A new example of ‘independence’ and ‘white noise’

Summary We examine the notion of free independence according to Voiculescu. This form of independence is used for defining free white noise or process with stationary and freely independent increments. We prove a general limit theorem giving the combinatorics of infinitely freely divisible states and thus of free white noises with the help of admissible partitions. We realize the free analogues of the Wiener process and of the Poisson process as processes on the full Fock space ofL ² (—).     

Cryptanalytic results on ‘Dual CRT’ and ‘Common Prime’ RSA

In this paper we study weaknesses of two variants of RSA: Dual RSA and Common Prime RSA. Several schemes under the framework of Dual RSA have been proposed by Sun et al. (IEEE Trans Inf Theory 53(8):2922–2933, 2007). We here concentrate on the Dual CRT-RSA scheme and present certain range of parameters where it is insecure. As a corollary of our work, we prove that the Dual Generalized Rebalanced-RSA (Scheme III of Sun et al.) can be efficiently broken for a significant region where the scheme has been claimed to be secure. Next we consider the Common Prime RSA as proposed by Wiener (IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 36:553–558, 1990). We present new range of parameters in Common Prime RSA where it is not secure. We use lattice based techniques for the attacks.     

Auditing Shaked and Shanthikumar’s ‘excess wealth’

A notion called “excess wealth” was introduced by Shaked and Shanthikumar around 1998 (Probab. Eng. Inf. Sci. 12:1–23, 1998). Subsequent to this, much has been written on it, mostly by Shaked and his colleagues; see Sordo (Insur. Math. Econ. 45(3):466–469, 2009) for a recent review. These works have appeared in the literatures of reliability theory and stochastic orderings. Since the term excess wealth connotes a measure of income inequality—much like its dual, poverty—it should have had an impact in economics and the econometric literature. This, it appears is not the case, at least to the extent that it should be. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the above disconnect by looking at the notion of excess wealth more carefully, but keeping in mind the angle of economics and income. Our conclusion is that an alternative definition of excess wealth better encapsulates what one means by a colloquial use of the term. Our motivation for being attracted to this topic arises from two angles. The first is that the stochastics of diagnostic and threat detection tests, in which we have an interest, has a strong bearing on indices of concentration like the Lorenz Curve, the Gini index, and the entropy. Thus the notion of excess wealth, which conveys a sense of income concentration should also be relevant to diagnostics. The second motivation is to honor Moshe Shaked, a prolific researcher and a friend of the first author, by developing a paper based on an idea that is co-attributed to him.     

Chains and Trees: ‘Strong’–‘Weak’ Order in Job Scheduling

We present a summary of recent NP-hardness and polynomial time solvability results for the distinction between strong and weak precedence for chains and trees in scheduling. We distinguish between chains and proper trees which are not chains, and demonstrate that the strong-weak precedence distinction for chains is not inclusive with regards to NP-hardness, and conjecture that the same holds for strong-weak tree precedence. The objective is to show that different interpretations for chain and tree order relations in scheduling might have far reaching computational implications.     

‘Minesweeper’ and spectrum of discrete Laplacians

The article is devoted to a problem inspired by the ‘Minesweeper’ computer game. It is shown that certain configurations of open cells guarantee the existence and the uniqueness of solution. Mathematically the problem is reduced to some spectral properties of discrete differential operators. It is shown how the uniqueness can be used to create a new game which preserves the spirit of ‘Minesweeper’ but does not require a computer.     

Metric Diophantine approximation and ‘absolutely friendly’ measures

Let W(ψ) denote the set of ψ-well approximable points in and let K be a compact subset of which supports a measure μ. In this short article, we show that if μ is an ‘absolutely friendly’ measure and a certain μ-volume sum converges then The result obtained is in some sense analogous to the convergence part of Khintchine’s classical theorem in the theory of metric Diophantine approximation. The class of absolutely friendly measures is a subclass of the friendly measures introduced in [2] and includes measures supported on self-similar sets satisfying the open set condition. We also obtain an upper bound result for the Hausdorff dimension of      

High school students’ perceptions of geometrical proofs proving and refuting geometrical claims of the ‘for every … ’ and ‘there exists’ type

Proving and refuting mathematical claims constitute a significant element in the development of deductive thinking. These issues are mainly studied during geometry lessons and very little (if at all) in lessons of other mathematical disciplines. This study deals with high school students’ perceptions of proofs in the geometry. The study explores whether students know when to use a deductive proof and when an example is sufficient for proving or refuting geometrical claims. The findings indicate that in cases of simple claims, the students corroborate them by using a deductive proof. However, when the claim is more complex, the students tend to present both a proof and an example. Moreover, they are unsure whether using an example can constitute a method for proving a mathematical claim, believing that in mathematics everything must be proven. They believe that examples are used merely for illustration purposes rather than as a means of convincing. The research conclusions support the need for deepening and developing the students’ distinction between cases where examples are insufficient and cases where an example is sufficient for proving a claim.     

