Analysis for an N-stepped Rayleigh bar with sections of complex geometry

In this paper we analyse the vibrations of an N-stepped Rayleigh bar with sections of complex geometry, supported by end lumped masses and springs. Equations of motion and boundary conditions are derived from the Hamilton’s variational principal. The solutions for tapered and exponential sections are given. Two types of orthogonality for the eigenfunctions are obtained. The analytic solution to the N-stepped Rayleigh model is constructed in terms of Green function.     

Thue type problems for graphs, points, and numbers

A sequence S=s₁s₂…s_n is said to be nonrepetitive if no two adjacent blocks of S are the same. A celebrated 1906 theorem of Thue asserts that there are arbitrarily long nonrepetitive sequences over the set {0,1,2}. This result is the starting point of Combinatorics on Words—a wide area with many deep results, sophisticated methods, important applications and intriguing open problems.The main purpose of this survey is to present a range of new directions relating Thue sequences more closely to Graph Theory, Combinatorial Geometry, and Number Theory. For instance, one may consider graph colorings avoiding repetitions on paths, or colorings of points in the plane avoiding repetitions on straight lines. Besides presenting a variety of new challenges we also recall some older problems of this area.     

What is concrete equivalence?

The notion of concrete equivalence is introduced, based on a modification of the traditional notion of concrete functor. The discussion of examples includes a direct (i.e. not referring to any monadicity theorem) proof of the fact that monadicity is stable under concrete equivalence.For the sixtieth birthday of Nico PumplünHospitality of the Department of Mathematics, Applied Mathematics and Astronomy at UNISA is gratefully acknowledged, where this note was completed during an extended visit.     

Concrete categories are concretely equivalent iff their uniquely transportable modifications are strict concretely isomorphic

A proof of the statement in the title is given.     

Structural properties of Riordan matrices and extending the matrices

We consider an infinite lower triangular matrix L=[?_n,k]_n,k∈N0 and a sequence Ω=(ω_n)_n∈N0 called the (a,b)-sequence such that every element ?_n+1,k+1 except lying in column 0 can be expressed as

     

On the eigenvalues of distance powers of circuits

Taking the dth distance power of a graph, one adds edges between all pairs of vertices of that graph whose distance is at most d. It is shown that only the numbers -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2d can be integer eigenvalues of a circuit distance power. Moreover, their respective multiplicities are determined and explicit constructions for corresponding eigenspace bases containing only vectors with entries -1, 0, 1 are given.     

Constructing cospectral graphs

Some new constructions for families of cospectral graphs are derived, and some old ones are considerably generalized. One of our new constructions is sufficiently powerful to produce an estimated 72% of the 51039 graphs on 9 vertices which do not have unique spectrum. In fact, the number of graphs of ordern without unique spectrum is believed to be at leastn ³ g _–1 for some>0, whereg _n is the number of graphs of ordern andn 7.     

A direct bijection for the Harer-Zagier formula

We give a combinatorial proof of Harer and Zagier's formula for the disjoint cycle distribution of a long cycle multiplied by an involution with no fixed points, in the symmetric group on a set of even cardinality. The main result of this paper is a direct bijection of a set B_p,k, the enumeration of which is equivalent to the Harer-Zagier formula. The elements of B_p,k are of the form (μ,π), where μ is a pairing on {1,…,2p}, π is a partition into k blocks of the same set, and a certain relation holds between μ and π. (The set partitions π that can appear in B_p,k are called “shift-symmetric”, for reasons that are explained in the paper.) The direct bijection for B_p,k identifies it with a set of objects of the form (ρ,t), where ρ is a pairing on a 2(p-k+1)-subset of {1,…,2p} (a “partial pairing”), and t is an ordered tree with k vertices. If we specialize to the extreme case when p=k-1, then ρ is empty, and our bijection reduces to a well-known tree bijection.     

On the singular graph and the Weyr characteristic of anM-matrix

LetA be anM-matrix in standard lower block triangular form, with diagonal blocksA _ii irreducible. LetS be the set of indices such that the diagonal blockA is singular. We define the singular graph ofA to be the setS with partial order defined by > if there exists a chain of non-zero blocksA _i, A_ij, , A_l.Let ₁ be the set of maximal elements ofS, and define thep-th level _p ,p = 2, 3, , inductively as the set of maximal elements ofS \( _{1 p-1}). Denote by _p the number of elements in _p . The Weyr characteristic (associated with 0) ofA is defined to be (A) = ( ₁, ₂,, _h ), where ₁ + + _p = dim KerA ^p ,p = 1, 2, , and _h > 0, _h+1 = 0.Using a special type of basis, called anS-basis, for the generalized eigenspaceE(A) of 0 ofA, we associate a matrixD withA. We show that(A) = ( ₁, , _h) if and only if certain submatricesD _p,p+1 ,p = 1, , h – 1, ofD have full column rank. This condition is also necessary and sufficient forE(A) to have a basis consisting of non-negative vectors, which is a Jordan basis for –A. We also consider a given finite partially ordered setS, and we find a necessary and sufficient condition that allM-matricesA with singular graphS have(A) = ( ₁, , _h). This condition is satisfied ifS is a rooted forest.The work of the second-named author was partly supported by the National Science Foundation, under grant MPS-08618 A02.     

