Multimethodology in series and parallel: strategic planning using hard and soft OR

This paper examines two distinct ways in which hard and soft operational research (OR) methodologies can be combined, in series and in parallel. Multimethodology in series is acknowledged as the simpler and more common approach. Multimethodology in parallel is identified as having the potential to provide significant benefits to projects in political, changing, or ‘wicked’ contexts that multimethodology in series cannot. Observations regarding these approaches to multimethodology are examined in light of an information systems strategic planning project in the Australian public sector. Two distinct methodologies were combined in the project: soft systems methodology and project management. These methodologies are based on the soft and hard paradigms, respectively. However, findings in this paper have the potential to be transferred to combinations of other hard and soft OR methodologies.     

Ideal Spaces of Measurable Operators Affiliated to A Semifinite Von Neumann Algebra

Suppose that M is a von Neumann algebra of operators on a Hilbert space H and τ is a faithful normal semifinite trace on M. Let E, F and G be ideal spaces on (M, τ). We find when a τ-measurable operator X belongs to E in terms of the idempotent P of M. The sets E+F and E·F are also ideal spaces on (M, τ); moreover, E·F = F·E and (E+F)·G = E·G+F·G. The structure of ideal spaces is modular. We establish some new properties of the L₁(M, τ) space of integrable operators affiliated to the algebra M. The results are new even for the *-algebra M = B(H) of all bounded linear operators on H which is endowed with the canonical trace τ = tr.     

Polyboxes,Cube Tilings and Rigidity

A non-empty subset A of X=X ₁×???×X _d is a (proper) box if A=A ₁×???×A _d and A _i ?X _i for each i. Suppose that for each pair of boxes A, B and each i, one can only know which of the three states takes place: A _i =B _i , A _i =X _i ?B _i , A _i ?{B _i ,X _i ?B _i }. Let F and G be two systems of disjoint boxes. Can one decide whether ∪F=∪G? In general, the answer is ‘no’, but as is shown in the paper, it is ‘yes’ if both systems consist of pairwise dichotomous boxes. (Boxes A, B are dichotomous if there is i such that A _i =X _i ?B _i .) Several criteria that enable to compare such systems are collected. The paper includes also rigidity results, which say what assumptions have to be imposed on F to ensure that ∪F=∪G implies F=G. As an application, the rigidity conjecture for 2-extremal cube tilings of Lagarias and Shor is verified.     

The development of management sciences/operational research discourses: surveying the trends in the US and the UK

This paper explores the trends in American and British management science/operational research (MS/OR) during the last 25 years. We argue that British MS/OR has developed a soft and systemic approach to MS/OR practice, which has resulted in the emergence of a number of interpretive and critical-oriented methodologies. American MS/OR practice has remained closed to the positivistic discourse. Using a set of keywords and authors’ names associated with the main features of the interpretive and critical MS discourses, we surveyed articles published in three major US MS/OR journals. We compare these results with trends in the UK MS/OR scene. Findings appear to confirm the different directions taken by the MS/OR practice across the Atlantic. The paper posits possible reasons underpinning these differences: firstly, the particular methodological path followed by the British MS/OR, from early ‘soft systems’ applications in the early 1970s to the now well-established ‘Problem Structuring Methods’; and secondly, continuous engagement between the systems and MS/OR British communities (a dialogue that seems not to have occurred in the US). The paper contributes to a reflection on the MS/OR historical developments and contrasts these developments in both countries, two areas of OR significantly under-researched.     

On countable unions of nonmeager sets in hereditarily Lindelöf spaces

It is well known that any Vitali set on the real line ? does not possess the Baire property. The same is valid for finite unions of Vitali sets. What can be said about infinite unions of Vitali sets? Let S be a Vitali set, S _r be the image of S under the translation of ? by a rational number r and F = {S _r : r is rational}. We prove that for each non-empty proper subfamily F′ of F the union ∪F′ does not possess the Baire property. We say that a subset A of ? possesses Vitali property if there exist a non-empty open set O and a meager set M such that A ? O \ M. Then we characterize those non-empty proper subfamilies F′ of F which unions ∪F′ possess the Vitali property.     

Geometric Realization of a Triangulation on the Projective Plane with One Face Removed

Let M be a map on a surface F ². A geometric realization of M is an embedding of F ² into a Euclidean 3-space ?³ such that each face of M is a flat polygon. We shall prove that every triangulation G on the projective plane has a face f such that the triangulation of the Möbius band obtained from G by removing the interior of f has a geometric realization.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">M</Emphasis>-slenderness

Analogues of Nunke’s theorem are proved which characterize variants of slenderness. For a bounded monotone subgroup M of ? ^ω , a torsion-free reduced abelian group G is M-slender if, and only if, there is no monomorphism from M into G. It is consistent relative to ordinary set theory (ZFC) that if M ≠ ? ^ω is an unbounded monotone subgroup of ? ^ω , then a torsion-free reduced abelian group G is M-slender if, and only if, there is no monomorphism from M into G.     

