What is the smallest possible constant in Céa’s lemma?

We consider finite element approximations of a second order elliptic problem on a bounded polytopic domain in ℝ^d with d ∈ {1, 2, 3, ...} The constant C ⩾ 1 appearing in Céa’s lemma and coming from its standard proof can be very large when the coefficients of an elliptic operator attain considerably different values. We restrict ourselves to regular families of uniform partitions and linear simplicial elements. Using a lower bound of the interpolation error and the supercloseness between the finite element solution and the Lagrange interpolant of the exact solution, we show that the ratio between discretization and interpolation errors is equal to as the discretization parameter h tends to zero. Numerical results in one and two-dimensional case illustrating this phenomenon are presented. This research was supported by Shandong Province Young Scientists Foundation of China 2005BS01008, Institutional Research Plan AV02 101 90503, and by Grant No A 1019201 of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.     

Bogoliubov’s metric as a global characteristic of the family of metrics in the Hilbert algebra of observables

We comparatively analyze a one-parameter family of bilinear complex functionals with the sense of “deformed” Wigner-Yanase-Dyson scalar products on the Hilbert algebra of operators of physical observables. We establish that these functionals and the corresponding metrics depend on the deformation parameter and the extremal properties of the Kubo-Martin-Schwinger and Wigner-Yanase metrics in quantum statistical mechanics. We show that the Bogoliubov-Kubo-Mori metric is a global (integral) characteristic of this family. It occupies an intermediate position between the extremal metrics and has the clear physical sense of the generalized isothermal susceptibility. We consider the example for the SU(2) algebra of observables in the simplest model of an ideal quantum spin paramagnet.     

In Search of the Reason and the Right—Rousseau’s Social Contract as a Thought Experiment

For Rousseau, social contract is a hypothetical one; the paper claims that it is, in contemporary terms, a political thought-experiment (TE). The abductive way of thinking, looking for the best normative pattern in the data, finds its counterpart in the historical abduction in the Second Discourse; the analogy between the two secures the methodological unity of Rousseau’s political philosophy. The proposed reading of the work as a TE shows that it fulfills the necessary requirements put by (hopefully) intuitively acceptable definition of a TE, and fits in the contractarian tradition that has been experimenting with hypothetical arrangements since its start. The reading of The Social Contract as a TE has helped to systematize some of its shortcomings from the wider perspective of methodology of political philosophy. Finally, the political thought experiment (PTE) reading of Rousseau places his central work where it belongs: in the tradition started by Plato’s Republic, continuing with Renaissance and early modern philosophical utopias, culminating in the contractarian social contract TE, and going all the way to the work of Rawls and his present day continuators. We hope that this can contribute to a more positive picture of Rousseau’s work, despite criticism concerning his brusque manner of thought-experimenting.     

Toward Homological Characterization of Semirings: Serre’s Conjecture and Bass’s Perfectness in a Semiring Context

Among other results on homological characterization of semirings, we prove that the classes of projective and free right (left) semimodules over the polynomial semiring R[x₁, x₂,..., x_n] over an additively regular division semiring R coincide iff R is a field. Also it is shown that an additively regular commutative semiring R is perfect (in H. Basss sense) iff R is a perfect ring.In Celebration of the Sixtieth Birthday of Ralph N. McKenzieReceived July 27, 2003; accepted in final form April 2, 2004.     

Higher order variational origin of the Dixonʼs system and its relation to the quasi-classical ‘Zitterbewegung’ in General Relativity

We show how the Dixon?s system of first order equations of motion for the particle with inner dipole structure together with the side Mathisson constraint follows from rather general construction of the ‘Hamilton system’ developed by Weyssenhoff, Rund and Grässer to describe the phase space counterpart of the evolution under the ordinary Euler–Poisson differential equation of the parameter-invariant variational problem with second derivatives. One concrete expression of the ‘Hamilton function’ leads to the General Relativistic form of the fourth order equation of motion known to describe the quasi-classical ‘quiver’ particle in Special Relativity. The corresponding Lagrange function including velocity and acceleration coincides in the flat space of Special Relativity with the one considered by Bopp in an attempt to give an approximate variational formulation of the motion of self-radiating electron, when expressed in terms of geometric quantities.     

Nikol’skii’s inequality for different metrics and properties of the sequence of norms of the Fourier sums of a function in the Lorentz space

Let (X, Y) be a pair of normed spaces such that X ? Y ? L ₁[0, 1] ⁿ and {e _k } _k be an expanding sequence of finite sets in ? ⁿ with respect to a scalar or vector parameter k, k ∈ ? or k ∈ ? ⁿ . The properties of the sequence of norms $\{ \left\| {S_{e_k } (f)} \right\|x\} _k $ of the Fourier sums of a fixed function f ∈ Y are studied. As the spaces X and Y, the Lebesgue spaces L _p [0, 1], the Lorentz spaces L _p,q [0, 1], L _p,q [0, 1] ⁿ , and the anisotropic Lorentz spaces L _p,q*[0, 1] ⁿ are considered. In the one-dimensional case, the sequence {e _k } _k consists of segments, and in the multidimensional case, it is a sequence of hyperbolic crosses or parallelepipeds in ? ⁿ . For trigonometric polynomials with the spectrum given by step hyperbolic crosses and parallelepipeds, various types of inequalities for different metrics in the Lorentz spaces L _p,q [0, 1] ⁿ and L _p,q*[0, 1] ⁿ are obtained.     

