On the existence of nontrivial extremal metrics on complete noncompact surfaces

In this paper, we consider the 2-dimensional local Calabi flow on a complete noncompact surface . Then, based on the Harnack-type estimate, we show the long-time existence and asymptotic convergence of a subsequence of solutions of such a flow on with and bounded from above by a negative constant on a ball. For its applications, this will lead to the existence of extremal metrics on a complete noncompact surface of finite topological type. In particular, there exists an extremal metric of nonconstant Gaussian curvature on or Received: 21 June 2001 / 18 January 2002 / Published online: 27 June 2002 Research supported in part by NSC and NCTS.     

Maximal success durations for a semi-Markov process

Asymptotic distributional theorems are presented for the maximal sojourn duration on a semi-Markov chain and for the first passage time until a lengthy duration. Our analysis characterizes the limiting behavior of the longest “generalized success outcome” on a semi-Markov chain. The models include long runs on a single state, on a group of states, and on a set of transitions between states. Applications to success durations containing interruptions and to durations having infinite mean length are also presented.     

Interval Methods for Model Qualification: Methodology and Advanced Application

An actual model in simulation (e.g. in chemistry) or control (e.g. in robotics) is often too complex to use, and sometimes impossible to obtain. To handle a system in practice, a simplification of the real model is often necessary. This simplification goes through some hypotheses made on the system or the modeling approach. These hypotheses are rarely verified whereas they could lead to an inadmissible model, over approximated for its use. In this paper, we propose a method that qualifies the simplification validity for all models that can be expressed by real-valued variables involved in closed-form relations and depending on parameters. We based our approach on a verification of a quality threshold on the hypothesis relevance. This method, based on interval analysis, checks the acceptance of the hypothesis in a full range of the whole model space, and gives bounds on the quality threshold and on the model parameters. Our approach is experimentally validated on a robotic application.     

几何分析中的基本概念与原理

本文是根据作者在中国科学院“中德几何分析伙伴小组”成立仪式上的演讲整理而成，主要目的在于通过回顾几何分析中的基本概念及基本定理，了解现阶段的研究情况和将来的研究线路，主要描述黎曼几何与量子场论中的思想，特别特别是极化物理量与几何量产生的变分问题。     

Survival of contact processes on the hierarchical group

We consider contact processes on the hierarchical group, where sites infect other sites at a rate depending on their hierarchical distance, and sites become healthy with a constant recovery rate. If the infection rates decay too fast as a function of the hierarchical distance, then we show that the critical recovery rate is zero. On the other hand, we derive sufficient conditions on the speed of decay of the infection rates for the process to exhibit a nontrivial phase transition between extinction and survival. For our sufficient conditions, we use a coupling argument that compares contact processes on the hierarchical group with freedom two with contact processes on a renormalized lattice. An interesting novelty in this renormalization argument is the use of a result due to Rogers and Pitman on Markov functionals.     

The catwalk task: Reflections and synthesis: Part 1

In this article I recount my experiences with a series of encounters with the catwalk task and reflect on the professional growth that these opportunities afforded. First, I reflect on my own mathematical work on the catwalk task, including my efforts to fit various algebraic models to the data. Second, I reflect on my experiences working with a group of high school students on the catwalk task and my interpretations of their mathematical thinking. Finally, I reflect on the entire experience with the catwalk problem, as a mathematics learner, as a teacher, and as a professional.     

A new class of operators and a description of adjoints of composition operators

Starting with a general formula, precise but difficult to use, for the adjoint of a composition operator on a functional Hilbert space, we compute an explicit formula on the classical Hardy Hilbert space for the adjoint of a composition operator with rational symbol. To provide a foundation for this formula, we study an extension to the definitions of composition, weighted composition, and Toeplitz operators to include symbols that are multiple-valued functions. These definitions can be made on any Banach space of analytic functions on a plane domain, but in this work, our attention is focused on the basic properties needed for the application to operators on the standard Hardy and Bergman Hilbert spaces on the unit disk.     

