The packing property

A clutter (V, E) packs if the smallest number of vertices needed to intersect all the edges (i.e. a minimum transversal) is equal to the maximum number of pairwise disjoint edges (i.e. a maximum matching). This terminology is due to Seymour 1977. A clutter is minimally nonpacking if it does not pack but all its minors pack. An m×n 0,1 matrix is minimally nonpacking if it is the edge-vertex incidence matrix of a minimally nonpacking clutter. Minimally nonpacking matrices can be viewed as the counterpart for the set covering problem of minimally imperfect matrices for the set packing problem. This paper proves several properties of minimally nonpacking clutters and matrices. Received: December 1, 1997 / Accepted: April 6, 1999?Published online October 18, 2000     

The crooked property

Crooked permutations were introduced twenty years ago to construct interesting objects in graph theory. These functions, over ${\mathbb{F}}_{2^n}$ with odd n, are such that their derivatives have as image set a complement of a hyperplane. The field of applications was extended later, in particular to cryptography. However binary crooked functions are rare. It is still unknown if non quadratic crooked functions do exist. We extend the concept and propose to study the crooked property for any characteristic. A function F, from ${\mathbb{F}}_{p^n}$ to itself, satisfies this property if all its derivatives have as image set an affine subspace. We show that the partially-bent vectorial functions and the functions satisfying the crooked property are strongly related. We later focus on the components of these functions, establishing that the existence of linear structures is here decisive. We then propose a symbolic approach to identify the linear structures. We claim that this problem consists in solving a system of linear equations, and can often be seen as a combinatorial problem.     

The Cantor-Lebesgue property

If the terms of a trigonometric series tend to zero at each point of a set and if the smallest additive group containing that set has positive outer Lebesgue measure, then the coefficients of that series tend to zero. This result generalizes the well known Cantor-Lebesgue Theorem. Several other extensions of the Cantor-Lebesgue Theorem as well as some examples to demonstrate scope and sharpness are also given. Dedicated to the memory of Antoni Zygmund     

The Dunford-Pettis property is not a three-space property

An example of a Banach spaceX is shown which does not have the Dunford-Pettis property, while some subspaceY and the corresponding quotientX/Y have the hereditary Dunford-Pettis property.     

The Reznichenko property and the Pytkeev property in hyperspaces

Summary We investigate two closure-type properties, the Reznichenko property and the Pytkeev property, in hyperspace topologies.     

The strong persistence property and symbolic strong persistence property

Czechoslovak Mathematical Journal - Let I be an ideal in a commutative Noetherian ring R. Then the ideal I has the strong persistence property if and only if (Ik+1: RI) = Ik for all k, and I has...     

Barbilian spaces: The history of a geometric idea

Barbilian spaces are metric spaces with a metric induced by a special procedure of metrization that is inspired by the study of the models of non-Euclidean geometry. In this note we discuss the history of Barbilian spaces and the evolution of the theory. We point out that some of the current references to work done in Barbilian spaces refer to Barbilian's contribution from 1934, while his construction has been greatly extended in four works published in Romanian in 1959–1962.     

Learning to prove: The idea of heuristic examples

Proof is an important topic in the area of mathematics curriculum and an essential aspect of mathematical competence. However, recent studies have revealed wide gaps in student's understanding of proof. Furthermore, effective teaching to prove, for example, by Schoenfeld's approach, is a real challenge for teachers. A very powerful and empirically well founded method of learning mathematics, which is also relatively easy to implement in the classroom, is learning through worked-out examples. It is, however, primarily suited for algorithmic content areas. We propose the concept of using heuristic worked-out examples, which do not provide an algorithmic problem solution but offer instead heuristic steps that lead towards finding a proof. We rely on Boero's model of proving in designing the single sub-steps of a heuristic example. We illustrate our instructional idea by presenting an heuristic example for proving that the interior angles in any triangle add up to 180°.     

The regular element property

The property that an ideal whose annihilator is zero contains a regular element is examined from the point of view of constructive mathematics. It is shown that this property holds for finitely presented algebras over discrete fields, and for coherent, Noetherian, strongly discrete rings that contain an infinite field.

     

The strong approximation property

We introduce and investigate the strong approximation property of Banach spaces which is strictly stronger than the approximation property and at least formally weaker than the weak bounded approximation property. Among others, we show that the weak bounded approximation property is equivalent to a quantitative strengthening of the strong approximation property. Some recent results on the approximation property of Banach spaces and their dual spaces are improved.     

The finite cutset property

A cutset of H is a subset of ∪ H which meets every element of H. H has the finite cutset property if every cutset of H contains a finite one. We study this notion, and in particular how it is related to the compactness of H for the natural topology. MSC: 04A20, 54D30.     

The cancellation property of rings

A ring R is said to have the finitely generated cancellation property provided that the module isomorphism R⊕B?R⊕C implies B?C for any finitely generated R-modules B and C. It is proved that R has this property is equivalent to the existence of the cancellation matrices over R. Moreover, the structure of such matrices is investigated and finite weakly stable rings are characterized in terms of their cancellation matrices.     

群的遗传根性和强半单根性

本文利用群的根性的性质,解决了Szasz在环的根性理论中提出的公开问题在群论中的对应问题.同时我们研究了群的遗传根性和强半单根性的一些性质,并介绍了群的根类的交运算和并运算,由此得到了一些很好的结果.