C‐perfect hypergraphs

Let ${\mathcal{H}}=({{X}},{\mathcal{E}})Let ${\mathcal{H}}=({{X}},{\mathcal{E}})$ be a hypergraph with vertex set X and edge set ${\mathcal{E}}$. A C‐coloring of ${\mathcal{H}}$ is a mapping ?:X→? such that |?(E)|<|E| holds for all edges ${{E}}\in{\mathcal{E}}$ (i.e. no edge is multicolored). We denote by $\bar{\chi}({\mathcal{H}})$ the maximum number |?(X)| of colors in a C‐coloring. Let further $\alpha({\mathcal{H}})$ denote the largest cardinality of a vertex set S?X that contains no ${{E}}\in{\mathcal{E}}$, and $\tau({\mathcal{H}})=|{{X}}|-\alpha({\mathcal{H}})$ the minimum cardinality of a vertex set meeting all $E \in {\mathcal{E}}$. The hypergraph ${\mathcal{H}}$ is called C‐perfect if $\bar{\chi}({\mathcal{H}}\prime)=\alpha({\mathcal{H}}\prime)$ holds for every induced subhypergraph ${\mathcal{H}}\prime\subseteq{\mathcal{H}}$. If ${\mathcal{H}}$ is not C‐perfect but all of its proper induced subhypergraphs are, then we say that it is minimally C‐imperfect. We prove that for all r, k∈? there exists a finite upper bound h(r, k) on the number of minimally C‐imperfect hypergraphs ${\mathcal{H}}$ with $\tau({\mathcal{H}})\le {{k}}$ and without edges of more than r vertices. We give a characterization of minimally C‐imperfect hypergraphs that have τ=2, which also characterizes implicitly the C‐perfect ones with τ=2. From this result we derive an infinite family of new constructions that are minimally C‐imperfect. A characterization of minimally C‐imperfect circular hypergraphs is presented, too. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 64: 132–149, 2010     

Persistence of activity in threshold contact processes,an “Annealed approximation” of random Boolean networks

We consider a model for gene regulatory networks that is a modification of Kauffmann's J Theor Biol 22 (1969), 437–467 random Boolean networks. There are three parameters: $n = {\rm the}$ number of nodes, $r = {\rm the}$ number of inputs to each node, and $p = {\rm the}$ expected fraction of 1'sin the Boolean functions at each node. Following a standard practice in thephysics literature, we use a threshold contact process on a random graph on n nodes, in which each node has in degree r, to approximate its dynamics. We show that if $r\ge 3$ and $r \cdot 2p(1-p)>1$ , then the threshold contact process persists for a long time, which correspond to chaotic behavior of the Boolean network. Unfortunately, we are only able to prove the persistence time is $\ge \exp(cn^{b(p)})$ with $b(p)>0$ when $r\cdot 2p(1-p)> 1$ , and $b(p)=1$ when $(r-1)\cdot 2p(1-p)>1$ . © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2011     

Increasing the output length of zero‐error dispersers

Let $\cal{C}$ be a class of probability distributions over a finite set Ω. A function $D : \Omega \mapsto\{0,1\}^{m}$ is a disperser for $\cal{C}$ with entropy threshold $k$ and error $\epsilon$ if for any distribution X in $\cal{C}$ such that X gives positive probability to at least $2^{k}$ elements we have that the distribution $D(X)$ gives positive probability to at least $(1-\epsilon)2^{m}$ elements. A long line of research is devoted to giving explicit (that is polynomial time computable) dispersers (and related objects called “extractors”) for various classes of distributions while trying to maximize m as a function of k. For several interesting classes of distributions there are explicit constructions in the literature of zero‐error dispersers with “small” output length m. In this paper we develop a general technique to improve the output length of zero‐error dispersers. This strategy works for several classes of sources and is inspired by a transformation that improves the output length of extractors (which was given by Shaltiel (CCC'06; Proceedings of the 21st Annual IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity, (2006) 46–60.) building on earlier work by Gabizon, Raz and Shaltiel (SIAM J Comput 36 (2006) 1072–1094). Our techniques are different than those of Shaltiel (CCC'06; Proceedings of the 21st Annual IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity (2006) 46–60) and in particular give non‐trivial results in the errorless case. Using our approach we construct improved zero‐error 2‐source dispersers. More precisely, we show that for any constant $\delta >0$ there is a constant $\eta >0$ such that for sufficiently large n there is a poly‐time computable function $D :\{0,1\}^{n}\times\{0,1\}^{n}\mapsto\{0,1\}^{\eta n}$ such that for every two independent distributions $X_1,X_2$ over $\{0,1\}^{n}$ each with support size at least $2^{\delta n}$ , the output distribution $D(X_1,X_2)$ has full support. This improves the output length of previous constructions by Barak, Kindler, Shaltiel, Sudakov and Wigderson (Proceedings of the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (2005) 1–10) and has applications in Ramsey theory and in improved constructions of certain data structures from the work of Fiat and Naor [SIAM J Comput 22 (1993)]. We also use our techniques to give explicit constructions of zero‐error dispersers for bit‐fixing sources and affine sources over polynomially large fields. These constructions improve the best known explicit constructions due to Rao (unpublished data) and Gabizon and Raz [Combinatorica 28 (2008)] and achieve $m=\Omega(k)$ for bit‐fixing sources and $m=k-o(k)$ for affine sources over polynomial size fields. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2011     