Weakly complex Einstein-Finsler vector bundle

Let (E, F) be a complex Finsler vector bundle over a compact Kähler manifold (M, g) with Kähler form Φ. We prove that if (E, F) is a weakly complex Einstein-Finsler vector bundle in the sense of Aikou (1997), then it is modeled on a complex Minkowski space. Consequently, a complex Einstein-Finsler vector bundle (E, F) over a compact Kähler manifold (M, g) is necessarily Φ-semistable and (E, F) = (E₁, F₁) ? · · · ? (Ek; Fk); where F _j := F |E _j , and each (E _j , F _j ) is modeled on a complex Minkowski space whose associated Hermitian vector bundle is a Φ-stable Einstein-Hermitian vector bundle with the same factor c as (E, F).     

CR-structures of codimension 2 on tangent bundles in Riemann–Finsler geometry

We determine a 2-codimensional CR-structure on the slit tangent bundle \(T_0M\) of a Finsler manifold (M, F) by imposing a condition on the almost complex structure \(\Psi \) associated to F when restricted to the structural distribution of a framed f-structure. This condition is satisfied when (M, F) is of scalar flag curvature (particularly flat). In the Riemannian case (M, g) this last condition means that g is of constant curvature. This CR-structure is finally generalized by using one positive parameter but under more difficult conditions.     

Hyperholomorphic connections on coherent sheaves and stability

Let M be a hyperkähler manifold, and F a reflexive sheaf on M. Assume that F (away from its singularities) admits a connection ? with a curvature Θ which is invariant under the standard SU(2)-action on 2-forms. If Θ is square-integrable, such sheaf is called hyperholomorphic. Hyperholomorphic sheaves were studied at great length in [21]. Such sheaves are stable and their singular sets are hyperkähler subvarieties in M. In the present paper, we study sheaves admitting a connection with SU(2)-invariant curvature which is not necessary L ²-integrable. We show that such sheaves are polystable.     

Determinantal representations of smooth cubic surfaces

For every smooth (irreducible) cubic surface S we give an explicit construction of a representative for each of the 72 equivalence classes of determinantal representations. Equivalence classes (under GL₃ × GL₃ action by left and right multiplication) of determinantal representations are in one to one correspondence with the sets of six mutually skew lines on S and with the 72 (two-dimensional) linear systems of twisted cubic curves on S. Moreover, if a determinantal representation M corresponds to lines (a ₁,...,a ₆) then its transpose M ^t corresponds to lines (b ₁,...,b ₆) which together form a Schläfli’s double-six \(a_1\ldots a_6 \choose b_1\ldots b_6\) . We also discuss the existence of self-adjoint and definite determinantal representation for smooth real cubic surfaces. The number of these representations depends on the Segre type F _i . We show that a surface of type F _i , i = 1,2,3,4 has exactly 2(i?1) nonequivalent self-adjoint determinantal representations none of which is definite, while a surface of type F ₅ has 24 nonequivalent self-adjoint determinantal representations, 16 of which are definite.     

Cube root Ramanujan formulas and elementary Galois theory

The cube root Ramanujan formulas are explained from the point of view of Galois theory. Let F be a cyclic cubic extension of a field K. It is proved that the normal closure over K of a pure cubic extension of F contains a certain pure cubic extension of K. The proposed proof can be generalized to radicals of any prime degree q. In the case where the base field K is the field of rational numbers and the field F is embedded in the cyclotomic extension obtained by adding the pth roots of unity, the corresponding simple radical extension of the field of rational numbers is explicitly constructed. The proof of the main result illustrates Hilbert’s Theorem 90. An example of a particular formula generalizing Ramanujan’s formulas for degree 5 is given. A necessary condition for nested radical expressions of depth 2 to be contained in the normal closure of a pure cubic extension of the field F is given.     

A new proof of a theorem of Petersen

Let M be an n-dimensional complete Riemannian manifold with Ricci curvature n- 1. By developing some new techniques, Colding(1996) proved that the following three conditions are equivalent: 1)dGH(M, S~n) → 0; 2) the volume of M Vol(M) → Vol(S~n); 3) the radius of M rad(M) →π. By developing a different technique, Petersen(1999) gave the 4th equivalent condition, namely he proved that the n + 1-th eigenvalue of M, λ_(n+1)(M) → n, is also equivalent to the radius of M, rad(M) →π, and hence the other two.In this paper, we use Colding's techniques to give a new proof of Petersen's theorem. We expect our estimates will have further applications.     

