Some results on embeddings of algebras, after de Bruijn and McKenzie

In 1957, N.G. de Bruijn showed that the symmetric group Sym(Ω) on an infinite set Ω contains a free subgroup on 2^card(Ω) generators, and proved a more general statement, a sample consequence of which is that for any group A of cardinality card(Ω), the group Sym(Ω) contains a coproduct of 2^card(Ω) copies of A, not only in the variety of all groups, but in any variety of groups to which A belongs. His key lemma is here generalized to an arbitrary variety of algebras V, and formulated as a statement about functors Set V. From this one easily obtains analogs of the results stated above with “group” and Sym(Ω) replaced by “monoid” and the monoid Self(Ω) of endomaps of Ω, by “associative K-algebra” and the K-algebra End_K (V) of endomorphisms of a K-vector-space V with basis Ω, and by “lattice” and the lattice Equiv(Ω) of equivalence relations on Ω. It is also shown, extending another result from de Bruijn's 1957 paper, that each of Sym(Ω), Self(Ω) and End_K(V) contains a coproduct of 2^card(Ω) copies of itself.That paper also gave an example of a group of cardinality 2^card(Ω) that was not embeddable in Sym(Ω), and R. McKenzie subsequently established a large class of such examples. Those results are shown here to be instances of a general property of the lattice of solution sets in Sym(Ω) of sets of equations with constants in Sym(Ω). Again, similar results - this time of varying strengths - are obtained for Self(Ω), End_K(V), and Equiv(Ω), and also for the monoid Rel(Ω) of binary relations on Ω.Many open questions and areas for further investigation are noted.     

An evolving framework for describing student engagement in classroom activities

Student engagement in classroom activities is usually described as a function of factors such as human needs, affect, intention, motivation, interests, identity, and others. We take a different approach and develop a framework that models classroom engagement as a function of students’ conceptual competence in the specific content (e.g., the mathematics of motion) of an activity. The framework uses a spatial metaphor—i.e., the classroom activity as a territory through which students move—as a way to both capture common engagement-related dynamics and as a communicative device. In this formulation, then, students’ engaged participation can be understood in terms of the nature of the “regions” and overall “topography” of the activity territory, and how much student movement such a territory affords. We offer the framework not in competition with other instructional design approaches, but rather as an additional tool to aid in the analysis and conduct of engaging classroom activities.     

Special Weingarten surfaces foliated by circles

In this paper we study surfaces in Euclidean 3-space foliated by pieces of circles that satisfy a Weingarten condition of type aH + bK = c, where a,b and c are constant, and H and K denote the mean curvature and the Gauss curvature respectively. We prove that such a surface must be a surface of revolution, one of the Riemann minimal examples, or a generalized cone. Authors’ address: Departamento de Geometría y Topología, Universidad de Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain     

Tambarization of a Mackey functor and its application to the Witt–Burnside construction

For an arbitrary group G, a (semi-)Mackey functor is a pair of covariant and contravariant functors from the category of G-sets, and is regarded as a G-bivariant analog of a commutative (semi-)group. In this view, a G-bivariant analog of a (semi-)ring should be a (semi-)Tambara functor. A Tambara functor is firstly defined by Tambara, which he called a TNR-functor, when G is finite. As shown by Brun, a Tambara functor plays a natural role in the Witt–Burnside construction.It will be a natural question if there exist sufficiently many examples of Tambara functors, compared to the wide range of Mackey functors. In the first part of this article, we give a general construction of a Tambara functor from any Mackey functor, on an arbitrary group G. In fact, we construct a functor from the category of semi-Mackey functors to the category of Tambara functors. This functor gives a left adjoint to the forgetful functor, and can be regarded as a G-bivariant analog of the monoid-ring functor.In the latter part, when G is finite, we investigate relations with other Mackey-functorial constructions — crossed Burnside ring, Elliott?s ring of G-strings, Jacobson?s F-Burnside ring — all these lead to the study of the Witt–Burnside construction.     

Filling polygonal holes with minimal energy surfaces on Powell-Sabin type triangulations

In this paper we present two different methods for filling in a hole in an explicit 3D surface, defined by a smooth function f in a part of a polygonal domain D⊂R². We obtain the final reconstructed surface over the whole domain D. We do the filling in two different ways: discontinuous and continuous. In the discontinuous case, we fill the hole with a function in a Powell-Sabin spline space that minimizes a linear combination of the usual seminorms in an adequate Sobolev space, and approximates (in the least squares sense) the values of f and those of its normal derivatives at an adequate set of points. In the continuous case, we will first replace f outside the hole by a smoothing bivariate spline s_f, and then we fill the hole also with a Powell-Sabin spline minimizing a linear combination of given seminorms. In both cases, we obtain existence and uniqueness of solutions and we present some graphical examples, and, in the continuous case, we also give a local convergence result.     