Periodic problem for a nonlinear‐damped wave equation on the boundary

In this work we investigate the existence of periodic solutions in t for the following problem: We employ elliptic regularization and monotone method. We consider $\mbox{\boldmath{$\Omega$}}\mbox{\boldmath{$\subset$}}{\mathbb{R}}^{{{n}}} \ (n\geqslant 1)$ an open bounded set that has regular boundary Γ and Q=Ω ×(0,T), T>0, a cylinder of ${\mathbb{R}}^{n+1}$ with lateral boundary Σ = Γ × (0,T). Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Correlations for paths in random orientations of G(n,p) and G(n,m)

We study random graphs, both G( n,p) and G( n,m), with random orientations on the edges. For three fixed distinct vertices s,a,b we study the correlation, in the combine probability space, of the events $\{a\to s\}$ and $\{s\to b\}$ . For G(n,p), we prove that there is a $pc = 1/2$ such that for a fixed $p < pc$ the correlation is negative for large enough n and for $p > pc$ the correlation is positive for large enough n. We conjecture that for a fixed $n \ge 27$ the correlation changes sign three times for three critical values of p. For G(n,m) it is similarly proved that, with $p=m/({{n}\atop {2}})$ , there is a critical pc that is the solution to a certain equation and approximately equal to 0.7993. A lemma, which computes the probability of non existence of any $\ell$ directed edges in G(n,m), is thought to be of independent interest. We present exact recursions to compute \input amssym $\Bbb{P}(a\to s)$ and \input amssym $\Bbb{P}(a\to s, s\to b)$ . We also briefly discuss the corresponding question in the quenched version of the problem. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2011     

The cover time of random geometric graphs

We study the cover time of random geometric graphs. Let $I(d)=[0,1]^{d}$ denote the unit torus in d dimensions. Let $D(x,r)$ denote the ball (disc) of radius r. Let $\Upsilon_d$ be the volume of the unit ball $D(0,1)$ in d dimensions. A random geometric graph $G=G(d,r,n)$ in d dimensions is defined as follows: Sample n points V independently and uniformly at random from $I(d)$ . For each point x draw a ball $D(x,r)$ of radius r about x. The vertex set $V(G)=V$ and the edge set $E(G)=\{\{v,w\}: w\ne v,\,w\in D(v,r)\}$ . Let $G(d,r,n),\,d\geq 3$ be a random geometric graph. Let $C_G$ denote the cover time of a simple random walk on G. Let $c>1$ be constant, and let $r=(c\log n/(\Upsilon_dn))^{1/d}$ . Then whp the cover time satisfies © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 38, 324–349, 2011     

The size‐Ramsey number of trees

Given a graph G, the size‐Ramsey number $\hat r(G)$ is the minimum number m for which there exists a graph F on m edges such that any two‐coloring of the edges of F admits a monochromatic copy of G. In 1983, J. Beck introduced an invariant β(·) for trees and showed that $\hat r(T) = \Omega (\beta (T))$ . Moreover he conjectured that $\hat r(T) = \Theta (\beta (T))$ . We settle this conjecture by providing a family of graphs and an embedding scheme for trees. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2011     

Infinitely Many Positive Solutions to Some Scalar Field Equations with Nonsymmetric Coefficients

In this paper the equation $\font\open=msbm10 at 10pt\def\R{\hbox{\open R}} - \Delta u + a(x)u = |u|^{p - 1} u\;{\rm in }\;{\R}^N $ is considered, when N ≥ 2, p > 1, and $p < {{N + 2} \over {N - 2}}$ if N ≥ 3. Assuming that the potential a(x) is a positive function belonging to $\font\open=msbm10 at 10pt\def\R{\hbox{\open R}}L_{{\rm loc}}^{N/2} ({\R}^N )$ such that a(x) → a_∞ > 0 as |x|→∞ and satisfies slow decay assumptions but does not need to fulfill any symmetry property, the existence of infinitely many positive solutions, by purely variational methods, is proved. The shape of the solutions is described as is, and furthermore, their asymptotic behavior when $\font\open=msbm10 at 10pt\def\R{\hbox{\open R}}|a(x) - a_\infty |_{L_{{\rm loc}}^{N/2} ({\R}^N )} \to 0$ . © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

