Fibred 2-categories and bicategories

We generalise the usual notion of fibred category; first to fibred 2-categories and then to fibred bicategories. Fibred 2-categories correspond to 2-functors from a 2-category into 2Cat. Fibred bicategories correspond to trihomomorphisms from a bicategory into Bicat. We describe the Grothendieck construction for each kind of fibration and present a few examples of each. Fibrations in our sense, between bicategories, are closed under composition and are stable under equiv-comma. The free such fibration on a homomorphism is obtained by taking an oplax comma along an identity.     

Cohomology and deformation theory of monoidal 2-categories I

In this paper we define a cohomology theory for an arbitrary K-linear semistrict semigroupal 2-category (called for short a Gray semigroup) and show that its first-order (unitary) deformations, up to the suitable notion of equivalence, are in bijection with the elements of the second cohomology group. Fundamental to the construction is a double complex, similar to the Gerstenhaber-Schack double complex for bialgebras, the role of the multiplication and the comultiplication being now played by the composition and the tensor product of 1-morphisms. We also identify the cohomologies describing separately the deformations of the tensor product, the associator and the pentagonator. To obtain the above results, a cohomology theory for an arbitrary K-linear (unitary) pseudofunctor is introduced describing its purely pseudofunctorial deformations, and generalizing Yetter's cohomology for semigroupal functors (in: M. Kapranov, E. Getzler (Eds.), Higher Category Theory, AMS Contemporary Mathematics, Vol. 230, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 1998, pp. 117-134). The corresponding higher order obstructions will be considered in detail in a future paper.     

Yoneda structures and KZ doctrines

In this paper we strengthen the relationship between Yoneda structures and KZ doctrines by showing that for any locally fully faithful KZ doctrine, with the notion of admissibility as defined by Bunge and Funk, all of the Yoneda structure axioms apart from the right ideal property are automatic.     

Hypergraphs in which all disjoint pairs have distinct unions

Let ℓ be a set-system ofr-element subsets on ann-element set,r≧3. It is proved that if |ℓ|>3.5 then ℓ contains four distinct membersA, B, C, D such thatA∪B=C∪D andA∩B=C∩D=0.     

Error saturation in Gaussian radial basis functions on a finite interval

Radial basis function (RBF) interpolation is a “meshless” strategy with great promise for adaptive approximation. One restriction is “error saturation” which occurs for many types of RBFs including Gaussian RBFs of the form ?(x;α,h)=exp(−α²(x/h)²): in the limit h→0 for fixed α, the error does not converge to zero, but rather to E_S(α). Previous studies have theoretically determined the saturation error for Gaussian RBF on an infinite, uniform interval and for the same with a single point omitted. (The gap enormously increases E_S(α).) We show experimentally that the saturation error on the unit interval, x∈[−1,1], is about 0.06exp(−0.47/α²)‖f‖_∞ — huge compared to the O(2π/α²)exp(−π²/[4α²]) saturation error for a grid with one point omitted. We show that the reason the saturation is so large on a finite interval is that it is equivalent to an infinite grid which is uniform except for a gap of many points. The saturation error can be avoided by choosing α?1, the “flat limit”, but the condition number of the interpolation matrix explodes as O(exp(π²/[4α²])). The best strategy is to choose the largest α which yields an acceptably small saturation error: If the user chooses an error tolerance δ, then .     

Supersaturation For Ramsey-Turán Problems

For an l-graph , the Turán number is the maximum number of edges in an n-vertex l-graph containing no copy of . The limit is known to exist [8]. The Ramsey–Turán density is defined similarly to except that we restrict to only those with independence number o(n). A result of Erdős and Sós [3] states that as long as for every edge E of there is another edge E′of for which |E∩E′|≥2. Therefore a natural question is whether there exists for which . Another variant proposed in [3] requires the stronger condition that every set of vertices of of size at least εn (0<ε<1) has density bounded below by some threshold. By definition, for every . However, even is not known for very many l-graphs when l>2. We prove the existence of a phenomenon similar to supersaturation for Turán problems for hypergraphs. As a consequence, we construct, for each l≥3, infinitely many l-graphs for which . We also prove that the 3-graph with triples 12a, 12b, 12c, 13a, 13b, 13c, 23a, 23b, 23c, abc, satisfies . The existence of a hypergraph satisfying was conjectured by Erdős and Sós [3], proved by Frankl and R?dl [6], and later by Sidorenko [14]. Our short proof is based on different ideas and is simpler than these earlier proofs. * Research supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grants DMS-9970325 and DMS-0400812, and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship. † Research supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grants DMS-0071261 and DMS-0300529.     

