Minimal volume with length bounded below

We study a broad class of problems where volume is minimized among metrics on a smooth, compact Riemannian manifold that keep the length of a fixed set of curves bounded below. They can be seen as a generalization of isosystolic inequalities. Necessary and sufficient conditions are given for continuous minima in a conformal class and necessary conditions are given for local minima.     

Minimal surfaces bounded by convex curves in parallel planes

The research described in this paper was supported by research grant DE-FG02-86ER250125 of the Applied Mathematical Science subprogram of Office of Energy Research, U.S. Department of Energy, and National Science Foundation grant DMS-8900285.     

Minimal entropy and collapsing with curvature bounded from below

We show that if a closed manifold M admits an ℱ-structure (not necessarily polarized, possibly of rank zero) then its minimal entropy vanishes. In particular, this is the case if M admits a non-trivial S ¹-action. As a corollary we obtain that the simplicial volume of a manifold admitting an ℱ-structure is zero.?We also show that if M admits an ℱ-structure then it collapses with curvature bounded from below. This in turn implies that M collapses with bounded scalar curvature or, equivalently, its Yamabe invariant is non-negative.?We show that ℱ-structures of rank zero appear rather frequently: every compact complex elliptic surface admits one as well as any simply connected closed 5-manifold.?We use these results to study the minimal entropy problem. We show the following two theorems: suppose that M is a closed manifold obtained by taking connected sums of copies of S ⁴, ℂP ², ²,S ²×S ²and the K3 surface. Then M has zero minimal entropy. Moreover, M admits a smooth Riemannian metric with zero topological entropy if and only if M is diffeomorphic to S ⁴,ℂP ²,S ²×S ²,ℂP ²#  ² or ℂP ²# ℂP ². Finally, suppose that M is a closed simply connected 5-manifold. Then M has zero minimal entropy. Moreover, M admits a smooth Riemannian metric with zero topological entropy if and only if M is diffeomorphic to S ⁵,S ³×S ², then on trivial S ³-bundle over S ² or the Wu-manifold SU(3)/SO(3). Oblatum 13-III-2002 & 12-VIII-2002?Published online: 8 November 2002 G.P. Paternain was partially supported by CIMAT, Guanajuato, México.?J. Petean is supported by grant 37558-E of CONACYT.     

On diameters of convex surfaces with Gaussian curvature bounded from below

Translated from Sibirskii Matematicheskii, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 93–101, January–February, 1995.     

Estimates from below for the functions with bounded specific oscillation

Translated fromSibirskiî Matematicheskiî Zhurnal, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 305–309, March–April, 1994.     

Global infimum of strictly convex quadratic functions with bounded perturbations

The problem of minimizing [(f)\tilde]=f+p{\tilde f=f+p} over some convex subset of a Euclidean space is investigated, where f(x) = x ^T Ax + b ^T x is strictly convex and |p| is only assumed to be bounded by some positive number s. It is shown that the function [(f)\tilde]{\tilde f} is strictly outer γ-convex for any γ > γ*, where γ* is determined by s and the smallest eigenvalue of A. As consequence, a γ*-local minimal solution of [(f)\tilde]{\tilde f} is its global minimal solution and the diameter of the set of global minimal solutions of [(f)\tilde]{\tilde f} is less than or equal to γ*. Especially, the distance between the global minimal solution of f and any global minimal solution of [(f)\tilde]{\tilde f} is less than or equal to γ*/2. This property is used to prove a roughly generalized support property of [(f)\tilde]{\tilde f} and some generalized optimality conditions.     

The duality of convex functions and Cesari's property (Q)

We examine the role of property (Q) in optimal control and the calculus of variations and, using lattice theoretical considerations, obtain a characterization of property (Q) in terms of Hamiltonian and conjugate functions. Connections with previous work of Rockafellar, Moreau, Brøndsted, De Giorgi, and others are established.This paper was presented at the Conference on Mathematical Questions of Control, sponsored by the International Banach Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Zakopane, Poland, 1974.     

