Preservation of the existence of fixed and coincidence points under homotopy of mappings of ordered sets

In problems of topology and analysis, well-known theorem on the preservation by any continuous homotopy of the property of a mapping to have a fixed point and the property of a pair of mappings to have a coincidence point are extensively applied. Thus, for contraction mappings and some of their generalizations, Frigon’s results on the preservation of the property to have a fixed point by a homotopy of a special type are known. This paper presents theorems on the preservation by order homotopy of the property of a pair of mappings to have a coincidence point. As a corollary, conditions under which such a homotopy preserves the property of a mapping to have a fixed point are obtained.     

On the poset of conjugacy classes of subgroups of finite p-groups

This paper is a continuation of the paper “On the Deskins completions, theta completions and theta pairs for maximal subgroups ”.In the former paper, Zhao Yaoqing introduced the concept of θ-completions associated to a maximal subgroup of a finite group. The concept offers a convenience for us to study the completions introduced by Deskins and gives us a way to reveal the relationship between the concepts of completions and θ-pairs, the latter concept is introduced by Mukherjee and Bhattacharya. The present paper is devoted to discussing the π-solvability, π-supersolvability and π-nilpotency of a finite group by using the θ-completions. Moreover, a new proof on the Deskins conjecture concerning the supersolvability is included.     

Linear problems of the stability of a type of rotation of a satellite about the centre of mass

The stability in the first approximation of the rotation of a satellite about a centre of mass is investigated. In the unperturbed motion the satellite performs, in absolute space, three rotations around the normal to the orbital plane in a time equal to two periods of rotation of its centre of mass in the orbit (Mercury-type rotation). Three cases of such rotations are considered: the rotations of a dynamically symmetrical satellite and a satellite, the central ellipsoid of inertia of which is close to a sphere, in an elliptic orbit of arbitrary eccentricity, and the rotation of a satellite with three different principal central moments of inertia in a circular orbit.     

Impacts of inquiry pedagogy on undergraduate students conceptions of the function of proof

Mathematicians and mathematics educators agree that proof is an important tool in mathematics, yet too often undergraduate students see proof as a superficial part of the discipline. While proof is often used by mathematicians to justify that a theorem is true, many times proof is used for another purpose entirely such as to explain why a particular statement is true or to show mathematics students a particular proof technique. This paper reports on a study that used a form of inquiry-based learning (IBL) in an introduction to proof course and measured the beliefs of students in this course about the different functions of proof in mathematics as compared to students in a non-IBL course. It was found that undergraduate students in an introduction to proof course had a more robust understanding of the functions of proof than previous studies would suggest. Additionally, students in the course taught using inquiry pedagogy were more likely to appreciate the communication, intellectual challenge, and providing autonomy functions of proof. It is hypothesized that these results are a response to the pedagogy of the course and the types of student activity that were emphasized.     

Two-step generation of the equations of motion of closed-chains

This paper presents a two-step generation of the equations of motion of planar mechanisms using point and joint coordinates. First, the formulation replaces a rigid body by a dynamically equivalent constrained system of particles and uses Newton’s second law to study the motion of the particles without introducing any rotational coordinates. Then, the equations of motion are transformed to a reduced set in terms of selected relative joint variables using a velocity transformation matrix. For an open-chain, this process automatically eliminates all of the non-working constraint forces and leads to an efficient integration of the equations of motion. For a closed-chain, suitable joints should be cut and few cut-joints constraint equations are included. An example of a closed-chain is used to demonstrate the generality and efficiency of the proposed method.     

Generalizations of a theorem of Rolewicz

The aim of this article is to give a unified treatment for the theorems of Rolewicz and Neerven type for uniform exponential stability of evolution families. We obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for uniform exponential stability of evolution families, generalizing a stability theorem due to Rolewicz and we present a new proof for the Rolewicz theorem, based on the theory of Banach function spaces. Finally, we apply our results and we deduce a generalization for a classical stability theorem due to Przyluski and Rolewicz.     

