Non-triviality conditions for integer-valued polynomial rings on algebras

Let D be a commutative domain with field of fractions K and let A be a torsion-free D-algebra such that \(A \cap K = D\). The ring of integer-valued polynomials on A with coefficients in K is \( Int _K(A) = \{f \in K[X] \mid f(A) \subseteq A\}\), which generalizes the classic ring \( Int (D) = \{f \in K[X] \mid f(D) \subseteq D\}\) of integer-valued polynomials on D. The condition on \(A \cap K\) implies that \(D[X] \subseteq Int _K(A) \subseteq Int (D)\), and we say that \( Int _K(A)\) is nontrivial if \( Int _K(A) \ne D[X]\). For any integral domain D, we prove that if A is finitely generated as a D-module, then \( Int _K(A)\) is nontrivial if and only if \( Int (D)\) is nontrivial. When A is not necessarily finitely generated but D is Dedekind, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for \( Int _K(A)\) to be nontrivial. These conditions also allow us to prove that, for D Dedekind, the domain \( Int _K(A)\) has Krull dimension 2.     

Relationships Between the 2-Metric Dimension and the 2-Adjacency Dimension in the Lexicographic Product of Graphs

Given a connected simple graph \(G=(V(G),E(G))\), a set \(S\subseteq V(G)\) is said to be a 2-metric generator for G if and only if for any pair of different vertices \(u,v\in V(G)\), there exist at least two vertices \(w_1,w_2\in S\) such that \(d_G(u,w_i)\ne d_G(v,w_i)\), for every \(i\in \{1,2\}\), where \(d_G(x,y)\) is the length of a shortest path between x and y. The minimum cardinality of a 2-metric generator is the 2-metric dimension of G, denoted by \(\dim _2(G)\). The metric \(d_{G,2}: V(G)\times V(G)\longmapsto {\mathbb {N}}\cup \{0\}\) is defined as \(d_{G,2}(x,y)=\min \{d_G(x,y),2\}\). Now, a set \(S\subseteq V(G)\) is a 2-adjacency generator for G, if for every two vertices \(x,y\in V(G)\) there exist at least two vertices \(w_1,w_2\in S\), such that \(d_{G,2}(x,w_i)\ne d_{G,2}(y,w_i)\) for every \(i\in \{1,2\}\). The minimum cardinality of a 2-adjacency generator is the 2-adjacency dimension of G, denoted by \({\mathrm {adim}}_2(G)\). In this article, we obtain closed formulae for the 2-metric dimension of the lexicographic product \(G\circ H\) of two graphs G and H. Specifically, we show that \(\dim _2(G\circ H)=n\cdot {\mathrm {adim}}_2(H)+f(G,H),\) where \(f(G,H)\ge 0\), and determine all the possible values of f(G, H).     

Gradient Estimates for Commutators of Square Roots of Elliptic Operators with Complex Bounded Measurable Coefficients

Let \(L=-\mathrm{div}(A\nabla )\) be a second order divergence form elliptic operator and A an accretive \(n\times n\) matrix with bounded measurable complex coefficients in \({\mathbb R}^n\). Let \(\nabla b\in L^n({\mathbb R}^n)\,(n>2)\). In this paper, we prove that the commutator generated by b and the square root of L, which is defined by \([b,\sqrt{L}]f(x)=b(x)\sqrt{L}f(x)-\sqrt{L}(bf)(x)\), is bounded from the homogenous Sobolev space \({\dot{L}}_1^2({\mathbb R}^n)\) to \(L^2({\mathbb R}^n)\).     

Ratio sets of random sets

We study the typical behaviour of the size of the ratio set A / A for a random subset \(A\subset \{1,\dots , n\}\). For example, we prove that \(|A/A|\sim \frac{2\text {Li}_2(3/4)}{\pi ^2}n^2 \) for almost all subsets \(A\subset \{1,\dots ,n\}\). We also prove that the proportion of visible lattice points in the lattice \(A_1\times \cdots \times A_d\), where \(A_i\) is taken at random in [1, n] with \(\mathbb P(m\in A_i)=\alpha _i\) for any \(m\in [1,n]\), is asymptotic to a constant \(\mu (\alpha _1,\dots ,\alpha _d)\) that involves the polylogarithm of order d.     