Large faces in 4-critical planar graphs with minimum degree 4

We prove that the size of the largest face of a 4-critical planar graph with 4 is at most one half the number of its vertices. Letf(n) denote the maximum of the sizes of largest faces of all such graphs withn vertices (n sufficiently large). We present an infinite family of graphs that shows .All three authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada.     

The P-frame reflection of a completely regular frame

We show that every completely regular frame has a P-frame reflection. The proof is straightforward in the case of a Lindelöf frame, but more complicated in the general case. The chief obstacle to a simple proof is the important fact that a quotient of a P-frame need not be a P-frame, and we give an example of this.Our proof of the existence of the P-frame reflection in the general case is iterative, freely adding complements at each stage for the cozero elements of the stage before. The argument hinges on the significant fact that frame colimits preserve Lindelöf degree.We also outline the relationship between the P-frame reflection of a space X and the topology of the P-space coreflection of X. Although the former frame is generally much bigger than the latter, it is always the case that the P-space coreflection of X is the space of points of the P-frame reflection of the topology on X.     

Invariant algebraic curves for the cubic Liénard system with linear damping

We show that the system , with f,g polynomials of degree 1 and 3 respectively cannot have simultaneously an algebraic invariant curve and a limit cycle.     

The bias of three pseudo-random shuffles

Three schemes for shuffling a deck ofn cards are studied, each involving a random choice from [n] ⁿ . The shuffles favor some permutations over others sincen! does not dividen ⁿ . The probabilities that the shuffles lead to some simple permutations, for instance cycles left and right and the identity, are calculated. Some inequalities are obtained which lead to information about the least and most likely permutations. Numbers of combinatorial interest occur, notably the Catalan numbers and the Bell numbers.     

Transitive parabolic unitals in semifield planes

Every semifield plane with spread in PG(3,K), where K is a field admitting a quadratic extension K⁺, is shown to admit a transitive parabolic unital. The author gratefully acknowledges helpful comments of the referee in the writing of this article.     

The edge density of 4-critical planar graphs

Several constructions of 4-critical planar graphs are given. These provide answers to two questions of B. Grünbaum and give improved bounds for the maximum edge density of such graphs.     

Breaking the rhythm on graphs

We study graph colorings avoiding periodic sequences with large number of blocks on paths. The main problem is to decide, for a given class of graphs F, if there are absolute constants t,k such that any graph from the class has a t-coloring with no k identical blocks in a row appearing on a path. The minimum t for which there is some k with this property is called the rhythm threshold of F, denoted by t(F). For instance, we show that the rhythm threshold of graphs of maximum degree at most d is between (d+1)/2 and d+1. We give several general conditions for finiteness of t(F), as well as some connections to existing chromatic parameters. The question whether the rhythm threshold is finite for planar graphs remains open.     

The minimum rank problem over the finite field of order 2: Minimum rank 3

Our main result is a sharp bound for the number of vertices in a minimal forbidden subgraph for the graphs having minimum rank at most 3 over the finite field of order 2. We also list all 62 such minimal forbidden subgraphs. We conclude by exploring how some of these results over the finite field of order 2 extend to arbitrary fields and demonstrate that at least one third of the 62 are minimal forbidden subgraphs over an arbitrary field for the class of graphs having minimum rank at most 3 in that field.     

Enlargements of filtrations and path decompositions at non stopping times

Azéma associated with an honest time L the supermartingale and established some of its important properties. This supermartingale plays a central role in the general theory of stochastic processes and in particular in the theory of progressive enlargements of filtrations. In this paper, we shall give an additive characterization for these supermartingales, which in turn will naturally provide many examples of enlargements of filtrations. We combine this characterization with some arguments from both initial and progressive enlargements of filtrations to establish some path decomposition results, closely related to or reminiscent of Williams' path decomposition results. In particular, some of the fragments of the paths in our decompositions end or start with a new family of random times which are not stopping times, nor honest times.