Small Forbidden Configurations IV: The 3 Rowed Case

The present paper continues the work begun by Anstee, Griggs and Sali on small forbidden configurations. We define a matrix to be simple if it is a (0,1)-matrix with no repeated columns. Let F be a k×l (0,1)-matrix (the forbidden configuration). Small refers to the size of k and in this paper k = 3. Assume A is an m×n simple matrix which has no submatrix which is a row and column permutation of F. We define forb(m,F) as the best possible upper bound on n, for such a matrix A, which depends on m and F. We complete the classification for all 3-rowed (0,1)-matrices of forb (m,F) as either Θ(m), Θ(m²) or Θ(m³) (with constants depending on F). * Research is supported in part by NSERC. † Research was done while the second author visited the University of British Columbia supported by NSERC of first author. Research was partially supported by Hungarian National Research Fund (OTKA) numbers T034702 and T037846.     

Perfect matchings in balanced hypergraphs

We generalize Hall's condition for the existence of a perfect matching in a bipartite graph, to balanced hypergraphs.This work was partially supported in part by NSF grants DMI-9424348, DMS-9509581 and ONR grant N00014-89-J-1063. Ajai Kapoor was also supported by a grant from Gruppo Nazionale Delle Riccerche-CNR. Finally, we acknowledge the support of Laboratiore ARTEMIS, Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble.     

On Shadows Of Intersecting Families

The shadow minimization problem for t-intersecting systems of finite sets is considered. Let be a family of k-subsets of . The -shadow of is the set of all (k-)-subsets contained in the members of . Let be a t-intersecting family (any two members have at least t elements in common) with . Given k,t,m the problem is to minimize (over all choices of ). In this paper we solve this problem when m is big enough.     

Katona’s Intersection Theorem: Four Proofs

It is known from a previous paper [3] that Katonas Intersection Theorem follows from the Complete Intersection Theorem by Ahlswede and Khachatrian via a Comparison Lemma. It also has been proved directly in [3] by the pushing–pulling method of that paper. Here we add a third proof via a new (k,k+1)-shifting technique, whose impact will be exploared elsewhere. The fourth and last of our proofs is a gift from heaven for Gyulas birthday.Presented on the Conference on Hypergraphs held in Budapest June 7–9, 2001 in Honour of Gyula Katona on the occasion of his 60th Birthday.     

Erd?s-Ko-Rado for three sets

Fix integers k?3 and n?3k/2. Let F be a family of k-sets of an n-element set so that whenever A,B,C∈F satisfy |A∪B∪C|?2k, we have A∩B∩C≠∅. We prove that with equality only when ?_F∈FF≠∅. This settles a conjecture of Frankl and Füredi [2], who proved the result for n?k²+3k.     

Proof Of A Conjecture Of Erdős On Triangles In Set-Systems

A triangle is a family of three sets A,B,C such that A∩B, B∩C, C∩A are each nonempty, and . Let be a family of r-element subsets of an n-element set, containing no triangle. Our main result implies that for r ≥ 3 and n ≥ 3r/2, we have This settles a longstanding conjecture of Erdős [7], by improving on earlier results of Bermond, Chvátal, Frankl, and Füredi. We also show that equality holds if and only if consists of all r-element subsets containing a fixed element. Analogous results are obtained for nonuniform families.     

Unavoidable Traces Of Set Systems

Sauer, Shelah, Vapnik and Chervonenkis proved that if a set system on n vertices contains many sets, then the set system has full trace on a large set. Although the restriction on the size of the groundset cannot be lifted, Frankl and Pach found a trace structure that is guaranteed to occur in uniform set systems even if we do not bound the size of the groundset. In this note we shall give three sequences of structures such that every set system consisting of sufficiently many sets contains at least one of these structures with many sets.     

An intersection theorem for four sets

Fix integers n,r?4 and let F denote a family of r-sets of an n-element set. Suppose that for every four distinct A,B,C,D∈F with |A∪B∪C∪D|?2r, we have A∩B∩C∩D≠∅. We prove that for n sufficiently large, , with equality only if _?F∈FF≠∅. This is closely related to a problem of Katona and a result of Frankl and Füredi [P. Frankl, Z. Füredi, A new generalization of the Erd?s-Ko-Rado theorem, Combinatorica 3 (3-4) (1983) 341-349], who proved a similar statement for three sets. It has been conjectured by the author [D. Mubayi, Erd?s-Ko-Rado for three sets, J. Combin. Theory Ser. A, 113 (3) (2006) 547-550] that the same result holds for d sets (instead of just four), where d?r, and for all n?dr/(d−1). This exact result is obtained by first proving a stability result, namely that if |F| is close to then F is close to satisfying _?F∈FF≠∅. The stability theorem is analogous to, and motivated by the fundamental result of Erd?s and Simonovits for graphs.     