Irreducible projective representations of finite groups

The purpose of this paper is to prove a result on the number of irreducible projective representations of a finite group with respect to a given factor set and a group of linear characters acting on them. It includes a determination of the number of classes of projectively equivalent representations as well as a result of M. Osima on the classes of linearly equivalent representations. Osima proved his result by defining and calculating on irreducible projective Brauer characters, whereas the method used here is based on Brauer's well-known result for the linear modular representations and an induction argument on suitable coverings.     

Parametric Vibrations of a Three-Layer Conical Piezoshell

Based on the Kirchhoff-Love hypotheses and adequate supplementary hypotheses for the distribution of electric field quantities, a model for parametric vibrations of composite shells of revolution made of a passive (without a piezoeffect) middle layer and two active (with a piezoeffect) surface layers under the action of harmonic mechanical and electric loads is developed. The dissipative material properties are taken into account by linear viscoelastic models. Since the vibrations on the boundary of the main domain of dynamic instability (MDDI) are harmonic, the investigation of this domain, in a first approximation, is reduced to generalized eigenvalue problems, which are solved by the finite-element method. The problem on parametric vibrations of a three-layer conical shell under harmonic mechanical loading is considered. The influence of the shell thickness, dissipation, and electric boundary conditions on the MDDI is investigated. Two limiting cases of electric boundary conditions are considered, where the electrodes are short-circuited or not. The curves presented show a considerable influence of the electric boundary conditions on the characteristics of the MDDI, namely on its width and position on the frequency axis and on the critical parameter of excitation.     

Character Tables of Association Schemes Based on Attenuated Spaces

The set of subspaces of a given dimension in an attenuated space has a structure of a symmetric association scheme and this association scheme is called an association scheme based on an attenuated space. Association schemes based on attenuated spaces are generalizations of Grassmann schemes and bilinear forms schemes, and also q-analogues of nonbinary Johnson schemes. Wang, Guo, and Li computed the intersection numbers of association schemes based on attenuated spaces. The aim of this paper is to compute character tables of association schemes based on attenuated spaces using the method of Tarnanen, Aaltonen, and Goethals. Moreover, we also prove that association schemes based on attenuated spaces include as a special case the m-flat association scheme, which is defined on the set of cosets of subspaces of a constant dimension in a vector space over a finite field.     

Seminorms on ordered vector spaces that extend to Riesz seminorms on larger Riesz spaces

As a generalization of the notion of Riesz seminorm, a class of seminorms on directed partially ordered vector spaces is introduced, such that (1) every seminorm in the class can be extended to a Riesz seminorm on every larger Riesz space that is majorized and (2) a seminorm on an order dense linear subspace of a Riesz space is in the class if and only if it can be extended to a Riesz seminorm on the Riesz space. The latter property yields that if a directed partially ordered vector space has an appropriate Riesz completion, then a seminorm on the space is in the class if and only if it is the restriction of a Riesz seminorm on the Riesz completion. An explicit formula for the extension is given. The class of seminorms is described by means of a notion of solid unit ball in partially ordered vector spaces. Some more properties concerning restriction and extension are studied, including extension to L- and M-seminorms.     

A quasi-second-order proximal bundle algorithm

This paper introduces an algorithm for convex minimization which includes quasi-Newton updates within a proximal point algorithm that depends on a preconditioned bundle subalgorithm. The method uses the Hessian of a certain outer function which depends on the Jacobian of a proximal point mapping which, in turn, depends on the preconditioner matrix and on a Lagrangian Hessian relative to a certain tangent space. Convergence is proved under boundedness assumptions on the preconditioner sequence. Research supported by NSF Grant No. DMS-9402018 and by Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique, France.     

