The game of n-times nim

The following game is considered. The first player can take any number of stones, but not all the stones, from a single pile of stones. After that, each player can take at most n-times as many as the previous one. The player first unable to move loses and his opponent wins. Let f₁,f₂,… be an initial sequence of stones in increasing order, such that the second player has a winning strategy when play begins from a pile of size f_i. It is proved that there exist constants c=c(n) and k₀=k₀(n) such that f_k+1=f_k+f_k−c for all k>k₀, and lim_n→∞ c(n)/(nlogn)=1.     

On the Characterization of Maximal Planar Graphs with a Given Signed Cycle Domination Number

Let G =(V, E) be a simple graph. A function f : E → {+1,-1} is called a signed cycle domination function(SCDF) of G if ∑_(e∈E(C))f(e) ≥ 1 for every induced cycle C of G. The signed cycle domination number of G is defined as γ'_(sc)(G) = min{∑_(e∈E)f(e)| f is an SCDF of G}. This paper will characterize all maximal planar graphs G with order n ≥ 6 and γ'_(sc)(G) = n.     

Intersections of nest algebras in finite dimensions

If are maximal nests on a finite-dimensional Hilbert space H, the dimension of the intersection of the corresponding nest algebras is at least dim H. On the other hand, there are three maximal nests whose nest algebras intersect in the scalar operators. The dimension of the intersection of two nest algebras (corresponding to maximal nests) can be of any integer value from n to n(n+1)/2, where n=dim H. For any two maximal nests there exists a basis {f₁,f₂,…,f_n} of H and a permutation π such that and where M_i=  span{f₁,f₂,…,f_i} and N_i= span{f_π(1),f_π(2),…,f_π(i)}. The intersection of the corresponding nest algebras has minimum dimension, namely dim H, precisely when π(j)=n−j+1,1jn. Those algebras which are upper-triangular matrix incidence algebras, relative to some basis, can be characterised as intersections of certain nest algebras.     

Factorizations of root-based polynomial compositions

Let denote the finite field of order q=p^r, p a prime and r a positive integer, and let f(x) and g(x) denote monic polynomials in of degrees m and n, respectively. Brawley and Carlitz (Discrete Math. 65 (1987) 115–139) introduce a general notion of root-based polynomial composition which they call the composed product and denote by fg. They prove that fg is irreducible over if and only if f and g are irreducible with gcd(m,n)=1. In this paper, we extend Brawley and Carlitz's work by examining polynomials which are composed products of irreducibles of non-coprime degrees. We give an upper bound on the number of distinct factors of fg, and we determine the possible degrees that the factors of fg can assume. We also determine when the bound on the number of factors of fg is met.     

Degrees in a digraph whose nodes are graphs

By an f-graph we mean an unlabeled graph having no vertex of degree greater than f. Let D(n, f) denote the digraph whose node set is the set of f-graphs of order n and such that there is an arc from the node corresponding to graph H to the node corresponding to the graph K if and only if K is obtainable from H by the addition of a single edge. In earlier work, algorithms were developed which produce exact results about the structure of D(n, f), nevertheless many open problems remain. For example, the computation of the order and size of D(n, f) for a number of values of n and f have been obtained. Formulas for the order and size for f = 2 have also been derived. However, no closed form formulas have been determined for the order and size of D(n, f) for any value of f. Here we focus on questions concerning the degrees of the nodes in D(n,n − 1) and comment on related questions for D(n,f) for 2 f < n − 1.     

Stability of Periodic Orbits and Return Trajectories of Continuous Multi-valued Maps on Intervals

Let I be a compact interval of real axis R, and(I, H) be the metric space of all nonempty closed subintervals of I with the Hausdorff metric H and f : I → I be a continuous multi-valued map. Assume that Pn =(x_0, x_1,..., xn) is a return tra jectory of f and that p ∈ [min Pn, max Pn] with p ∈ f(p). In this paper, we show that if there exist k(≥ 1) centripetal point pairs of f(relative to p)in {(x_i; x_i+1) : 0 ≤ i ≤ n-1} and n = sk + r(0 ≤ r ≤ k-1), then f has an R-periodic orbit, where R = s + 1 if s is even, and R = s if s is odd and r = 0, and R = s + 2 if s is odd and r 0. Besides,we also study stability of periodic orbits of continuous multi-valued maps from I to I.     