Some properties of c-covers of a pair of Lie algebras

In [H. Safa and H. Arabyani, On c-nilpotent multiplier and c-covers of a pair of Lie algebras, Commun. Algebra 45(10) (2017), 4429–4434], we characterized the structure of the c-nilpotent multiplier of a pair of Lie algebras in terms of its c-covering pairs and discussed some results on the existence of c-covers of a pair of Lie algebras. In the present paper, it is shown under some conditions that a relative c-central extension of a pair of Lie algebras is a homomorphic image of a c-covering pair. Moreover, we prove that a c-cover of a pair of finite dimensional Lie algebras, under some assumptions, has a unique domain up to isomorphism and also that every perfect pair of Lie algebras admits at least one c-cover. Finally, we discuss a result concerning the isoclinism of c-covering pairs.     

An algorithm for the difference between set covers

A set cover for a set S is a collection C of special subsets whose union is S. Given covers A and B for two sets, the set-cover difference problem is to construct a new cover for the elements covered by A but not B. Applications include testing equivalence of set covers and maintaining a set cover dynamically. In this paper, we solve the set-cover difference problem by defining a difference operation A-B, which turns out to be a pseudocomplement on a distributive lattice. We give an algorithm for constructing this difference, and show how to implement the algorithm for two examples with applications in computer science: face covers on a hypercube, and rectangle covers on a grid. We derive an upper bound on the time complexity of the algorithm, and give upper and lower bounds on complexity for face covers and rectangle covers.     

Biharmonic extensions on trees without positive potentials

Let T be a tree rooted at e endowed with a nearest-neighbor transition probability that yields a recurrent random walk. We show that there exists a function K biharmonic off e whose Laplacian has potential theoretic importance and, in addition, has the following property: Any function f on T which is biharmonic outside a finite set has a representation, unique up to addition of a harmonic function, of the form f=βK+B+L, where β a constant, B is a biharmonic function on T, and L is a function, subject to certain normalization conditions, whose Laplacian is constant on all sectors sufficiently far from the root. We obtain a characterization of the functions biharmonic outside a finite set whose Laplacian has 0 flux similar to one that holds for a function biharmonic outside a compact set in Rn for n=2,3, and 4 proved by Bajunaid and Anandam. Moreover, we extend the definition of flux and, under certain restrictions on the tree, we characterize the functions biharmonic outside a finite set that have finite flux in this extended sense.     

Conformally Kähler base metrics for Einstein warped products

A Riemannian metric g with Ricci curvature r is called nontrivial quasi-Einstein, in a sense given by Case, Shu and Wei, if it satisfies (−a/f)∇df+r=λg, for a smooth nonconstant function f and constants λ and a>0. If a is a positive integer, it was noted by Besse that such a metric appears as the base metric for certain warped Einstein metrics. This equation also appears in the study of smooth metric measure spaces. We provide a local classification and an explicit construction of Kähler metrics conformal to nontrivial quasi-Einstein metrics, subject to the following conditions: local Kähler irreducibility, the conformal factor giving rise to a Killing potential, and the quasi-Einstein function f being a function of the Killing potential. Additionally, the classification holds in real dimension at least six. The metric, along with the Killing potential, form an SKR pair, a notion defined by Derdzinski and Maschler. It implies that the manifold is biholomorphic to an open set in the total space of a CP¹ bundle whose base manifold admits a Kähler-Einstein metric. If the manifold is additionally compact, it is a total space of such a bundle or complex projective space. Additionally, a result of Case, Shu and Wei on the Kähler reducibility of nontrivial Kähler quasi-Einstein metrics is reproduced in dimension at least six in a more explicit form.     

Full Ideals

Contractedness of 𝔪-primary integrally closed ideals played a central role in the development of Zariski's theory of integrally closed ideals in two-dimensional regular local rings (R, 𝔪). In such rings, the contracted 𝔪-primary ideals are known to be characterized by the property that I: 𝔪 = I: x for some x ∈ 𝔪 ?𝔪². We call the ideals with this property full ideals and compare this class of ideals with the classes of 𝔪-full ideals, basically full ideals, and contracted ideals in higher dimensional regular local rings. The 𝔪-full ideals are easily seen to be full. In this article, we find a sufficient condition for a full ideal to be 𝔪-full. We also show the equivalence of the properties full, 𝔪-full, contracted, integrally closed, and normal, for the class of parameter ideals. We then find a sufficient condition for a basically full parameter ideal to be full.     

EP morphisms

The concept of an EP matrix is extended to a morphism of a category C with involution. It is shown that an EP morphism has a group inverse iff it has a Moore-Penrose inverse, and in this case the inverses are identical. On the other hand, if a morphism has a Moore-Penrose inverse that is a group inverse, then C is a full subcategory of a category in which φ is EP. Also, if C is an additive category with involution 1 and with 1-biproduct factorization, then a morphism of φ of C is EP iff there is a 1-biproduct J ⊕ K and an invertible morphism θ : J → J such that φ is congruent to a morphism of the form

$\text{θ 0}\text{0 0}\text{: J⊕K → J⊕K.}$

In particular, a square matrix over a principal-ideal domain with involution is EP iff it is congruent to a matrix of the form dg(θ, 0) with θ invertible.     

