points, definable tight MAD families and definable selective independent families. As a result, we obtain a model in which $\mathfrak{a}=\mathfrak{u}=\mathfrak{i}={\mathrm{?}}_1<2^{{\mathrm{?}}_0}={\mathrm{?}}_2$, each of $\mathfrak{a}$, $\mathfrak{u}$, $\mathfrak{i}$ has a ${\mathrm{\Pi }}_1^1$ witness and there is a ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_3^1$ well-order of the reals. Note that both the complexity of the witnesses of the above combinatorial cardinal characteristics, as well as the complexity of the well-order are optimal. In addition, we show that the existence of a ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_3^1$ well-order of the reals is consistent with $\mathfrak{c}={\mathrm{?}}_2$ and each of the following: $\mathfrak{a}=\mathfrak{u}<\mathfrak{i}$, $\mathfrak{a}=\mathfrak{i}<\mathfrak{u}$, $\mathfrak{a}<\mathfrak{u}=\mathfrak{i}$, where the smaller cardinal characteristics have co-analytic witnesses.Our methods allow the preservation of only sufficiently definable witnesses, which significantly differs from other preservation results of this type.