Additive conjoint measurement with ordered categories

Conjoint measurement studies binary relations defined on product sets and investigates the existence and uniqueness of, usually additive, numerical representations of such relations. It has proved to be quite a powerful tool to analyze and compare MCDM techniques designed to build a preference relation between multiattributed alternatives and has been an inspiring guide to many assessment protocols. The aim of this paper is to show that additive representations can be obtained on the basis of much poorer information than a preference relation. We will suppose here that the decision maker only specifies for each object if he/she finds it “attractive” (better than the status quo), “unattractive” (worse than the status quo) or “neutral” (equivalent to the status quo). We show how to build an additive representation, with tight uniqueness properties, using such an ordered partition of the set of objects. On a theoretical level, this paper shows that classical results of additive conjoint measurement can be extended to cover the case of ordered partitions and wishes to be a contribution to the growing literature on the foundations of sorting techniques in MCDM. On a more practical level, our results suggest an assessment strategy of an additive model on the basis of an ordered partition.     

On the monotonicity properties of additive representation functions, II

For a set A of positive integers and any positive integer n, let R₁(A,n), R₂(A,n) and R₃(A,n) denote the number of solutions of a+a^′=n with the additional restriction a,a^′∈A; a,a^′∈A,a<a^′ and a,a^′∈A,a≤a^′ respectively. In this paper, we specially focus on the monotonicity of R₃(A,n). Moreover, we show that there does not exist any set A⊂N such that R₂(A,n) or R₃(A,n) is eventually strictly increasing.     

Failure of cancellation conditions for additive linear orders

Coordinate independence assumptions, also known as cancellation conditions, play a central role in the representational theory of measurement for an ordering relation ≻ on a finite Cartesian product set A₁ × A₂ × ··· × A_m. A sequence of increasingly complex cancellation conditions is known to be sufficient for additive representability in the form (a₁, a₂, ⋖ a_m) ≻ (b₁, b₂, ⋖ b_m) ⇔ ∑_i v(a_i) > &sum_i v(b_i). A longstanding open problem is to determine the simplest subset of cancellation conditions as a function of the size of A₁ × ··· × A_m that is violated by every order ≻ that is not additively representable. This article proves a lower bound on minimum subset sufficiency when all A_i are binary. We conjecture that this lower bound, which is very near to a known upper bound, is the exact minimum. The binary-factors version of the problem is reformulated under a first-order independence assumption by a map from ≻ on {0,1}^m into a subset L of {1,0,−1}^m that is referred to as an additive linear order. The lower bound is then established by examples of additive linear orders on {1,0,−1}^m that exhibit worst-case failures of cancellation. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Combin Designs 5:353–365, 1997     

On additive semigroups starting parts

We present geometrical arguments suggesting that the part of the segment {0,1,…,N−1} covered by the additive semigroup generated by (a,b,c) between 0 and the Frobenius number N(a,b,c) should exceed λ V for some constant λ (which might be 1/3 or even more).      

Monotone additive functions on shifted primes

Generalising a sixty year old result of Erdös, it is proved that an additive arithmetic function that is non-decreasing on the shifted primes is essentially a logarithm.     

On an additive representation function

Let A be an infinite subset of natural numbers, and X a positive real number. Let r(n) denotes the number of solution of the equation n=a₁+a₂ where a₁?a₂ and a₁, a₂∈A. Also let |A(X)| denotes the number of natural numbers which are less than or equal to X and belong to A. For those A which satisfy the condition that for all sufficiently large natural numbers n we have r(n)≠1, we improve the lower bound of |A(X)| given by Nicolas et. al. [NRS98]. The bound which we obtain is essentially best possible.     

On families of additive exponential sums

In this paper we compute geometric monodromy groups of additive exponential sums over BbbAⁿ. Our approach builds on work of N. Katz, and involves p-adic analysis of explicit sums and computation of the Galois group of an equation over a function field in characteristic 2. The paper also provides a brief historical outline of the problem and lists previously known results.     

On the additive cyclic structure of quasi-cyclic codes

An index $?$, length $m?$ quasi-cyclic code can be viewed as a cyclic code of length $m$ over the field ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^{?}}$ via a basis of the extension ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^{?}}∕{\mathbb{F}}_q$. However, this cyclic code is only linear over ${\mathbb{F}}_q$, making it an additive cyclic code, or an ${\mathbb{F}}_q$-linear cyclic code, over the alphabet ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^{?}}$. This approach was recently used in Shi et al. (2017) [16] to study a class of quasi-cyclic codes, and more importantly in Shi et al. (2017) [17] to settle a long-standing question on the asymptotic performance of cyclic codes. Here, we answer one of the problems posed in these two articles, and characterize those quasi-cyclic codes which have ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^{?}}$-linear cyclic images under a basis of the extension ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^{?}}∕{\mathbb{F}}_q$. Our characterizations are based on the module structure of quasi-cyclic codes, as well as on their CRT decompositions into constituents. In the case of a polynomial basis, we characterize the constituents by using the theory of invariant subspaces of operators. We also observe that analogous results extend to the case of quasi-twisted codes.     

Decompositions of the free additive convolution

We introduce and study a new type of convolution of probability measures, denoted μν and called the s-free additive convolution, which is defined by the subordination functions associated with the free additive convolution. We derive an alternating decomposition of μν for compactly supported μ and ν, using another convolution called orthogonal additive convolution. This decomposition leads to two types of ‘complete’ alternating decompositions of the free additive convolution μ?ν. More importantly, we develop an operatorial approach to the subordination property and introduce the associated notion of s-free independence. Moreover, we establish relations between convolutions associated with the main notions of noncommutative independence (free, monotone and boolean). Finally, our result leads to natural decompositions of the free product of rooted graphs.     

On additive representation function of general sequences

Let 0 ≦ a ₁ < a ₂ < ? be an infinite sequence of integers and let r ₁(A, n) = |(i;j): a _i + a _j = n, i ≦ j|. We show that if d > 0 is an integer, then there does not exist n ₀ such that d ≦ r ₁ (A, n) ≦ d + [√2d + ½] for n > n ₀.     

Computational complexity in additive hedonic games

We investigate the computational complexity of several decision problems in hedonic coalition formation games and demonstrate that attaining stability in such games remains NP-hard even when they are additive. Precisely, we prove that when either core stability or strict core stability is under consideration, the existence problem of a stable coalition structure is NP-hard in the strong sense. Furthermore, the corresponding decision problems with respect to the existence of a Nash stable coalition structure and of an individually stable coalition structure turn out to be NP-complete in the strong sense.     

On an additive property of sequences of nonnegative integers

Periodica Mathematica Hungarica - Let a1&;lt;... be an infinite sequence of positive integers, let k≥2 be a fixed integer and denote by Rk(n) the number of solutions of n=ai1+ai2+...+aik....     

New additive results for the generalized Drazin inverse

In this paper, we investigate additive properties of generalized Drazin inverse of two Drazin invertible linear operators in Banach spaces. Under the commutative condition of PQ=QP, we give explicit representations of the generalized Drazin inverse d(P+Q) in term of P, Pd, Q and Qd. We consider some applications of our results to the perturbation of the Drazin inverse and analyze a number of special cases.     

Continuous-time additive Hopfield-type neural networks with impulses

We investigate the global stability characteristics of a system of equations modelling the dynamics of additive Hopfield-type neural networks with impulses in the continuous-time case.