球面上的曲面插值

<正>1引言随着现代工业生产的飞速发展,航空、气象、环境监测等领域需要研究解决限制在曲面上的四维数据插值问题,即由有限个位置处的信息推测其它若干位置点的信息.例如,地球上某个地区的温度分布、降雨量分布、大气层的"温室效应"等;飞行器(飞机、火箭、导弹等)表面压力分布规律、肿瘤的生长规律等.这些在数学上都可归结为限制在曲面上的曲面插值与逼近问题.这个问题自Barnhill提出以后,人们针对限制在球面上     

Meromorphic Functions on a Riemann Surface to a Locally Semi-convex Space

In this article, vector-valued holomorphic and meromorphic functions on a Riemann surface to a complete Hausdorff locally semi-convex space are discussed. By introducing the concepts of vector-valued holomorphic and meromorphic differential forms, Cauchy's theorem and the Residue theorem of a vector-valued differential form on a Riemann surface are proved. Using the theory on the operator and the theory of a cohomology of a sheaf, we give a proof of the Mittag-Leffler theorem for vector-valued meromorphic functions on a non-compact Riemann surface to a complete Hausdorff locally semi-convex space.     

The motion of a ball on a grassy lawn

The motion of a ball of constant spherical shape on a grassy lawn represented by a set of deformable rods with one end rigidly attached to a plane, while the other end is free and can contact the ball, is investigated. The contact area on the ball surface is represented by a spherical sector, whose dimensions and location on the ball surface depend on the position of the centre of the ball and its orientation. The projection of the contact area onto the plane is a circle, whose centre and radius vary as the centre of the ball moves. When the rods come into contact with the ball, they experience longitudinal and flexural strains, as well as impact actions on the boundary of the contact area. The translational–rotational motion of a ball on a lawn of rods without friction, as well as motion with viscous friction at the points of contact of the ends of the rods with the ball, is considered.     

Metrized Semigroups

The notion of metrized order (antimetric) on a topological group is characterized by three equivalent systems of axioms and connected with pointed locally generated semigroups. In the present paper, these notions are discussed and new results are announced. The main result is an analog of the following fact in metric geometry: every left-invariant inner metric on a Lie group is Finsler (maybe, nonholonomic). In the situation considered, a norm is replaced by an antinorm, and a metric by an antimetric. Examples are given, showing the complexity of these structures and their prevalence. Among them are: a nonholonomic antimetric on Heisenberg group, an antimetric on a nonnilpotent group admitting dilatations, a pointed locally generated semigroup in the Hilbert space with trivial tangent cone, antinorms connected with the Brunn–Minkowski inequality and Shannon entropy, a discontinuous antinorm on a Lie algebra determining a continuous antimetric on the Lie group, and an example of the converse situation. Problems are formulated. Bibliography: 47 titles.     

Strong consistency of nonparametric Bayes density estimation on compact metric spaces with applications to specific manifolds

This article considers a broad class of kernel mixture density models on compact metric spaces and manifolds. Following a Bayesian approach with a nonparametric prior on the location mixing distribution, sufficient conditions are obtained on the kernel, prior and the underlying space for strong posterior consistency at any continuous density. The prior is also allowed to depend on the sample size n and sufficient conditions are obtained for weak and strong consistency. These conditions are verified on compact Euclidean spaces using multivariate Gaussian kernels, on the hypersphere using a von Mises-Fisher kernel and on the planar shape space using complex Watson kernels.     

Paths on polymatroids

This paper establishes bounds on the length of certain strictly monotone paths, relative to a given linear objective function, on a polymatroid or on the base of a polymatroid. Specialized bounds are given for a strict polymatroid and for a matroid polyhedron. Bounds on the diameter are included.     

An Extension of Set-Valued Contraction Principle for Mappings on a Metric Space with a Graph and Application

In this paper, we obtain an existence theorem for fixed points of contractive set-valued mappings on a metric space endowed with a graph. This theorem unifies and extends several fixed point theorems for mappings on metric spaces and for mappings on metric spaces endowed with a graph. As an application, we obtain a theorem on the convergence of successive approximations for some linear operators on an arbitrary Banach space. This result yields the well-known Kelisky–Rivlin theorem on iterates of the Bernstein operators on C[0,1].