Generalizations of Marriage Theorem for Degree Factors

Let G be a bipartite graph with bipartition (A, B). We give new criteria for a bipartite graph to have an f -factor, a (g, f)-factor and other factors together with some applications of these criteria. These criteria can be considered as direct generalizations of Hall’s marriage theorem. Among some results, we prove that for a function \(h: A\cup B \rightarrow \{0,1,2, \ldots \}\), G has a factor F such that \(\deg _F(x)=h(x)\) for \(x\in A\) and \(\deg _H(y) \le h(y)\) for \(y\in B\) if and only if \(h(X) \le \sum _{x\in N_G(X)}\min \{h(x), e_G(x,X)\}\) for all \(X\subseteq A\).     

Closed range and nonclosed range adjointable operators on Hilbert $$C^*$$-modules

In this paper, we show that for a positive operator A on a Hilbert \(C^*\)-module \( \mathscr {E} \), the range \( \mathscr {R}(A) \) of A is closed if and only if \( \mathscr {R}(A^\alpha ) \) is closed for all \(\alpha \in (0,1)\cup (1,+\,\infty )\), and this occurs if and only if \( \mathscr {R}(A)=\mathscr {R}(A^\alpha ) \) for all \(\alpha \in (0,1)\cup (1,+\,\infty )\). As an application, we prove that for an adjontable operator A if \(\mathscr {R}(A)\) is nonclosed, then \(\dim \left( \overline{\mathscr {R}(A)}/\mathscr {R}(A)\right) =+\,\infty \). Finally, we show that for an adjointable operator A if \( \overline{\mathscr {R}(A^*) } \) is orthogonally complemented in \( \mathscr {E} \), then under certain coditions there exists an idempotent C and a unique operator X such that \( XAX=X, AXA=CA, AX=C \) and \( XA=P_{A^*} \), where \( P_{A^*} \) is the orthogonal projection of \( \mathscr {E} \) onto \( \overline{\mathscr {R}(A^*)}\).     

Fast approximation of matroid packing and covering

We study packing problems with matroid structures, which includes the strength of a graph of Cunningham and scheduling problems. If \(\mathcal {M}\) is a matroid over a set of elements S with independent set \(\mathcal {I}\), and \(m=|S|\), we suppose that we are given an oracle function that takes an independent set \(A\in \mathcal {I}\) and an element \(e\in S\) and determines if \(A\cup \{e\}\) is independent in time I(m). Also, given that the elements of A are represented in an ordered way \(A=\{A_1,\dots ,A_k\}\), we denote the time to check if \(A\cup \{e\}\notin \mathcal {I}\) and if so, to find the minimum \(i\in \{0,\dots ,k\}\) such that \(\{A_1,\dots ,A_i\}\cup \{e\}\notin \mathcal {I}\) by \(I^*(m)\). Then, we describe a new FPTAS that computes for any \(\varepsilon >0\) and for any matroid \(\mathcal {M}\) of rank r over a set S of m elements, in memory space O(m), the packing \(\varLambda ({\mathcal {M}})\) within \(1+\varepsilon \) in time \(O(mI^*(m)\log (m)\log (m/r)/\varepsilon ^2)\), and the covering \(\varUpsilon ({\mathcal {M}})\) in time \(O(r\varUpsilon ({\mathcal {M}})I(m)\log (m)\log (m/r)/\varepsilon ^2)\). This method outperforms in time complexity by a factor of \(\varOmega (m/r)\) the FPTAS of Plotkin, Shmoys, and Tardos, and a factor of \(\varOmega (m)\) the FPTAS of Garg and Konemann. On top of the value of the packing and the covering, our algorithm exhibits a combinatorial object that proves the approximation. The applications of this result include graph partitioning, minimum cuts, VLSI computing, job scheduling and others.     

On the Dual Form of ‘Low <Emphasis Type="Italic">M</Emphasis><Superscript>*</Superscript> Estimate’ in the Quasi-convex Case

Let\(B_{2}^{n}\) denote the Euclidean ball in\({\mathbb R}^n\), and, given closed star-shaped body\(K \subset {\mathbb R}^{n}, M_{K}\) denote the average of the gauge of K on the Euclidean sphere. Let\(p \in (0,1)\) and let\(K \subset {\mathbb R}^{n}\) be a p-convex body. In [17] we proved that for every\(\lambda \in (0,1)\) there exists an orthogonal projection P of rank\((1 - \lambda)n\) such that