L2-approximation of real-valued functions with interpolatory constraints

We construct the polynomial p_m,n^* of degree m which interpolates a given real-valued function f L²[a, b] at pre-assigned n distinct nodes and is the best approximant to f in the L₂-sense over all polynomials of degree m with the same interpolatory character. It is shown that the L₂-error p_m,n^* − f → 0 as m → ∞ if f C[a, b].     

Embeddings of the base and bundle isomorphisms

Let π_i :E_i→M, i=1,2, be oriented, smooth vector bundles of rank k over a closed, oriented n-manifold with zero sections s_i :M→E_i. Suppose that U is an open neighborhood of s₁(M) in E₁ and F :U→E₂ a smooth embedding so that π₂Fs₁ :M→M is homotopic to a diffeomorphism f. We show that if k>[(n+1)/2]+1 then E₁ and the induced bundle f^*E₂ are isomorphic as oriented bundles provided that f have degree +1; the same conclusion holds if f has degree −1 except in the case where k is even and one of the bundles does not have a nowhere-zero cross-section. For n≡0(4) and [(n+1)/2]+1<kn we give examples of nonisomorphic oriented bundles E₁ and E₂ of rank k over a homotopy n-sphere with total spaces diffeomorphic with orientation preserved, but such that E₁ and f^*E₂ are not isomorphic oriented bundles. We obtain similar results and counterexamples in the more difficult limiting case where k=[(n+1)/2]+1 and M is a homotopy n-sphere.     

Weak convergence to the multiple Stratonovich integral

We have considered the problem of the weak convergence, as tends to zero, of the multiple integral processes

in the space , where fL²([0,T]ⁿ) is a given function, and {η(t)}_>0 is a family of stochastic processes with absolutely continuous paths that converges weakly to the Brownian motion. In view of the known results when n2 and f(t₁,…,t_n)=1_{t1<t2<<tn}, we cannot expect that these multiple integrals converge to the multiple Itô–Wiener integral of f, because the quadratic variations of the η are null. We have obtained the existence of the limit for any {η}, when f is given by a multimeasure, and under some conditions on {η} when f is a continuous function and when f(t₁,…,t_n)=f₁(t₁)f_n(t_n)1_{t1<t2<<tn}, with f_iL²([0,T]) for any i=1,…,n. In all these cases the limit process is the multiple Stratonovich integral of the function f.     

How many maxima can there be?

Let C be a planar region. Choose n points p₁,,p_nI.I.D. from the uniform distribution over C. Let M^C_n be the number of these points that are maximal. If C is convex it is known that either E(M^C_n)=Θ(√n)> or E(M^C_n)=O(log n). In this paper we will show that, for general C, there is very little that can be said, a-priori, about E(M^C_n). More specifically we will show that if g is a member of a large class of functions then there is always a region C such that E(M^C_n)=Θ(g(n)). This class contains, for example, all monotically increasing functions of the form g(n)= nln^βn, where 0<<1 and β0. This class also contains nondecreasing functions like g(n)=ln^*n. The results in this paper remain valid in higher dimensions.     

Pontryagin–Thom construction for approximation of mappings by embeddings

Let n3 and be positive integers, f :Sⁿ→Sⁿ be a C⁰-mapping, and denote the standard embedding. As an application of the Pontryagin–Thom construction in the special case of the two-point configuration space, we construct complete algebraic obstructions O(f) and to discrete and isotopic realizability (realizability as an embedding) of the mapping Jf. The obstructions are described in terms of stable (equivariant) homotopy groups of neighborhoods of the singular set Σ(f)={(x,y)Sⁿ×Sⁿf(x)=f(y), x≠y}.

A standard method of solving problems in differential topology is to translate them into homotopy theory by means of bordism theory and Pontryagin–Thom construction. By this method we give a generalization of the van-Kampen–Skopenkov obstruction to discrete realizability of f and the van-Kampen–Melikhov obstruction to isotopic realizability of f. The latter are complete only in the case d=0 and are the images of our obstructions under a Hurewicz homomorphism.

We consider several examples of computation of the obstructions.     

On meromorphic solutions of a certain type of nonlinear differential equations

We consider transcendental meromorphic solutions with N(r,f) = S(r,f) of the following type of nonlinear differential equations:f~n + Pn-2(f) = p1(z)e~(α1(z)) +p2(z)e~(α2(z)),where n≥ 2 is an integer, Pn-2(f) is a differential polynomial in f of degree not greater than n-2 with small functions of f as its coefficients, p1(z), p2(z) are nonzero small functions of f, and α1(z), α2(z)are nonconstant entire functions. In particular, we give out the conditions for ensuring the existence of meromorphic solutions and their possible forms of the above equation. Our results extend and improve some known results obtained most recently.     