Lattices and infinite-dimensional forms. ‘The Lattice Method’

Hermitean vector spaces E of infinite dimensions are considered. Let G be a subgroup of the orthogonal group of E acting on a set M. The Lattice Method is a technique for classifying the orbits in M under G. We discuss the method in abstract terms and we illustrate it by means of three classification results showing that it is decisive to do a considerable amount of explicit calculations with vector subspace lattices.     

Bibasic analystic functions and discrete ‘bibasic’ hypergeometric series

This paper deals with a study of a class of functions called bibasis analytic functions. Using discrete powerz ⁽ⁿ⁾, discrete bibasic hypergeometric functions have been introduced.     

A polynomial-time solution to Papadimitriou and Steiglitz's ‘traps’

Papadimitriou and Steiglitz constructed ‘traps’ for the symmetric travelling salesman problem (TSP) with n = 8k cities. The constructed problem instances have exponentially many suboptimal solutions with arbitrarily large weight, which differ from the unique optimal solution in exactly 3k edges, and hence local search algorithms are ineffective to solve this problem. However, we show that this class of ‘catastrophic’ examples can be solved by linear programming relaxation appended with k subtour elimination constraints. It follows that this class of problem instances of TSP can be optimized in polynomial time.     

Determinants and Symmetries in ‘Yetter—Drinfeld’ Categories

A Yetter—Drinfeld category over a Hopf algebra H with a bijective antipode, is equipped with a braiding which may be symmetric for some of its subcategories (e.g. when H is a triangular Hopf algebra). We prove that under an additional condition (which we term the u-condition) such symmetric subcategories completely resemble the category of vector spaces over a field k, with the ordinary flip map. Consequently, when Char k=0, one can define well behaving exterior algebras and non-commutative determinant functions.     

‘Excellent’ primary mathematics teachers’ espoused and enacted values of effective lessons

This paper reports a study that explored the characteristics of mathematics lessons that were espoused as effective by six ??excellent?? mathematics teachers and how they enacted their values in their classroom practice. In this study, we define espoused values as values that we want other people to believe we hold, and enacted values as values that we actually practice. Qualitative data were collected through video-recorded lesson observations (3 lessons for each teacher) and in-depth interviews with teachers after each observation. At the end of the project, stimulated-recall focus group interviews were used to allow teachers to define the meaning of an effective mathematics lesson as well as to recall and reflect on a 10-min edited video clip of one of their teaching lessons. The findings showed that these teachers shared five common characteristics of effective mathematics lessons: achieving teaching objectives; pupils?? cognitive development; affective achievement of pupils; focus on low-attaining pupils; and active participation of pupils in mathematics activities. These values were espoused explicitly as well as enacted in the lessons observed.     

Utility functions and the ‘lin’ operation for convex sets

For an ℵ₀-dimensional spaceE of alternatives, there is described a preference relation ≿ such that (in a very strong sense)no information about ≿ can be expressed in terms of finite-dimensional linear transformations ofE. The same construction shows that for each countable ordinalβ, E contains a convex coneK such that lin ^β K =E but lin^β K ≡E forα<β.     

A new derivation and interpretation of Yule's ‘Characteristic’K

Zusammenfassung Die Reynoldsche Gleichung der hydrodynamischen Schmierungstheorie, unter ungefährer Berücksichtigung der Trägheit des Schmiermittels, wird für ein schiefes Gleitschuhlager im stationären Zustand angewendet, um den Einfluss der Trägheit des Schmiermittels auf die Belastungskapazität zu ermitteln. Man findet einen einfachen Zusammenhang sowohl zwischen der Trägheitswirkung und den physikalischen Eigenschaften des Schmiermittels wie den Bedingungen, welche das Arbeiten des Gleitschuhlagers spezifizieren. Man stellt fest, dass der Einfluss der Trägheit die Lastkapazität um einen Betrag erhöht, der wichtig sein kann in der laminaren Region.     

‘冠军快跑’运动会

这是一场竞速运动的盛会．参赛选手为跑步、攀援、飞翔等各类运动的获胜者。本次的方格赛道有些特殊。它们必须按规则穿越各自的跑道。经过的格数最少,率先到达终点的就是冠军。精彩的比赛就要开始了!谁会获胜呢？     

Consistencies and inconsistencies in students' solutions to algebraic ‘single-value’ inequalities

This paper describes students’ solutions to a commonly taught and not commonly taught inequality. The findings showed students’ difficulties. Participants implicitly and explicitly exhibited two intuitive beliefs: inequalities must result in inequalities and solving inequalities and equations are the same process. Following the analysis of students’ written solutions, individual interviews were conducted that gave a better insight into their reasoning and provided some ideas for teaching. The concluding section of the paper offers relevant educational implications.