On idempotents of a class of commutative rings

Abstract

In the present work, a procedure for determining idempotents of a commutative ring having a sequence of ideals with certain properties is presented. As an application of this procedure, idempotent elements of various commutative rings are determined. Several examples are included illustrating the main results.     

A dominance-based rough set approach applied to evaluate the credit risk of sovereign bonds

4OR - Even though sovereign bonds represent low-risk alternatives that give investors a healthy income, the risk assessment process for these bonds is still considered subjective because of the...     

A new regularization of equilibrium problems on Hadamard manifolds: applications to theories of desires

In this paper, we introduce a new proximal algorithm for equilibrium problems on a genuine Hadamard manifold, using a new regularization term. We first extend recent existence results by considering pseudomonotone bifunctions and a weaker sufficient condition than the coercivity assumption. Then, we consider the convergence of this proximal-like algorithm which can be applied to genuinely Hadamard manifolds and not only to specific ones, as in the recent literature. A striking point is that our new regularization term have a clear interpretation in a recent “variational rationality” approach of human behavior. It represents the resistance to change aspects of such human dynamics driven by motivation to change aspects. This allows us to give an application to the theories of desires, showing how an agent must escape to a succession of temporary traps to be able to reach, at the end, his desires.

     

On the index of a holomorphic vector field tangent to a singular variety

In this article we define and compute an index for a holomorphic vector field on a (possibly singular) subvariety of a complex manifold, provided the subvariety is a local complete intersection. This index reduces to the usual Poincaré-Hopf index in case the subvariety is smooth, and is equal more generally to the index defined in [GSV] and [SS].     

Complete ( q 2?+ q +?8)/2-caps in the spaces PG (3, q ), q ≡ 2 (mod 3) an odd prime, and a complete 20-cap in PG (3, 5)

An infinite family of complete (q ² + q + 8)/2-caps is constructed in PG(3, q) where q is an odd prime ≡ 2 (mod 3), q ≥ 11. This yields a new lower bound on the second largest size of complete caps. A variant of our construction also produces one of the two previously known complete 20-caps in PG(3, 5). The associated code weight distribution and other combinatorial properties of the new (q ² + q + 8)/2-caps and the 20-cap in PG(3, 5) are investigated. The updated table of the known sizes of the complete caps in PG(3, q) is given. As a byproduct, we have found that the unique complete 14-arc in PG(2, 17) contains 10 points on a conic. Actually, this shows that an earlier general result dating back to the Seventies fails for q = 17.      

Isometries on spaces of vector valued Lipschitz functions

This paper gives a characterization of a class of surjective isometries on spaces of Lipschitz functions with values in a finite dimensional complex Hilbert space.     

Some Combinatorial Aspects of Constructing Bipartite-Graph Codes

We propose geometrical methods for constructing square 01-matrices with the same number n of units in every row and column, and such that any two rows of the matrix contain at most one unit in common. These matrices are equivalent to n-regular bipartite graphs without 4-cycles, and therefore can be used for the construction of efficient bipartite-graph codes such that both the classes of its vertices are associated with local constraints. We significantly extend the region of parameters m, n for which there exist an n-regular bipartite graph with 2m vertices and without 4-cycles. In that way we essentially increase the region of lengths and rates of the corresponding bipartite-graph codes. Many new matrices are either circulant or consist of circulant submatrices: this provides code parity-check matrices consisting of circulant submatrices, and hence quasi-cyclic bipartite-graph codes with simple implementation.     

Efficiency and sustainability assessment for a group of farmers in the Brazilian Amazon

The aim of this paper is to use DEA models to evaluate sustainability in agriculture. Several variables are taken into account and the resulting efficiency is measured by comparison. The performance of family farms is analysed here (variables: farmed area, work force, and production). As agricultural sustainability depends on the maintenance of systems of production for long periods of time, the models were run for the years of 1986 and 2002. Tiered DEA models were used to group farmers in sustainability categories. Non-parametric regression models were used to identify the factors affecting the efficiency measurements. All the results indicate that the majority of the farmers increased their efficiency along the time. These improvements may support the existence of sustainability.     

Complete caps in projective spaces PG (n, q)

A computer search in the finite projective spaces PG(n, q) for the spectrum of possible sizes k of complete k-caps is done. Randomized greedy algorithms are applied. New upper bounds on the smallest size of a complete cap are given for many values of n and q. Many new sizes of complete caps are obtained.