A class of metrics and foliations on tangent bundle of Finsler manifolds

Let (M,F) be a Finsler manifold, and let TM ₀ be the slit tangent bundle of M with a generalized Riemannian metric G, which is induced by F. In this paper, we extract many natural foliations of (TM ₀,G) and study their geometric properties. Next, we use this approach to obtain new characterizations of Finsler manifolds with positive constant flag curvature. We also investigate the relations between Levi-Civita connection, Cartan connection, Vaisman connection, vertical foliation, and Reinhart spaces.     

Model-theoretic aspects of the Gurarij operator system

We establish some of the basic model theoretic facts about the Gurarij operator system GS recently constructed by the second-named author. In particular, we show: (1) GS is the unique separable 1-exact existentially closed operator system; (2) GS is the unique separable nuclear model of its theory; (3) every embedding of GS into its ultrapower is elementary; (4) GS is the prime model of its theory; and (5) GS does not have quantifier-elimination, whence the theory of operator systems does not have a model companion. We also show that, for any q ∈ ?, the theories of M_q-spaces and M_q-systems do have a model companion, namely the Fra¨?ssé limit of the class of finite-dimensional M_q-spaces and M_q-systems respectively; moreover, we show that the model companion is separably categorical. We conclude the paper by showing that no C* algebra can be existentially closed as an operator system.     

An improvement of the five halves theorem of J. Boardman

Let (M ^m , T) be a smooth involution on a closed smooth m-dimensional manifold and F = ∪ _j=0 ⁿ F ^j (n ≤ m) its fixed point set, where F ^j denotes the union of those components of F having dimension j. The famous Five Halves Theorem of J. Boardman, announced in 1967, establishes that, if F is nonbounding, then m ≤ 5/2n. In this paper we obtain an improvement of the Five Halves Theorem when the top dimensional component of F, F ⁿ , is nonbounding. Specifically, let ω = (i ₁, i ₂, …, i _r ) be a non-dyadic partition of n and s _ω (x ₁, x ₂, …, x _n ) the smallest symmetric polynomial over Z ₂ on degree one variables x ₁, x ₂, …, x _n containing the monomial \(x_1^{i_1 } x_2^{i_2 } \cdots x_r^{i_r }\). Write s _ω (F ⁿ ) ∈ H ⁿ (F ⁿ , Z ₂) for the usual cohomology class corresponding to s _ω (x ₁, x ₂, …, x _n ), and denote by ?(F ⁿ ) the minimum length of a nondyadic partition ω with s _ω (F ⁿ ) ≠ 0 (here, the length of ω = (i ₁, i ₂, …, i _r ) is r). We will prove that, if (M ^m , T) is an involution for which the top dimensional component of the fixed point set, F ⁿ , is nonbounding, then m ≤ 2n + ?(F ⁿ ); roughly speaking, the bound for m depends on the degree of decomposability of the top dimensional component of the fixed point set. Further, we will give examples to show that this bound is best possible.     

Containment of socially optimal policies in multiple-facility Markovian queueing systems

We consider a Markovian queueing system with N heterogeneous service facilities, each of which has multiple servers available, linear holding costs, a fixed value of service and a first-come-first-serve queue discipline. Customers arriving in the system can be either rejected or sent to one of the N facilities. Two different types of control policies are considered, which we refer to as ‘selfishly optimal’ and ‘socially optimal’. We prove the equivalence of two different Markov Decision Process formulations, and then show that classical M/M/1 queue results from the early literature on behavioural queueing theory can be generalized to multiple dimensions in an elegant way. In particular, the state space of the continuous-time Markov process induced by a socially optimal policy is contained within that of the selfishly optimal policy. We also show that this result holds when customers are divided into an arbitrary number of heterogeneous classes, provided that the service rates remain non-discriminatory.     

Banach space structure of weighted Fock-Sobolev spaces

We discuss the Banach space structure of the fractional order weighted Fock-Sobolev spaces F _α,s ^p , mainly include giving some growth estimates for Fock-Sobolev functions and approximating them by a sequence of ‘nice’ functions in two different ways.     

An extendability condition for bilipschitz functions

We give a new definition of λ-relatively connected set, some generalization of a uniformly perfect set. This definition is equivalent to the old definition for large λ but makes it possible to obtain stable properties for small λ. We prove the λ-relative connectedness of Cantor sets for corresponding λ. The main result is as follows: A ? ? admits the extension of all M-bilipschitz functions f: A → ? to M-bilipschitz functions F: ? → ? if and only if A is λ-relatively connected. We give exact estimates of the dependence of M and λ.