Linear transformations on matrices: The invariance of commuting pairs of matrices

Let L be a linear transformation on the set of all n×n matrices over an algebraically closed field of characteristic 0. It is shown that if AB=BA implies L(A)L(B)=L(B)L(A) and if either L is nonsingular or the implication in the hypothesis can also be reversed, then L is a sum of a scalar multiple of a similarity transformation and a linear functional times the identity transformation.     

Multiplicative properties of generalized matrix functions

We consider scalar-valued matrix functions for n×n matrices A=(a_ij) defined by Where G is a subgroup of S_n the group of permutations on n letters, and χ is a linear character of G. Two such functions are the permanent and the determinant. A function (1) is multiplicative on a semigroup S of n×n matrices if d(AB)=d(A)d(B) AB∈S.

With mild restrictions on the underlying scalar ring we show that every element of a semigroup containing the diagonal matrices on which (1) is multiplicative can have at most one nonzero diagonal(i.e., diagonal with all nonzero entries)and conversely, provided that χ is the principal character(χ≡1).     

Commutativity preserving linear maps and Lie automorphisms of strictly triangular matrix space

In this paper we classify linear maps preserving commutativity in both directions on the space N(F) of strictly upper triangular (n+1)×(n+1) matrices over a field F. We show that for n3 a linear map on N(F) preserves commutativity in both directions if and only if =^′+f where ^′ is a product of standard maps on N(F) and f is a linear map of N(F) into its center.     

Maps of manifolds into the plane which lift to standard embeddings in codimension two

Let be a smooth map of a closed n-dimensional manifold (n2) into the plane and let be an orthogonal projection. We say that f has the standard lifting property, if every embedding with is standard in a certain sense. In this paper we give some sufficient conditions for a generic smooth map f to have the standard lifting property when M is a closed surface or an n-dimensional homotopy sphere.     

Odd subgraphs and matchings

Let G be a graph and f : V(G)→{1,3,5,…}. Then a subgraph H of G is called a (1,f)-odd subgraph if deg_H(x){1,3,…,f(x)} for all xV(H). If f(x)=1 for all xV(G), then a (1,f)-odd subgraph is nothing but a matching. A (1,f)-odd subgraph H of G is said to be maximum if G has no (1,f)-odd subgraph K such that |K|>|H|. We show that (1,f)-odd subgraphs have some properties similar to those of matchings, in particular, we give a formula for the order of a maximum (1,f)-odd subgraph, which is similar to that for the order of a maximum matching.     

Partitioning Boolean lattices into antichains

Let f(n) be the smallest integer t such that a poset obtained from a Boolean lattice with n atoms by deleting both the largest and the smallest elements can be partitioned into t antichains of the same size except for possibly one antichain of a smaller size. In this paper, it is shown that f(n)b n²/log n. This is an improvement of the best previously known upper bound for f(n).     

Eulerian subgraphs containing given edges

For an integer l0, define to be the family of graphs such that if and only if for any edge subset XE(G) with |X|l, G has a spanning eulerian subgraph H with XE(H). The graphs in are known as supereulerian graphs. Let f(l) be the minimum value of k such that every k-edge-connected graph is in . Jaeger and Catlin independently proved f(0)=4. We shall determine f(l) for all values of l0. Another problem concerning the existence of eulerian subgraphs containing given edges is also discussed, and former results in [J. Graph Theory 1 (1977) 79–84] and [J. Graph Theory 3 (1979) 91–93] are extended.     

Quadratic expansions of spectral functions

A function, F, on the space of n×n real symmetric matrices is called spectral if it depends only on the eigenvalues of its argument, that is F(A)=F(UAU^T) for every orthogonal U and symmetric A in its domain. Spectral functions are in one-to-one correspondence with the symmetric functions on : those that are invariant under arbitrary swapping of their arguments. In this paper we show that a spectral function has a quadratic expansion around a point A if and only if its corresponding symmetric function has quadratic expansion around λ(A) (the vector of eigenvalues). We also give a concise and easy to use formula for the ‘Hessian' of the spectral function. In the case of convex functions we show that a positive definite ‘Hessian' of f implies positive definiteness of the ‘Hessian' of F.