Two-worker blocking congestion model with walk speed m in a no-passing circular passage system

This paper introduces a blocking model and closed-form expression of two workers traveling with walk speed m (m = integer) in a no-passing circular-passage system of n stations and assuming n = m + 2, 2m + 2, …. We develop a Discrete-Timed Markov Chain (DTMC) model to capture the workers’ changes of walk, pick, and blocked states, and quantify the throughput loss from blocking congestion by deriving a steady state probability in a closed-form expression. We validate the model with a simulation study. Additional simulation comparisons show that the proposed throughput model gives a good approximation of a general-sized system of n stations (i.e., n > 2), a practical walk speed system of real number m (i.e., m ? 1), and a bucket brigade order picking application.     

Braided surfaces and seifert ribbons for closed braids

Apositive band in the braid groupB _n is a conjugate of one of the standard generators; a negative band is the inverse of a positive band. Using the geometry of the configuration space, a theory of bands andbraided surfaces is developed. Each representation of a braid as a product of bands yields a handle decomposition of aSeifert ribbon bounded by the corresponding closed braid; and up to isotopy all Seifert ribbons occur in this manner. Thus,band representations provide a convenient calculus for the study of ribbon surfaces. For instance, from a band representation, a Wirtinger presentation of the fundamental group of the complement of the associated Seifert ribbon inD ⁴ can be immediately read off, and we recover a result of T. Yajima (and D. Johnson) that every Wirtinger-presentable group appears as such a fundamental group. In fact, we show that every such group is the fundamental group of a Stein manifold, and so that there are finite homotopy types among the Stein manifolds which cannot (by work of Morgan) be realized as smooth affine algebraic varieties.     

On Simple Polygonalizations with Optimal Area

We discuss the problem of finding a simple polygonalization for a given set of vertices P that has optimal area. We show that these problems are very closely related to problems of optimizing the number of points from a set Q in a simple polygon with vertex set P and prove that it is NP-complete to find a minimum weight polygon or a maximum weight polygon for a given vertex set, resulting in a proof of NP-completeness for the corresponding area optimization problems. This answers a generalization of a question stated by Suri in 1989. Finally, we turn to higher dimensions, where we prove that, for 1 k d , 2 d , it is NP-hard to determine the smallest possible total volume of the k -dimensional faces of a d -dimensional simple nondegenerate polyhedron with a given vertex set, answering a generalization of a question stated by O'Rourke in 1980. Received June 26, 1997, and in revised form February 13, 1999, and May 19, 1999.     

Geometry of 2 × 2 hermitian matrices

LetD be a division ring which possesses an involution a → α . Assume that is a proper subfield ofD and is contained in the center ofD. It is pointed out that ifD is of characteristic not two, D is either a separable quadratic extension of F or a division ring of generalized quaternions over F and that if D is of characteristic two,D is a separable quadratic extension ofF. Thus the trace map Tr:D → F, a → a + a is always surjective, which is formerly posed as an assumption in the fundamental theorem of n×n hermitian matrices overD when n ≥ 3 and now can be deleted. WhenD is a field, the fundamental theorem of 2 × 2 hermitian matrices overD has already been proved. This paper proves the fundamental theorem of 2×2 hermitian matrices over any division ring of generalized quaternions of characteristic not two This research was completed during a visit to the Academy of Mathematics and System Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences.     

On the structure of a semigroup of operators with finite-dimensional ranges

In the present paper, we describe the structure of a strongly continuous operator semigroup T(t) (where T: ?₊ → End X and X is a complex Banach space) for which ImT(t) is a finite-dimensional space for all t > 0. It is proved that such a semigroup is always the direct sum of a zero semigroup and a semigroup acting in a finite-dimensional space. As examples of applications, we discuss differential equations containing linear relations, orbits of a special form, and the possibility of embedding an operator in a C ₀-semigroup.     

R-trees and laminations for free groups III: currents and dual R-tree metrics

We study the map which associates to a current its support (whichis a lamination). We show that this map is Out(F_N)-equivariant,not injective, not surjective and not continuous. However itis semi-continuous and almost surjective in a suitable sense.Given an -tree T (with dense orbits) in the boundary of outerspace and a current µ carried by the dual lamination ofT, we define a dual pseudo-distance d_µ on T. When thetree and the current come from a measured geodesic laminationon a surface with boundary, the dual distance is the originaldistance of the tree T. In general, such a good correspondencedoes not occur. We prove that when the tree T is the attractivefixed point of a non-geometric irreducible, with irreduciblepowers, outer automorphism, the dual lamination of T is uniquelyergodic and the dual distance d_µ is either zero or infinitethroughout T.     

Best proximity point theorems on partially ordered sets

The main purpose of this article is to address a problem that amalgamates approximation and optimization in the setting of a partially ordered set that is endowed with a metric. Indeed, if A and B are non-void subsets of a partially ordered set that is equipped with a metric, and S is a non-self mapping from A to B, this paper scrutinizes the existence of an optimal approximate solution, called a best proximity point of the mapping S, to the operator equation Sx = x where S is a continuous, proximally monotone, ordered proximal contraction. Further, this paper manifests an iterative algorithm for discovering such an optimal approximate solution. As a special case of the result obtained in this article, an interesting fixed point theorem on partially ordered sets is deduced.