PhaseLift: Exact and Stable Signal Recovery from Magnitude Measurements via Convex Programming

Suppose we wish to recover a signal \input amssym $\font\abc=cmmib10\def\bi#1{\hbox{\abc#1}} {\bi x} \in {\Bbb C}^n$ from m intensity measurements of the form $\font\abc=cmmib10\def\bi#1{\hbox{\abc#1}} |\langle \bi x,\bi z_i \rangle|^2$ , $i = 1, 2, \ldots, m$ ; that is, from data in which phase information is missing. We prove that if the vectors $\font\abc=cmmib10\def\bi#1{\hbox{\abc#1}}{\bi z}_i$ are sampled independently and uniformly at random on the unit sphere, then the signal x can be recovered exactly (up to a global phase factor) by solving a convenient semidefinite program–‐a trace‐norm minimization problem; this holds with large probability provided that m is on the order of $n {\log n}$ , and without any assumption about the signal whatsoever. This novel result demonstrates that in some instances, the combinatorial phase retrieval problem can be solved by convex programming techniques. Finally, we also prove that our methodology is robust vis‐à‐vis additive noise. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

On the oriented chromatic index of oriented graphs

A homomorphism from an oriented graph G to an oriented graph H is a mapping from the set of vertices of G to the set of vertices of H such that is an arc in H whenever is an arc in G. The oriented chromatic index of an oriented graph G is the minimum number of vertices in an oriented graph H such that there exists a homomorphism from the line digraph LD(G) of G to H (the line digraph LD(G) of G is given by V(LD(G)) = A(G) and whenever and ). We give upper bounds for the oriented chromatic index of graphs with bounded acyclic chromatic number, of planar graphs and of graphs with bounded degree. We also consider lower and upper bounds of oriented chromatic number in terms of oriented chromatic index. We finally prove that the problem of deciding whether an oriented graph has oriented chromatic index at most k is polynomial time solvable if k ≤ 3 and is NP‐complete if k ≥ 4. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 57: 313–332, 2008     

Global mild solutions of Navier‐Stokes equations

We establish a global well‐posedness of mild solutions to the three‐dimensional, incompressible Navier‐Stokes equations if the initial data are in the space ${\cal{X}}^{-1}$ defined by \input amssym ${\cal{X}}^{‐1} = \{f \in {\cal{D}}^\prime(R^3): \int_{{\Bbb{R}}^3}|\xi|^{‐1}|\widehat{f}|d\xi < \infty\}$ and if the norms of the initial data in ${\cal{X}}^{-1}$ are bounded exactly by the viscosity coefficient μ. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A critical center‐stable manifold for Schrödinger's equation in three dimensions

Consider the focusing $\dot H^{1/2}$ ‐critical semilinear Schrödinger equation in $\font\open=msbm10 at 10pt\def\R{\hbox{\open R}}\R^3$ It admits an eight‐dimensional manifold of special solutions called ground state solitons. We exhibit a codimension‐1 critical real analytic manifold ${\cal N}$ of asymptotically stable solutions of (0.1) in a neighborhood of the soliton manifold. We then show that ${\cal N}$ is center‐stable, in the dynamical systems sense of Bates and Jones, and globally‐in‐time invariant. Solutions in ${\cal N}$ are asymptotically stable and separate into two asymptotically free parts that decouple in the limit—a soliton and radiation. Conversely, in a general setting, any solution that stays $\dot H^{1/2}$ ‐close to the soliton manifold for all time is in ${\cal N}$ . The proof uses the method of modulation. New elements include a different linearization and an endpoint Strichartz estimate for the time‐dependent linearized equation. The proof also uses the fact that the linearized Hamiltonian has no nonzero real eigenvalues or resonances. This has recently been established in the case treated here—of the focusing cubic NLS in $\font\open=msbm10 at 10pt\def\R{\hbox{\open R}}\R^3$ —by the work of Marzuola and Simpson and Costin, Huang, and Schlag. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Piercing random boxes

Consider a set of n random axis parallel boxes in the unit hypercube in ${\bf R}^{d}$ , where d is fixed and n tends to infinity. We show that the minimum number of points one needs to pierce all these boxes is, with high probability, at least $\Omega_d(\sqrt{n}(\log n)^{d/2-1})$ and at most $O_d(\sqrt{n}(\log n)^{d/2-1}\log \log n)$ . © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 38, 365–380, 2011     