$\frac{f(\lambda)}{M_K} PB^{n}_{2} \subset PK,$

where\(f(\lambda)=c_p\lambda^{1+1/p}\) for some positive constant c _p depending on p only. In this note we prove that\(f(\lambda)\) can be taken equal to\(C_p\lambda^{1/p-1/2}\). In terms of Kolmogorov numbers it means that for every\(k \leq n\)

$d_k (\hbox{Id}:\ell^{n}_{2} \to ({\mathbb R}^{n},\|\cdot\|_{K})) \leq C_p \frac{n^{1/p-1}}{k^{1/p-1/2}} \ell(\hbox{ID}: \ell^{n}_{2} \to ({\mathbb R}^{n}, \|\cdot\|_{K})),$

where\(\ell(\hbox{Id})={\bf E}\|\sum\limits^{n}_{i=1}g_i e_i\|_K\) for the independent standard Gaussian random variables\(\{g_i\}\) and the canonical basis\(\{e_i\}\) of\({\mathbb R}^n\). All results do not require the symmetry of K.

     

On complementary dual quasi-twisted codes

A linear complementary-dual (LCD) code C is a linear code whose dual code \(C^{\perp }\) satisfies \(C \cap C^{\perp }=\{0\}\). In this work we characterize some classes of LCD q-ary \((\lambda , l)\)-quasi-twisted (QT) codes of length \(n=ml\) with \((m,q)=1\), \(\lambda \in F_{q} \setminus \{0\}\) and \(\lambda \ne \lambda ^{-1}\). We show that every \((\lambda ,l)\)-QT code C of length \(n=ml\) with \(dim(C)<m\) or \(dim(C^{\perp })<m\) is an LCD code. A sufficient condition for r-generator QT codes is provided under which they are LCD. We show that every maximal 1-generator \((\lambda ,l)\)-QT code of length \(n=ml\) with \(l>2\) is either an LCD code or a self-orthogonal code and a sufficient condition for this family of codes is given under which such a code C is LCD. Also it is shown that every maximal 1-generator \((\lambda ,2)\)-QT code is LCD. Several good and optimal LCD QT codes are presented.     

Korovkin-Type Approximation Theory in Riesz Spaces

In this paper, we prove the following Riesz spaces’ version of the Korovkin theorem. Let E and F be two Archimedean Riesz spaces with F uniformly complete, let W be a nonempty subset of \(E^{+}\), and let \((T_{n})\) be a given sequence of (r-u)-continuous elements of \(\mathcal {L(}E,F)\), such that \(\left| T_{n}-T_{m}\right| x=\left| (T_{n}-T_{m})x\right| \mathcal {\ }\)for all \(x\in E^{+},\) \(m,n\ge n_{0}\) (for a given \(n_{0}\in \mathbb {N} )\). If the sequence \((T_{n}x)_{n}\) \((r-u)\)-converges for every \(x\in W\), then \((T_{n})\) \((r-u)\)-converges also pointwise on the ideal \(E_{W}\), generated by W, to a linear operator \(S_{0}:E_{W}\rightarrow F\). We also prove a similar Korovkin-type theorem for nets of operators. Some applications for f-algebras and orthomorphisms are presented.     

Fractional Differentiability for Solutions of Nonlinear Elliptic Equations

We study nonlinear elliptic equations in divergence form

$$\text {div }{\mathcal A}(x,Du)=\text {div } G.$$

When \({\mathcal A}\) has linear growth in D u, and assuming that \(x\mapsto {\mathcal A}(x,\xi )\) enjoys \(B^{\alpha }_{\frac {n}\alpha , q}\) smoothness, local well-posedness is found in \(B^{\alpha }_{p,q}\) for certain values of \(p\in [2,\frac {n}{\alpha })\) and \(q\in [1,\infty ]\). In the particular case \({\mathcal A}(x,\xi )=A(x)\xi \), G = 0 and \(A\in B^{\alpha }_{\frac {n}\alpha ,q}\), \(1\leq q\leq \infty \), we obtain \(Du\in B^{\alpha }_{p,q}\) for each \(p<\frac {n}\alpha \). Our main tool in the proof is a more general result, that holds also if \({\mathcal A}\) has growth s?1 in D u, 2 ≤ s ≤ n, and asserts local well-posedness in L ^q for each q > s, provided that \(x\mapsto {\mathcal A}(x,\xi )\) satisfies a locally uniform VMO condition.

