A new way of counting the column-convex polyominoes by perimeter

We introduce a new class of plane figures: the sequences of tailed column-convex polyominoes (for short: stapoes). Let G(x, y) and I(x, y) denote the perimeter generating functions for column-convex polyominoes and stapoes, respectively. It will be clear from the definitions that G(x, y) is a simple fraction of I(x, y). But this latter function can be DSV-computed by solving just one quadratic equation (and not a system of quadratic equations). Thus the formula for G(x, y) can be obtained with ease.     

An Object Grammar for Column-Convex Polyominoes

In this paper we propose an object grammar decomposition for the classes of columnconvex, and directed column-convex polyominoes. As a consequence, we obtain the enumeration of such classes according to the semi-perimeter, thus giving a natural explanation of the fact that the generating functions of both the classes are algebraic.AMS Subject Classification: 05A15.     

On the Tiling System Recognizability of Various Classes of Convex Polyominoes

We consider some problems concerning two relevant classes of two-dimensional languages, i.e., the tiling recognizable languages, and the local languages, recently introduced by Giammarresi and Restivo and already extensively studied. We show that various classes of convex and column-convex polyominoes can be naturally represented as two-dimensional words of tiling recognizable languages. Moreover, we investigate the nature of the generating function of a tiling recognizable language, providing evidence that such a generating function need not be D-finite.     

Numerical method for solving 3D inverse scattering problems

Let q(x) L²(D), D R³ is a bounded domain, q = 0 outside D, q is real-valued. Assume that A(\Gj;\t';,\Gj;,k) A(\Gj;\t';,\Gj), the scattering amplitude, is known for all \Gj;|t',\Gj; S², S² is the unit sphere, an d a fixed k \r>0. These data determine q(x) uniquely and a numerical method is given for computing q(x).     

Near vector spaces over GF(q) and (v,q+1,1)-BIBD''s

The usual construction of (v,q+1,1)−BIBD's from vector spaces over GF(q) is generalized to the class of near vector spaces over GF(q). It is shown that every (v,q+1,1)−BIBD can be constructed from a near vector space over GF(q). Some corollaries are: Given a (v₁,q+1,1)−BIBD P₁,B₁ and a (v₂,q+1,1)−BIBD P₂,B₂, there is a ((q−1)v₁v₂+v₁+v₂,q+1,1)−BIBD P₃,B₃ containing P₁,B₁ and P₂,B₂ as disjoint subdesigns. If there is a (v,q+1,1)−BIBD then there is a ((q−1)v+1,q,1)−BIBD. Every finite partial (v,q,1)−BIBD can be embedded in a finite (v′,q+1,1)−BIBD.     

Cubic theta functions

Some new identities for the four cubic theta functions a′(q,z), a(q,z), b(q,z) and c(q,z) are given. For example, we show that

a′(q,z)³=b(q,z)³+c(q)²c(q,z).

This is a counterpart of the identity

a(q,z)³=b(q)²b(q,z³)+c(q,z)³,

which was found by Hirschhorn et al.

The Laurent series expansions of the four cubic theta functions are given. Their transformation properties are established using an elementary approach due to K. Venkatachaliengar. By applying the modular transformation to the identities given by Hirschhorn et al., several new identities in which a′(q,z) plays the role of a(q,z) are obtained.     

On the generalized Erdös-Szekeres Conjecture — a new upper bound

We prove the following result: For every two natural numbers n and q, n q + 2, there is a natural number E(n, q) satisfying the following:

1. (1) Let S be any set of points in the plane, no three on a line. If |S| E(n, q), then there exists a convex n-gon whose points belong to S, for which the number of points of S in its interior is 0 (mod q).

2. (2) For fixed q, E(n,q) 2^c(q)·n, c(q) is a constant depends on q only.

Part (1) was proved by Bialostocki et al. [2] and our proof is aimed to simplify the original proof. The proof of Part (2) is completely new and reduces the huge upper bound of [2] (a super-exponential bound) to an exponential upper bound.     