Group Invariant Scattering

This paper constructs translation‐invariant operators on $\font\open=msbm10 at 10pt\def\R{\hbox{\open R}}{\bf L}^2({{{\R}}}^d)$ , which are Lipschitz‐continuous to the action of diffeomorphisms. A scattering propagator is a path‐ordered product of nonlinear and noncommuting operators, each of which computes the modulus of a wavelet transform. A local integration defines a windowed scattering transform, which is proved to be Lipschitz‐continuous to the action of C ² diffeomorphisms. As the window size increases, it converges to a wavelet scattering transform that is translation invariant. Scattering coefficients also provide representations of stationary processes. Expected values depend upon high‐order moments and can discriminate processes having the same power spectrum. Scattering operators are extended on L ²(G), where G is a compact Lie group, and are invariant under the action of G. Combining a scattering on $\font\open=msbm10 at 10pt\def\R{\hbox{\open R}}{\bf L}^2({{{\R}}}^d)$ and on L ²(SO(d)) defines a translation‐ and rotation‐invariant scattering on $\font\open=msbm10 at 10pt\def\R{\hbox{\open R}}{\bf L}^2({{{\R}}}^d)$ . © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Critical graphs for subpancyclicity of 3‐connected claw‐free graphs

Let be the family of graphs G such that all sufficiently large k ‐connected claw‐free graphs which contain no induced copies of G are subpancyclic. We show that for every k≥3 the family is infinite and make the first step toward the complete characterization of the family . © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 62, 263–278, 2009     

Closed trail decompositions of complete equipartite graphs

The complete equipartite graph $K_m * {\overline{K_n}}$ has mn vertices partitioned into m parts of size n, with two vertices adjacent if and only if they are in different parts. In this paper, we determine necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a decomposition of $K_m * {\overline{K_n}}$ into closed trails of length k. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 17: 374–403, 2009     

Balanced coloring of bipartite graphs

Given a bipartite graph G(U∪V, E) with n vertices on each side, an independent set I∈G such that |U∩I|=|V∩I| is called a balanced bipartite independent set. A balanced coloring of G is a coloring of the vertices of G such that each color class induces a balanced bipartite independent set in G. If graph G has a balanced coloring we call it colorable. The coloring number χ_B(G) is the minimum number of colors in a balanced coloring of a colorable graph G. We shall give bounds on χ_B(G) in terms of the average degree $\bar{d}$ of G and in terms of the maximum degree Δ of G. In particular we prove the following:

• $\chi_{{{B}}}({{G}}) \leq {{max}} \{{{2}},\lfloor {{2}}\overline{{{d}}}\rfloor+{{1}}\}$.
• For any 0<ε<1 there is a constant Δ₀ such that the following holds. Let G be a balanced bipartite graph with maximum degree Δ≥Δ₀ and n≥(1+ε)2Δ vertices on each side, then $\chi_{{{B}}}({{G}})\leq \frac{{{{20}}}}{\epsilon^{{{2}}}} \frac{\Delta}{{{{ln}}}\,\Delta}$.

© 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 64: 277–291, 2010     

Regularized trace of the inverse of the dirichlet laplacian

For the eigenvalues $( \lambda_{n}) _{n=1}^{\infty}$ of the Dirichlet Laplacian on a bounded convex domain $\font\open=msbm10 at 10pt\def\C{\hbox{\open C}}\Omega\subset{\C}$ , we find the sum of the series the regularized trace of the inverse of Dirichlet Laplacian. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Eigenvalue Problem of Singular Ergodic Control

We consider the problem of finding a real number λ and a function u satisfying the PDE Here f is a convex, superlinear function. We prove that there is a unique λ* such that the above PDE has a viscosity solution u satisfying $\lim_{|x|\rightarrow \infty}u(x)/|x|=1$ . Moreover, we show that associated to λ* is a convex solution u* with D²u^*∈ $\font\open=msbm10 at 10pt\def\R{\hbox{\open R}}L^{\infty}(\R^N)$ and give two min‐max formulae for λ*. λ* has a probabilistic interpretation as being the least, long‐time averaged (ergodic) cost for a singular control problem involving f. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Non‐rainbow colorings of 3‐, 4‐ and 5‐connected plane graphs

We study vertex‐colorings of plane graphs that do not contain a rainbow face, i.e., a face with vertices of mutually distinct colors. If G is a 3 ‐connected plane graph with n vertices, then the number of colors in such a coloring does not exceed . If G is 4 ‐connected, then the number of colors is at most , and for n≡3(mod8), it is at most . Finally, if G is 5 ‐connected, then the number of colors is at most . The bounds for 3 ‐connected and 4 ‐connected plane graphs are the best possible as we exhibit constructions of graphs with colorings matching the bounds. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 63: 129–145, 2010