     

An <Emphasis Type="Italic">A</Emphasis>-invariant subspace for bipartite distance-regular graphs with exactly two irreducible <Emphasis Type="Italic">T</Emphasis>-modules with endpoint 2, both thin

Let \(\Gamma \) denote a bipartite distance-regular graph with vertex set X, diameter \(D \ge 4\), and valency \(k \ge 3\). Let \({{\mathbb {C}}}^X\) denote the vector space over \({{\mathbb {C}}}\) consisting of column vectors with entries in \({{\mathbb {C}}}\) and rows indexed by X. For \(z \in X\), let \({{\widehat{z}}}\) denote the vector in \({{\mathbb {C}}}^X\) with a 1 in the z-coordinate, and 0 in all other coordinates. Fix a vertex x of \(\Gamma \) and let \(T = T(x)\) denote the corresponding Terwilliger algebra. Assume that up to isomorphism there exist exactly two irreducible T-modules with endpoint 2, and they both are thin. Fix \(y \in X\) such that \(\partial (x,y)=2\), where \(\partial \) denotes path-length distance. For \(0 \le i,j \le D\) define \(w_{ij}=\sum {{\widehat{z}}}\), where the sum is over all \(z \in X\) such that \(\partial (x,z)=i\) and \(\partial (y,z)=j\). We define \(W=\mathrm{span}\{w_{ij} \mid 0 \le i,j \le D\}\). In this paper we consider the space \(MW=\mathrm{span}\{mw \mid m \in M, w \in W\}\), where M is the Bose–Mesner algebra of \(\Gamma \). We observe that MW is the minimal A-invariant subspace of \({{\mathbb {C}}}^X\) which contains W, where A is the adjacency matrix of \(\Gamma \). We show that \(4D-6 \le \mathrm{dim}(MW) \le 4D-2\). We display a basis for MW for each of these five cases, and we give the action of A on these bases.     

Spectral multiplier theorems and averaged <Emphasis Type="Italic">R</Emphasis>-boundedness

Let A be a 0-sectorial operator with a bounded \(H^\infty (\Sigma _\sigma )\)-calculus for some \(\sigma \in (0,\pi ),\) e.g. a Laplace type operator on \(L^p(\Omega ),\, 1< p < \infty ,\) where \(\Omega \) is a manifold or a graph. We show that A has a \(\mathcal {H}^\alpha _2(\mathbb {R}_+)\) Hörmander functional calculus if and only if certain operator families derived from the resolvent \((\lambda - A)^{-1},\) the semigroup \(e^{-zA},\) the wave operators \(e^{itA}\) or the imaginary powers \(A^{it}\) of A are R-bounded in an \(L^2\)-averaged sense. If X is an \(L^p(\Omega )\) space with \(1 \le p < \infty \), R-boundedness reduces to well-known estimates of square sums.     

Group divisible designs with large block sizes

For positive integers n, k with \(3\le k\le n\), let \(X=\mathbb {F}_{2^n}\setminus \{0,1\}\), \({\mathcal {G}}=\{\{x,x+1\}:x\in X\}\), and \({\mathcal {B}}_k=\left\{ \{x_1,x_2,\ldots ,x_k\}\!\subset \!X:\sum \limits _{i=1}^kx_i=1,\ \sum \limits _{i\in I}x_i\!\ne \!1\ \mathrm{for\ any}\ \emptyset \!\ne \!I\!\subsetneqq \!\{1,2,\ldots ,k\}\right\} \). Lee et al. used the inclusion–exclusion principle to show that the triple \((X,{\mathcal {G}},{\mathcal {B}}_k)\) is a \((k,\lambda _k)\)-GDD of type \(2^{2^{n-1}-1}\) for \(k\in \{3,4,5,6,7\}\) where \(\lambda _k=\frac{\prod _{i=3}^{k-1}(2^n-2^i)}{(k-2)!}\) (Lee et al. in Des Codes Cryptogr,  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10623-017-0395-8, 2017). They conjectured that \((X,{\mathcal {G}},{\mathcal {B}}_k)\) is also a \((k,\lambda _k)\)-GDD of type \(2^{2^{n-1}-1}\) for any integer \(k\ge 8\). In this paper, we use a similar construction and counting principles to show that there is a \((k,\lambda _k)\)-GDD of type \((q^2-q)^{(q^{n-1}-1)/(q-1)}\) for any prime power q and any integers k, n with \(3\le k\le n\) where \(\lambda _k=\frac{\prod _{i=3}^{k-1}(q^n-q^i)}{(k-2)!}\). Consequently, their conjecture holds. Such a method is also generalized to yield a \((k,\lambda _k)\)-GDD of type \((q^{\ell +1}-q^{\ell })^{(q^{n-\ell }-1)/(q-1)}\) where \(\lambda _k=\frac{\prod _{i=3}^{k-1}(q^n-q^{\ell +i-1})}{(k-2)!}\) and \(k+\ell \le n+1\).     

