The Orevkov invariant of an affine plane curve

We show that although the fundamental group of the complement of an algebraic affine plane curve is not easy to compute, it possesses a more accessible quotient, which we call the Orevkov invariant.

     

Best affine unbiased representations of the fully restricted general Gauss-Markov model

This article completes and simplifies earlier results on the derivation of best linear, or affine, unbiased estimates in the general Gauss-Markov model with a singular dispersion matrix and additional restrictions under very general conditions. We provide the class of all linear representations of the best affine unbiased estimator with precise statements concerning its indeterminacy.     

TheK-admissibility of 2A 6 and 2A 7

LetK be a field and letG be a finite group.G isK-admissible if there exists a Galois extensionL ofK withG=Gal(L/K) such thatL is a maximal subfield of a centralK-division algebra. This paper contains a characterization of those number fields which areQ ₁₆-admissible. This is the same class of number fields which are 2A ₆=SL(2, 9) and 2A ₇ admissible. Dedicated to John Thompson to celebrate his Wolf Prize in Mathematics 1992     

Sensitivity ofn-p scattering observables to charge-independence breaking of the3 P N-N phase shifts

The sensitivity of neutron-proton scattering observables to the recently reported charge-independence breaking of the isospinT=1³ P nucleon-nucleon interaction has been calculated. It is shown that only the analyzing powerA _y () at extreme forward angles and at =90° c.m. and the spin-correlation coefficientA _zx () at 90° c.m. exhibit a measurable sensitivity. It is concluded that the determination ofA _y at 90° c.m. is currently the most accurate approach to verify independently charge-independence breaking in the³ P nucleon-nucleon phase shifts, considering the status of present experimental techniques.     

Hyper-rook Domain Inequalities

A hyper-rook domain of an element x in the space (words of length n over alphabets with k elements) is a sphere with center x and fixed radius j in Hamming distance. The number j determines the dimension of the hyper-rook domain. The classical (and far from solved) problem of covering by rook domains (here considered as the 1-dimensional case) is the problem of finding minimal coverings of by such spheres. Very few results are known in the literature for dimensions ≥ 2. We prove in this paper certain classes of inequalities based on coverings using matrices, which give upper and lower bounds for several cases of the problem for higher dimensions.     

Replacement-Policy Development: A Case Study of Glove Replacement at a Nuclear Processing Facility

Individual/group replacement models were used to identify the minimum-cost policy for replacing protective gloves that are utilized in product fabrication at a nuclear processing facility. Since historical data on glove longevity were not available to determine the failure-rate distribution, the classical replacement model for items that fail was modified to consider glove life as a normally distributed variable. Moreover, the absence of replacement-cost required that the classical model be transformed to incorporate the ratio of single to unit-group replacement cost. Sensitivity analysis on these two input parameter values provided guidance for the development of an appropriate replacement policy.     

Approximate neutrality of large-Z ions

LetN(Z) denote the number of electrons which a nucleus of chargeZ can bind in non-relativistic quantum mechanics (assuming that electrons are fermions). We prove thatN(Z)/Z1 asZ.Research partially supported by the NSERC under Grant NA7901 and by the USNSF under Grants DMS-8416049 and PHY 85-15288-A01