The negative sign and exponential expressions: Unveiling students’ persistent errors and misconceptions

The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not certain errors made when simplifying exponential expressions persist as students progress through their mathematical studies. College students enrolled in college algebra, pre-calculus, and first- and second-semester calculus mathematics courses were asked to simplify exponential expressions on an assessment. Persistent errors are identified and characterized. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, we found that the concept of negativity played a prominent role in most of the students’ errors. We theorize that an underdeveloped conception of additive and multiplicative inverses is the root of these errors.     

Autour de la condition d'engel dans les algèbres de bernstein

We know that, in general, an algebra satisfying an Engel's condition is a nilalgebra. But an Engel's condition don't implies necessarily the nilpotency of the algebra. In this paper we show that every Bernstein algebra satisfying the second or the third Engel's condition is genetic, that is, the kernel of his weight fonction is nilpotent. This is also the case for a Bernstein algebra satisfying the second weak Engel's condition.

On sait que, en général, toute algèbre vérifiant une condition d'Engel est une nilalgèbre. Cependant, une condition d'Engel n'entraîne pas nécessairement la nilpotence de l'algèbre. Nous montrons, dans ce papier, que taute algèbre de Bernstein vérifiant la deuxième ou la troisième condition d'Engel est génétique, c'est-à-dire, le noyau de sa pondération est nilpotent. C'est aussi le cas pour la deuxième condition faible d'Engel.     

Fq-linear codes over Fq-algebras

Huffman (2013) [12] studied ${\mathbb{F}}_q$-linear codes over ${\mathbb{F}}_{q^m}$ and he proved the MacWilliams identity for these codes with respect to ordinary and Hermitian trace inner products. Let S be a finite commutative ${\mathbb{F}}_q$-algebra. An ${\mathbb{F}}_q$-linear code over S of length n is an ${\mathbb{F}}_q$-submodule of $S^n$. In this paper, we study ${\mathbb{F}}_q$-linear codes over S. We obtain some bounds on minimum distance of these codes, and some large classes of MDR codes are introduced. We generalize the ordinary and Hermitian trace products over ${\mathbb{F}}_q$-algebras and we prove the MacWilliams identity with respect to the generalized form. In particular, we obtain Huffman's results on the MacWilliams identity. Among other results, we give a theory to construct a class of quantum codes and the structure of ${\mathbb{F}}_q$-linear codes over finite commutative graded ${\mathbb{F}}_q$-algebras.     

On the Hyers-Ulam-Rassias stability of an additive functional equation in quasi-Banach spaces

In this paper we investigate the Hyers-Ulam-Rassias stability of the following functional equation:

     

Polyboxes,Cube Tilings and Rigidity

A non-empty subset A of X=X ₁×???×X _d is a (proper) box if A=A ₁×???×A _d and A _i ?X _i for each i. Suppose that for each pair of boxes A, B and each i, one can only know which of the three states takes place: A _i =B _i , A _i =X _i ?B _i , A _i ?{B _i ,X _i ?B _i }. Let F and G be two systems of disjoint boxes. Can one decide whether ∪F=∪G? In general, the answer is ‘no’, but as is shown in the paper, it is ‘yes’ if both systems consist of pairwise dichotomous boxes. (Boxes A, B are dichotomous if there is i such that A _i =X _i ?B _i .) Several criteria that enable to compare such systems are collected. The paper includes also rigidity results, which say what assumptions have to be imposed on F to ensure that ∪F=∪G implies F=G. As an application, the rigidity conjecture for 2-extremal cube tilings of Lagarias and Shor is verified.     

The asymptotic probability distribution of the relative distance of additive quantum codes

For given information rate R, it is proved as n tends to infinite, that almost all additive ?n,n⋅R? quantum codes (pure and impure) are the codes with their relative distance tending to h⁻¹(1−R), where is an entropy function.     

Mean-value theorems and extensions of the Elliott-Daboussi theorem on additive arithmetic semigroups

We present more general forms of the mean-value theorems established before for multiplicative functions on additive arithmetic semigroups and prove, on the basis of these new theorems, extensions of the Elliott-Daboussi theorem. Let be an additive arithmetic semigroup with a generating set ℘ of primes p. Assume that the number G(m) of elements a in with “degree” ∂(a)=m satisfies