Polynomially peripheral range-preserving maps between Banach algebras

Let A and B be two Banach function algebras and p a two variable polynomial \(p(z,w)=zw+az+bw+c\), (\(a,b,c\in {\mathbb {C}}\)). We characterize the general form of a surjection \(T: A \longrightarrow B\) which satisfies \(\mathrm{Ran}_\pi (p(Tf,Tg))\cap \mathrm{Ran}_\pi (p(f,g))\ne \emptyset , (f,g\in A\) and \(c\ne ab)\), where \(\mathrm{Ran}_\pi (f)\) is the peripheral range of f.     

On Riesz Transforms Characterization of <Emphasis Type="Italic">H</Emphasis><Superscript>1</Superscript> Spaces Associated with Some Schrödinger Operators

Let \(\mathcal Lf(x)=-\Delta f (x)+V(x)f(x)\), V?≥?0, \(V\in L^1_{loc}(\mathbb R^d)\), be a non-negative self-adjoint Schrödinger operator on \(\mathbb R^d\). We say that an L ¹-function f is an element of the Hardy space \(H^1_{\mathcal L}\) if the maximal function

$ \mathcal M_{\mathcal L} f(x)=\sup\limits_{t>0}|e^{-t\mathcal L} f(x)| $

belongs to \(L^1(\mathbb R^d)\). We prove that under certain assumptions on V the space \(H^1_{\mathcal L}\) is also characterized by the Riesz transforms \(R_j=\frac{\partial}{\partial x_j}\mathcal L^{-1\slash 2}\), j?=?1,...,d, associated with \(\mathcal L\). As an example of such a potential V one can take any V?≥?0, \(V\in L^1_{loc}\), in one dimension.

     

Semidefinite bounds for nonbinary codes based on quadruples

For nonnegative integers q, n, d, let \(A_q(n,d)\) denote the maximum cardinality of a code of length n over an alphabet [q] with q letters and with minimum distance at least d. We consider the following upper bound on \(A_q(n,d)\). For any k, let \(\mathcal{C}_k\) be the collection of codes of cardinality at most k. Then \(A_q(n,d)\) is at most the maximum value of \(\sum _{v\in [q]^n}x(\{v\})\), where x is a function \(\mathcal{C}_4\rightarrow {\mathbb {R}}_+\) such that \(x(\emptyset )=1\) and \(x(C)=\!0\) if C has minimum distance less than d, and such that the \(\mathcal{C}_2\times \mathcal{C}_2\) matrix \((x(C\cup C'))_{C,C'\in \mathcal{C}_2}\) is positive semidefinite. By the symmetry of the problem, we can apply representation theory to reduce the problem to a semidefinite programming problem with order bounded by a polynomial in n. It yields the new upper bounds \(A_4(6,3)\le 176\), \(A_4(7,3)\le 596\), \(A_4(7,4)\le 155\), \(A_5(7,4)\le 489\), and \(A_5(7,5)\le 87\).     

The Terwilliger algebra of the incidence graph of the Hamming graph

Let \(\varGamma \) be a distance-semiregular graph on Y, and let \(D^Y\) be the diameter of \(\varGamma \) on Y. Let \(\varDelta \) be the halved graph of \(\varGamma \) on Y. Fix \(x \in Y\). Let T and \(T'\) be the Terwilliger algebras of \(\varGamma \) and \(\varDelta \) with respect to x, respectively. Assume, for an integer i with \(1 \le 2i \le D^Y\) and for \(y,z \in \varGamma _{2i}(x)\) with \(\partial _{\varGamma }(y,z)=2\), the numbers \(|\varGamma _{2i-1}(x) \cap \varGamma (y) \cap \varGamma (z)|\) and \(|\varGamma _{2i+1}(x) \cap \varGamma (y) \cap \varGamma (z)|\) depend only on i and do not depend on the choice of y, z. The first goal in this paper is to show the relations between T-modules of \(\varGamma \) and \(T'\)-modules of \(\varDelta \). Assume \(\varGamma \) is the incidence graph of the Hamming graph H(D, n) on the vertex set Y and the set \({\mathcal {C}}\) of all maximal cliques. Then, \(\varGamma \) satisfies above assumption and \(\varDelta \) is isomorphic to H(D, n). The second goal is to determine the irreducible T-modules of \(\varGamma \). For each irreducible T-module W, we give a basis for W the action of the adjacency matrix on this basis and we calculate the multiplicity of W.     