Maximal partial spreads and the modular n-queen problem

We prove that for any integer n in the interval there is a maximal partial spread of size n in PG (3, q) where q is odd and q7. We also prove that there are maximal partial spreads of size (q²+3)/2 when gcd(q+1,24)=2 or 4 and of size (q²+5)/2 when gcd(q+1,24)=4.     

Efficient Energy-preserving Methods for General Nonlinear Oscillatory Hamiltonian System

In this paper, we propose and analyze two kinds of novel and symmetric energy-preserving formulae for the nonlinear oscillatory Hamiltonian system of second-order differential equations Aq"(t)+ Bq(t)=f(q(t)), where A ∈ R^m×m is a symmetric positive definite matrix, B ∈ R^m×m is a symmetric positive semi-definite matrix that implicitly contains the main frequencies of the problem and f(q)=-▽_qV(q) for a real-valued function V(q). The energy-preserving formulae can exactly preserve the Hamiltonian H(q', q)=(1)/2q'^τ Aq' + (1)/2q^τ Bq + V(q). We analyze the properties of energy-preserving and convergence of the derived energy-preserving formula and obtain new efficient energy-preserving integrators for practical computation. Numerical experiments are carried out to show the efficiency of the new methods by the nonlinear Hamiltonian systems.     

Constructions of (q, K, λ, t, Q) almost difference families

The concept of a (q, k, λ, t) almost difference family (ADF) has been introduced and studied by C. Ding and J. Yin as a useful generalization of the concept of an almost difference set. In this paper, we consider, more generally, (q, K, λ, t, Q)-ADFs, where K = {k₁, k₂, ..., k_r} is a set of positive integers and Q = (q₁, q₂,..., q_r) is a given block-size distribution sequence. A necessary condition for the existence of a (q, K, λ, t, Q)-ADF is given, and several infinite classes of (q, K, λ, t, Q)-ADFs are constructed.     

On some integrals arising in mathematical physics

This paper presents in the first section the exact evaluation of three single integrals relating to the dielectric behavior of two-dimensional electron plasmas. In the second section we present a procedure for reducing 3d-dimensional integrals of the form: ∫∫∫dqdpdkD(q)(p+k+q)ƒ(p)[1−ƒ(p+q)]ƒ(k)[1−ƒ(k+q)], where the vectors lie in d-dimensional space and ƒ denotes the Fermi function, to tractable form. The second-order exchange integral for a d-dimensional electron gas is taken as an example and is evaluated in closed form as a function of d.     

ContributionsSign-balanced covering matrices

A q × n array with entries from 0, 1,…,q − 1 is said to form a difference matrix if the vector difference (modulo q) of each pair of columns consists of a permutation of [0, 1,… q − 1]; this definition is inverted from the more standard one to be found, e.g., in Colbourn and de Launey (1996). The following idea generalizes this notion: Given an appropriate δ (-[−1, 1]^t, a λq × n array will be said to form a (t, q, λ, Δ) sign-balanced matrix if for each choice C₁, C₂,…, C_t of t columns and for each choice = (₁,…,_t) Δ of signs, the linear combination ∑_j=1^t _jC_j contains (mod q) each entry of [0, 1,…, q − 1] exactly λ times. We consider the following extremal problem in this paper: How large does the number k = k(n, t, q, λ, δ) of rows have to be so that for each choice of t columns and for each choice (₁, …, _t) of signs in δ, the linear combination ∑_j=1^t _jC_j contains each entry of [0, 1,…, q t- 1] at least λ times? We use probabilistic methods, in particular the Lovász local lemma and the Stein-Chen method of Poisson approximation to obtain general (logarithmic) upper bounds on the numbers k(n, t, q, λ, δ), and to provide Poisson approximations for the probability distribution of the number W of deficient sets of t columns, given a random array. It is proved, in addition, that arithmetic modulo q yields the smallest array - in a sense to be described.     

On the number of flats spanned by a set of points in PG(d, q)

It is shown that for fixed 1 r s < d and > 0, if X PG(d, q) contains (1 + )q^s points, then the number of r-flats spanned by X is at least c()q^{(r+1)(s+1−r)}, i.e. a positive fraction of the number of r-flats in PG(s + 1,q).     

