Theory of Valuations on Manifolds: A Survey

This is a non-technical survey of a recent theory of valuations on manifolds constructed in [A10], [A11], [AF] and [A12], and actually a guide to this series of articles. We also review some recent related results obtained by a number of people. Received: February 2006, Revision: June 2006, Accepted: June 2006     

Scaling probability, key to the equilibrium statistical volume distribution in foams

The equilibrium statistical volume distribution in foams, which has been previously demonstrated to be the so-called log-normal, is accounted on probability grounds by a scaling law on the bubble's volume time-evolution. This law states that the conditional probability for a given bubble to have the volume v(t + Δt), he assumption that it was v(t), to depend solely on the relationship v(t + Δt)/v(t), and in particular, to be independent of the time t. The theoretical results, however, allow to go further. Indeed, since the time dependece of its parameters (expectation and variance) are given functions of time, only two parameters are necessary to describe completely the foam.     

A Note on an Input Control Model of a Predictive Regression Interval

A well-known problem of prediction in linear regression models is to find a confidence interval for the random value of the dependent variable when the values of the independent variables are given. Such a situation may arise in economic quality control models when the independent variables are costly inputs and the dependent variable is some measure of quality or production. In such a circumstance, an important control objective may be to find values for the inputs that will maximize the lower limit of the prediction confidence interval for a fixed budget, or alternatively, to minimize the cost of the inputs for a fixed lower limit of the confidence interval. In this paper, we shall show that global optima can be found using known algorithms. The special case of simple linear regression is discussed and an illustrative example is provided.     

Stability of translating solutions to mean curvature flow

We prove stability of rotationally symmetric translating solutions to mean curvature flow. For initial data that converge spatially at infinity to such a soliton, we obtain convergence for large times to that soliton without imposing any decay rates. The authors are members of SFB 647/B3 “Raum – Zeit – Materie: Singularity Structure, Long-time Behaviour and Dynamics of Solutions of Non-linear Evolution Equations”.     

A characterization of certain irreducible symplectic 4-folds

 We give a characterization of irreducible symplectic fourfolds which are given as Hilbert scheme of points on a K3 surface. Received: 26 June 2002 / Revised version: 9 September 2002 Published online: 14 February 2003 Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): Primary 14J32, Secondary 32Q20     

A proof of Culter’s theorem on the existence of periodic orbits in polygonal outer billiards

We prove a recent theorem by C. Culter every polygonal outer billiard in the affine plane has a periodic trajectory.      

Orbifold fibrations of Eschenburg spaces

Most of the few known examples of compact Riemannian manifolds with positive sectional curvature are the total space of a Riemannian submersion. In this article we show that this is true for all known examples, if we enlarge the category to orbifold fibrations. For this purpose we study all almost free isometric circle actions on positively curved Eschenburg spaces, which give rise to principle orbifold bundle structures, and we examine in detail their geometric properties. In particular, we obtain a new family of 6-dimensional orbifolds with positive sectional curvature whose singular locus consists of just two points.