Maximization of lower semi-continuous convex functional on bounded subsets of locally convex spaces. II: Quasi-Lagrangian duality theorems

We prove, for a proper lower semi-continuous convex functional ? on a locally convex space E and a bounded subset G of E, a formula for sup ?(G) which is symmetric to the Lagrange multiplier theorem for convex minimization, obtained in [7], with the difference that for sup ?(G) Lagrange multiplier functionals need not exist. When ? is also continuous we give some necessary conditions for g₀ ∈ G to satisfy ?(g₀) = sup ?(G). Also, we give some applications to deviations and farthest points. Finally, we show the connections with the “hyperplane theorems” of our previous paper [8].     

Gradient estimates below the duality exponent

We show sharp local a priori estimates and regularity results for possibly degenerate non-linear elliptic problems, with data not lying in the natural dual space. We provide a precise non-linear potential theoretic analog of classical potential theory results due to Adams (Duke Math J 42:765–778, 1975) and Adams and Lewis (Studia Math 74:169–182, 1982), concerning Morrey spaces imbedding/regularity properties. For this we introduce a technique allowing for a “non-local representation” of solutions via Riesz potentials, in turn yielding optimal local estimates simultaneously in both rearrangement and non-rearrangement invariant function spaces. In fact we also derive sharp estimates in Lorentz spaces, covering borderline cases which remained open for some while.     

Farkas-type results for inequality systems with composed convex functions via conjugate duality

We present some Farkas-type results for inequality systems involving finitely many functions. Therefore we use a conjugate duality approach applied to an optimization problem with a composed convex objective function and convex inequality constraints. Some recently obtained results are rediscovered as special cases of our main result.     

Multiobjective duality for convex ratios

In this paper we present a duality approach for a multiobjective fractional programming problem. The components of the vector objective function are particular ratios involving the square of a convex function and a positive concave function. Applying the Fenchel-Rockafellar duality theory for a scalar optimization problem associated to the multiobjective primal, a dual problem is derived. This scalar dual problem is formulated in terms of conjugate functions and its structure gives an idea about how to construct a multiobjective dual problem in a natural way. Weak and strong duality assertions are presented.     

Second order symmetric duality in nondifferentiable multiobjective fractional programming with cone convex functions

In the present paper, we consider Mond-Weir type nondifferentiable second order fractional symmetric dual programs over arbitrary cones and derive duality results under second order K?F-convexity/K?F-pseudoconvexity assumptions. Our results generalize several known results in the literature.     

An outer approximation method for minimizing the product of several convex functions on a convex set

This paper addresses the minimization of the product ofp convex functions on a convex set. It is shown that this nonconvex problem can be converted to a concave minimization problem withp variables, whose objective function value is determined by solving a convex minimization problem. An outer approximation method is proposed for obtaining a global minimum of the resulting problem. Computational experiments indicate that this algorithm is reasonable efficient whenp is less than 4.This research was partly supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, Grant No. (C)03832018 and (C)04832010.     

On bounded treewidth duality of graphs

For a graph H, the H-coloring problem is to decide whether or not an instance graph G is homomorphic to H. The H-coloring problem is said to have bounded treewidth duality if there is an integer k such that for any graph G which is not homomorphic to H, there is a graph F of treewidth k which is homomorphic to G but not homomorphic to H. It is known that if the H-coloring problem has bounded treewidth duality then it is polynomial time decidable. We shall prove in this paper that for any integers m, k, there is an integer n₀ such that if G is a graph of girth ≥ n₀ then any graph F of treewidth k homomorphic to G is also homomorphic to C_2m+1. It follows from this result that for non-bipartite graphs H, the H-coloring problems do not have bounded treewidth duality. We also present some classes of directed graphs H for which the H-coloring problems do not have bounded treewidth duality. In particular, there are oriented cycles H for which the H-coloring problems do not have bounded treewidth duality. This answers a question of Hell and Zhu (Siam J. Discrete Math., 8 (1995), 208–222). © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.