Explicit construction of graphs with an arbitrary large girth and of large size

Let k 3 be a positive odd integer and 1 be a power of a prime. In this paper we give an explicit construction of a q-regular bipartite graph on v = 2q^k vertices with girth g k + 5. The constructed graph is the incidence graph of a flag-transitive semiplane. For any positive integer t we also give an example of a q = 2^t-regular bipartite graph on v = 2q^{k + 1} vertices with girth g k + 5 which is both vertex-transitive and edge-transitive.     

Orthochronous subgroups of O(p,q)

The matrices if O(p,q) whose upper left p × p corners have positive determinant form a subgroup of O(p,q).     

Approximating geometric bottleneck shortest paths

In a geometric bottleneck shortest path problem, we are given a set S of n points in the plane, and want to answer queries of the following type: given two points p and q of S and a real number L, compute (or approximate) a shortest path between p and q in the subgraph of the complete graph on S consisting of all edges whose lengths are less than or equal to L. We present efficient algorithms for answering several query problems of this type. Our solutions are based on Euclidean minimum spanning trees, spanners, and the Delaunay triangulation. A result of independent interest is the following. For any two points p and q of S, there is a path between p and q in the Delaunay triangulation, whose length is less than or equal to 2π/(3cos(π/6)) times the Euclidean distance |pq| between p and q, and all of whose edges have length at most |pq|.     

Efficient visibility queries in simple polygons

We present a method of decomposing a simple polygon that allows the preprocessing of the polygon to efficiently answer visibility queries of various forms in an output sensitive manner. Using O(n³logn) preprocessing time and O(n³) space, we can, given a query point q inside or outside an n vertex polygon, recover the visibility polygon of q in O(logn+k) time, where k is the size of the visibility polygon, and recover the number of vertices visible from q in O(logn) time.

The key notion behind the decomposition is the succinct representation of visibility regions, and tight bounds on the number of such regions. These techniques are extended to handle other types of queries, such as visibility of fixed points other than the polygon vertices, and for visibility from a line segment rather than a point. Some of these results have been obtained independently by Guibas, Motwani and Raghavan [18] .     

q-distributions and Markov processes

We consider a sequence of integer-valued random variables X_n, n 1, representing a special Markov process with transition probability λ_{n, l}, satisfying P_{n, l} = (1 − λ_{n, l}) P_{n−1, l} + λ_{n, l−1} P_{n−1, l−1}. Whenever the transition probability is given by λ_{n, l} = q^{n + βl + γ} and λ_{n, l} = 1 − q^n+βl+γ, we can find closed forms for the distribution and the moments of the corresponding random variables, showing that they involve functions such as the q-binomial coefficients and the q-Stirling numbers. In general, it turns out that the q-notation, up to now mainly used in the theory of q-hypergeometrical series, represents a powerful tool to deal with these kinds of problems. In this context we speak therefore about q-distributions. Finally, we present some possible, mainly graph theoretical interpretations of these random variables for special choices of , β and γ.     

On irreducible p,q-representations of gl(2)

The theory of irreducible p,q-representations of the complex Lie algebra gl(2) is developed. We construct a one variable model of irreducible p,q-representations of gl(2) in terms of p,q-derivative operator, and derive a generating function based on it.     

Enumerating several aspects of non-decreasing Dyck paths

A Dyck path is non-decreasing if the $y$-coordinates of its valleys form a non-decreasing sequence. In this paper we give enumerative results and some statistics of several aspects of non-decreasing Dyck paths. We give the number of pyramids at a fixed level that the paths of a given length have, count the number of primitive paths, count how many of the non-primitive paths can be expressed as a product of primitive paths, and count the number of paths of a given height and a given length. We present and prove our results using combinatorial arguments, generating functions (using the symbolic method) and parameterize the results studied here using the Riordan arrays. We use known bijections to connect direct column-convex polyominoes, Elena trees, and non-decreasing Dyck paths.