Algebras of Convolution-Type Operators with Piecewise Slowly Oscillating Data on Weighted Lebesgue Spaces

Let \({\mathcal B}_{p,w}\) be the Banach algebra of all bounded linear operators acting on the weighted Lebesgue space \(L^p(\mathbb {R},w)\), where \(p\in (1,\infty )\) and w is a Muckenhoupt weight. We study the Banach subalgebra \(\mathfrak {A}_{p,w}\) of \({\mathcal B}_{p,w}\) generated by all multiplication operators aI (\(a\in \mathrm{PSO}^\diamond \)) and all convolution operators \(W^0(b)\) (\(b\in \mathrm{PSO}_{p,w}^\diamond \)), where \(\mathrm{PSO}^\diamond \subset L^\infty (\mathbb {R})\) and \(\mathrm{PSO}_{p,w}^\diamond \subset M_{p,w}\) are algebras of piecewise slowly oscillating functions that admit piecewise slowly oscillating discontinuities at arbitrary points of \(\mathbb {R}\cup \{\infty \}\), and \(M_{p,w}\) is the Banach algebra of Fourier multipliers on \(L^p(\mathbb {R},w)\). For any Muckenhoupt weight w, we study the Fredholmness in the Banach algebra \({\mathcal Z}_{p,w}\subset \mathfrak {A}_{p,w}\) generated by the operators \(aW^0(b)\) with slowly oscillating data \(a\in \mathrm{SO}^\diamond \) and \(b\in \mathrm{SO}^\diamond _{p,w}\). Then, under some condition on the weight w, we complete constructing a Fredholm symbol calculus for the Banach algebra \(\mathfrak {A}_{p,w}\) in comparison with Karlovich and Loreto Hernández (Integr. Equations Oper. Theory 74:377–415, 2012) and Karlovich and Loreto Hernández (Integr. Equations Oper. Theory 75:49–86, 2013) and establish a Fredholm criterion for the operators \(A\in \mathfrak {A}_{p,w}\) in terms of their symbols. A new approach to determine local spectra is found.     

Sandwich semigroups in locally small categories I: foundations

Fix (not necessarily distinct) objects i and j of a locally small category S, and write \(S_{ij}\) for the set of all morphisms \(i\rightarrow j\). Fix a morphism \(a\in S_{ji}\), and define an operation \(\star _a\) on \(S_{ij}\) by \(x\star _ay=xay\) for all \(x,y\in S_{ij}\). Then \((S_{ij},\star _a)\) is a semigroup, known as a sandwich semigroup, and denoted by \(S_{ij}^a\). This article develops a general theory of sandwich semigroups in locally small categories. We begin with structural issues such as regularity, Green’s relations and stability, focusing on the relationships between these properties on \(S_{ij}^a\) and the whole category S. We then identify a natural condition on a, called sandwich regularity, under which the set \({\text {Reg}}(S_{ij}^a)\) of all regular elements of \(S_{ij}^a\) is a subsemigroup of \(S_{ij}^a\). Under this condition, we carefully analyse the structure of the semigroup \({\text {Reg}}(S_{ij}^a)\), relating it via pullback products to certain regular subsemigroups of \(S_{ii}\) and \(S_{jj}\), and to a certain regular sandwich monoid defined on a subset of \(S_{ji}\); among other things, this allows us to also describe the idempotent-generated subsemigroup \(\mathbb E(S_{ij}^a)\) of \(S_{ij}^a\). We also study combinatorial invariants such as the rank (minimal size of a generating set) of the semigroups \(S_{ij}^a\), \({\text {Reg}}(S_{ij}^a)\) and \(\mathbb E(S_{ij}^a)\); we give lower bounds for these ranks, and in the case of \({\text {Reg}}(S_{ij}^a)\) and \(\mathbb E(S_{ij}^a)\) show that the bounds are sharp under a certain condition we call MI-domination. Applications to concrete categories of transformations and partial transformations are given in Part II.