Comparisons of models for estimation of safe doses using measures of the heaviness of tail of a distribution

Summary Procedures to estimate a dose of which the incidence probability is very small (e.g. 10⁻⁶) have been developed to evaluate the safety of chemical compounds. To compare models for estimation of safe doses quantitatively, a measure of the heaviness of tail of a distribution and a measure of tail at the origin are introduced. These measures have a theoretical basis for the comparison of tail behavior between distributions. Using the two measures, a tail ordering is defined to present a criterion for the comparison of models and is discussed for the probit, the logit, the Weibull, the (generalized) multihit, the (generalized) multitarget and the multistage models. The multistage model is most conservative among them, while the probit model has the reverse property. The Weibull model is more conservative than the logit. The multihit and multitarget models are found to be more sensitive than the Weibull and the logit. The Institute of Statistical Mathematics National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences     

Positivity of linear transformations of mean-starshaped sequences

In this paper, we give the necessary and sufficient conditions for a linear transformation of a mean-starshaped sequence to be positive. Using this result, we obtain the necessary and sufficient conditions for a lower triangular matrix to preserve the mean-starshape of a sequence and we discuss some special cases of linear transformations. Our next result deals with the convergence of a sequence of mean-starshaped sequences to any given mean-starshaped sequence and the positivity of a linear operator on the set of mean-starshaped sequences.     

Dynamic decentralization of harvesting constraints in the management of tychastic evolution of renewable resources

This study proposes a new framework to tackle the uncertainty that prevails in the exploitation of renewable resources. It deals with the question of how to guarantee both a minimum multi-species harvest and the renewal of resources when their evolutions are uncertain. The problem is twofold: to decentralize a global constraint (on a multi-species harvest) into local constraints (on the resources of the different species) and, then, to use a “tychastic” approach necessitating only the forecasts of the lowers bounds of the resource growth rates. This study, formulated as a “tychastic” regulated system with viability constraints, departs from stochastic approaches generally used to deal with uncertain situations. It provides the time dependent harvesting rule allowing to always comply with a minimum harvest objective and resources replenishment thresholds whatever happens and a tychastic measure of risk viability in terms of minimum resources initially required. To solve this problem involving global and local constraints a new method that decentralizes the constraints has been devised. An example is presented whose numerical results are obtained thanks to a dedicated software using mathematical and algorithmic tools of viability theory.     

Degenerations of Representations of Associative Algebras

The purpose of this note is to give a fast introduction to some problems of homological and geometrical nature related to finite-dimensional representations of finitely generated, and especially, finite-dimensional algebras over a field. Some of these results can also be extended to the situation where the field is not algebraically closed, and some of the results can even be extended to the situation where one is considering algebras over a commutative artin ring. For the results which hold true in the most general situation the proofs become most elegant since they depend on using length arguments only and thereby forgetting about the nature of a field altogether. Received: July 2007     

Cohomology of categories and extensions of twisted diagrams of groups

A twisted diagram of groups assigns a group to every object of an indexing category and a homomorphism of groups to every morphism. However, it does not have to be completely functorial — it preserves composition only up to a compatible family of inner automorphisms. A. Haefliger defined a special case: the complex of groups. We prove that there exists a natural bijective correspondence between equivalence classes of epimorphisms of twisted diagrams of groups and elements of the second cohomology group of a certain small category. If this category is defined by a discrete group, then we obtain the well known classification of extensions of groups.     

Location of courts of justice: The making of the new judiciary map of Portugal

Location modeling techniques have been applied to an extremely wide variety of public facilities. However, their application to one of the most ubiquitous public facilities – courts of justice – has been very rare. In this paper, we describe a study promoted by the Ministry of Justice of Portugal to define a proposal for the country's new judiciary map – that is, the spatial organization of the judicial system. The new map aims to promote the efficiency and specialization of the justice system (leading to better and faster court decisions) and to provide a good level of accessibility to courts. We developed two optimization models addressing those goals – a districting model, to determine the borders of new, large judicial districts; and a court location model, to determine the location, type, size, and coverage area of the courts included in each new district. Both models are discrete facility location models and consider hierarchical facilities – generic courts and specialized courts of multiple types. Our study was publicly acknowledged by the Portuguese government as having contributed to the new judiciary map that has since been approved and implemented.     