Families of finite sets with three intersections

LetX be a finite set ofn elements and ℓ a family ofk-subsets ofX. Suppose that for a given setL of non-negative integers all the pairwise intersections of members of ℓ have cardinality belonging toL. Letm(n, k, L) denote the maximum possible cardinality of ℓ. This function was investigated by many authors, but to determine its exact value or even its correct order of magnitude appears to be hopeless. In this paper we investigate the case |L|=3. We give necessary and sufficient conditions form(n, k, L)=O(n) andm(n, k, L)≧O(n ²), and show that in some casesm(n, k, L)=O(n ^3/2), which is quite surprising.     

On disjointly representable sets

A system of setsE ₁,E ₂, ...,E _k ⊂X is said to be disjointly representable if there existx ₁,x ₂, ...,x _k teX such thatx _i teE _j ⇔i=j. Letf(r, k) denote the maximal size of anr-uniform set-system containing nok disjointly representable members. In the first section the exact value off(r, 3) is determined and (asymptotically sharp) bounds onf(r, k),k>3 are established. The last two sections contain some generalizations, in particular we prove an analogue of Sauer’ theorem [16] for uniform set-systems. Dedicated to Paul Erdős on his seventieth birthday     

On A Hypergraph Turán Problem Of Frankl

Let be the 2k-uniform hypergraph obtained by letting P₁, . . .,P_r be pairwise disjoint sets of size k and taking as edges all sets P_i∪P_j with i ≠ j. This can be thought of as the ‘k-expansion’ of the complete graph K_r: each vertex has been replaced with a set of size k. An example of a hypergraph with vertex set V that does not contain can be obtained by partitioning V = V1 ∪V₂ and taking as edges all sets of size 2k that intersect each of V₁ and V₂ in an odd number of elements. Let denote a hypergraph on n vertices obtained by this construction that has as many edges as possible. For n sufficiently large we prove a conjecture of Frankl, which states that any hypergraph on n vertices that contains no has at most as many edges as . Sidorenko has given an upper bound of for the Tur′an density of for any r, and a construction establishing a matching lower bound when r is of the form 2^p+1. In this paper we also show that when r=2^p+1, any -free hypergraph of density looks approximately like Sidorenko’s construction. On the other hand, when r is not of this form, we show that corresponding constructions do not exist and improve the upper bound on the Turán density of to , where c(r) is a constant depending only on r. The backbone of our arguments is a strategy of first proving approximate structure theorems, and then showing that any imperfections in the structure must lead to a suboptimal configuration. The tools for its realisation draw on extremal graph theory, linear algebra, the Kruskal–Katona theorem and properties of Krawtchouck polynomials. * Research supported in part by NSF grants DMS-0355497, DMS-0106589, and by an Alfred P. Sloan fellowship.     

An efficient control variate method for pricing variance derivatives

This paper studies the pricing of variance swap derivatives with stochastic volatility by the control variate method. A closed form solution is derived for the approximate model with deterministic volatility, which plays the key role in the paper, and an efficient control variate technique is therefore proposed when the volatility obeys the log-normal process. By the analysis of moments for the underlying processes, the optimal volatility function in the approximate model is constructed. The numerical results show the high efficiency of our method; the results coincide with the theoretical results. The idea in the paper is also applicable for the valuation of other types of variance swap, options with stochastic volatility and other financial derivatives with multi-factor models.     

Generalized 2-vector spaces and general linear 2-groups

A notion of generalized 2-vector space is introduced which includes Kapranov and Voevodsky 2-vector spaces. Various kinds of such objects are considered and examples are given. The corresponding general linear 2-groups are explicitly computed in a special case which includes Kapranov and Voevodsky 2-vector spaces.     

Extremal hypergraph problems and convex hulls

Theprofile of a hypergraph onn vertices is (f ₀, f₁, ...,f _n) wheref _i denotes the number ofi-element edges. The extreme points of the set of profiles is determined for certain hypergraph classes. The results contain many old theorems of extremal set theory as particular cases (Sperner. Erdős—Ko—Rado, Daykin—Frankl—Green—Hilton).