It’s about how the task is set: the inclusion–exclusion effect and accountability in preprocessing management information

Central European Journal of Operations Research - Managerial decision-making often rests on information that is preprocessed and therefore considerably reduced compared to the raw data. In our...     

Dynamical Locality and Covariance: What Makes a Physical Theory the Same in all Spacetimes?

The question of what it means for a theory to describe the same physics on all spacetimes (SPASs) is discussed. As there may be many answers to this question, we isolate a necessary condition, the SPASs property, that should be satisfied by any reasonable notion of SPASs. This requires that if two theories conform to a common notion of SPASs, with one a subtheory of the other, and are isomorphic in some particular spacetime, then they should be isomorphic in all globally hyperbolic spacetimes (of given dimension). The SPASs property is formulated in a functorial setting broad enough to describe general physical theories describing processes in spacetime, subject to very minimal assumptions. By explicit constructions, the full class of locally covariant theories is shown not to satisfy the SPASs property, establishing that there is no notion of SPASs encompassing all such theories. It is also shown that all locally covariant theories obeying the time-slice property possess two local substructures, one kinematical (obtained directly from the functorial structure) and the other dynamical (obtained from a natural form of dynamics, termed relative Cauchy evolution). The covariance properties of relative Cauchy evolution and the kinematic and dynamical substructures are analyzed in detail. Calling local covariant theories dynamically local if their kinematical and dynamical local substructures coincide, it is shown that the class of dynamically local theories fulfills the SPASs property. As an application in quantum field theory, we give a model independent proof of the impossibility of making a covariant choice of preferred state in all spacetimes, for theories obeying dynamical locality together with typical assumptions.     

The beliefs of ‘Tomorrow's Teachers’ about mathematics: precipitating change in beliefs as a result of participation in an Initial Teacher Education programme

Mathematics education research has given increasing attention to the role of affective factors in the learning process. While 'affect' is used to refer to a variety of aspects including feelings, emotions, beliefs, attitudes and conceptions, this paper focuses on 'beliefs' of elementary pre-service teachers. In particular, the study evaluates the effect of participation in a reform-based elementary pre-service teacher education (referred to as Initial Teacher Education (ITE)) programme on participants' 'beliefs about the nature of mathematics'. This was completed using two (sub)scales of the Aiken's Revised Mathematics Scale measuring Enjoyment of Mathematics (E) and belief in the Value of Mathematics (V). Both scales were administered before and after participants completed the mathematics education programme, which consisted of 5 compulsory and consecutive modules. This study reveals that entry-level pre-service teachers report generally positive beliefs about the value of and enjoyment in doing mathematics. The findings challenge previous research, which report the tendency of teachers' beliefs to be resistant to change while in teacher education and suggest that it is possible for ITE mathematics education programmes to stimulate improvement in beliefs and attitudes among participants. Particular programme features are identified as instrumental in this positive change in beliefs about mathematics.     

Estimates of the Green’s Functions for the Elasto-static Equations and Stokes Equations in a Three Dimensional Lipschitz Domain

In this paper, we study a Green’s functions G ^E , G ^S for an elasto-static equations and Stokes equations in a three-dimensional bounded Lipschitz domain Ω. We prove that there is a positive constant c > 0 depending on the Lipschitz constant such that for all . Furthermore, we show that there is a positive constant η ∈ (0,1) depending on the Lipschitz constant such that for all . The second author is partially supported by Korea Research Foundation Grant KRF C-00005.     

Caristi’s condition and existence of a minimum of a lower bounded function in a metric space. Applications to the theory of coincidence points

We consider a lower bounded function on a complete metric space. For this function, we obtain conditions, including Caristi’s conditions, under which this function attains its infimum. These results are applied to the study of the existence of a coincidence point of two mappings acting from one metric space to another. We consider both single-valued and set-valued mappings one of which is a covering mapping and the other is Lipschitz continuous. Special attention is paid to the study of a degenerate case that includes, in particular, generalized contraction mappings.     

Gas Near a Wall: Shortened Mean Free Path,Reduced Viscosity,and the Manifestation of the Knudsen Layer in the Navier–Stokes Solution of a Shear Flow

For the gas near a solid planar wall, we propose a scaling formula for the mean free path of a molecule as a function of the distance from the wall, under the assumption of a uniform distribution of the incident directions of the molecular free flight. We subsequently impose the same scaling onto the viscosity of the gas near the wall and compute the Navier–Stokes solution of the velocity of a shear flow parallel to the wall. Under the simplifying assumption of constant temperature of the gas, the velocity profile becomes an explicit nonlinear function of the distance from the wall and exhibits a Knudsen boundary layer near the wall. To verify the validity of the obtained formula, we perform the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo computations for the shear flow of argon and nitrogen at normal density and temperature. We find excellent agreement between our velocity approximation and the computed DSMC velocity profiles both within the Knudsen boundary layer and away from it.