Computation of normal forms of Hamiltonian systems in the presence of Poisson commuting integrals

The aim of this paper is to show the role of first integrals in further reducing the normal form unfolding of Hamiltonian systems. Based on a work by Cicogna and Gaeta, the joint normal form approach for Hamiltonian vector fields is considered. This normal form procedure, couched in a Lie-Poincaré scheme, allows us to see that we can reduce simultaneously the Hamiltonian together with its Poisson commuting integrals to a simplified normal form - a joint normal form - which is given a simple characterization. In this algorithmic procedure, approximate first integrals can be constructed (and used to simplify the normal form) at the same time that we bring the Hamiltonian to normal form. Further, following Walcher, we show that we can derive the joint normal form via a structure preserving transformation (in a sense to be specified). The approach is discussed from an implementational standpoint and illustrated by a Liouville-integrable Hénon-Heiles system. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The problem of the formalization of constructive topology

Formal topologies are today an established topic in the development of constructive mathematics. One of the main tools in formal topology is inductive generation since it allows to introduce inductive methods in topology. The problem of inductively generating formal topologies with a cover relation and a unary positivity predicate has been solved in [CSSV]. However, to deal both with open and closed subsets, a binary positivity predicate has to be considered. In this paper we will show how to adapt to this framework the method used to generate inductively formal topologies with a unary positivity predicate; the main problem that one has to face in such a new setting is that, as a consequence of the lack of a complete formalization, both the cover relation and the positivity predicate can have proper axioms.     

Categories of models of R-mingle

We give a new Esakia-style duality for the category of Sugihara monoids based on the Davey-Werner natural duality for lattices with involution, and use this duality to greatly simplify a construction due to Galatos-Raftery of Sugihara monoids from certain enrichments of their negative cones. Our method of obtaining this simplification is to transport the functors of the Galatos-Raftery construction across our duality, obtaining a vastly more transparent presentation on duals. Because our duality extends Dunn's relational semantics for the logic R-mingle to a categorical equivalence, this also explains the Dunn semantics and its relationship with the more usual Routley-Meyer semantics for relevant logics.     

Detection of the singularities of a complex function by numerical approximations of its Laurent coefficients

For several applications, it is important to know the location of the singularities of a complex function: just for example, the rightmost singularity of a Laplace Transform is related to the exponential order of its inverse function. We discuss a numerical method to approximate, within an input accuracy tolerance, a finite sequence of Laurent coefficients of a function by means of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) of its samples along an input circle. The circle may also enclose some singularities, since the method works with the Laurent expansion. The DFT is computed by the FFT algorithm so that, from a computational point of view, the efficiency is guaranteed. The function samples may be obtained by solving a numerical problem such as, for example, a differential problem. We derive, as consequences of the method, some new outcomes able to detect those singularities which are close to the circle and to discover if the singularities are all external or internal to the circle so that the Laurent expansion reduces to its regular or singular part, respectively. Other singularities may be located by means of a repeated application of the method, as well as an analytic continuation. Some examples and results, obtained by a first implementation, are reported.     

Unimodularity of zeros of self-inversive polynomials

We generalise a necessary and sufficient condition given by Cohn for all the zeros of a self-inversive polynomial to be on the unit circle. Our theorem implies some sufficient conditions found by Lakatos, Losonczi and Schinzel. We apply our result to the study of a polynomial family closely related to Ramanujan polynomials, recently introduced by Gun, Murty and Rath, and studied by Murty, Smyth and Wang as well as by Lalín and Rogers. We prove that all polynomials in this family have their zeros on the unit circle, a result conjectured by Lalín and Rogers on computational evidence.     

Properties of the solutions of a certain class of variational inequalities

In a curvilinear quadrangle one considers an elliptic operator with linear principal terms and discontinuous leading coefficients. One investigates the solution of a variational inequality with a constraint on the derivatives, tangent to the boundary and to the discontinuity lines of the coefficients. On certain parts of the boundary one imposes the first boundary condition and on others a condition on a directional derivative. One proves the existence of a solution with square summable second derivatives at each point of the subdomains where the leading coefficients are smooth.Translated from Problemy Matematicheskogo Analiza, No. 10, pp. 83–92, 1986.     

Enclosing clusters of zeros of polynomials

Lagrange interpolation and partial fraction expansion can be used to derive a Gerschgorin-type theorem that gives simple and powerful a posteriori error bounds for the zeros of a polynomial if approximations to all zeros are available. Compared to bounds from a corresponding eigenvalue problem, a factor of at least two is gained.The accuracy of the bounds is analyzed, and special attention is given to ensure that the bounds work well not only for single zeros but also for multiple zeros and clusters of close zeros.A Rouché-type theorem is also given, that in many cases reduces the bound even further.