Structural and electrical study of Ce-substituted bismuth vanadate

Samples of Ce^IV-substituted bismuth vanadate, formulated as Bi₄Ce_xV_2−xO_{11−(x/2)−δ}; 0≤x≤0.30, were synthesized by solid-state reactions. The phase structure and electrical conductivity were investigated using X-ray powder diffraction, FT-IR, differential thermal analysis and AC impedance spectroscopy. For a low composition range, two phase transitions, α↔β and β↔γ, were exhibited in which the system mimics in most events the parent compound. Impedance analysis evidenced no relationship between the blocking effect of charge carriers and structural changes at ambient temperatures. However, the temperature dependence of conductivity was correlated with the stability region of various phases within the system.     

Completeness and unbiased estimation of mean vector in the multivariate group sequential case

We consider estimation after a group sequential test about a multivariate normal mean, such as a χ² test or a sequential version of the Bonferroni procedure. We derive the density function of the sufficient statistics and show that the sample mean remains to be the maximum likelihood estimator but is no longer unbiased. We propose an alternative Rao-Blackwell type unbiased estimator. We show that the family of distributions of the sufficient statistic is not complete, and there exist infinitely many unbiased estimators of the mean vector and none has uniformly minimum variance. However, when restricted to truncation-adaptable statistics, completeness holds and the Rao-Blackwell estimator has uniformly minimum variance.     

Second order optimality for estimators in time series regression models

We consider the second order asymptotic properties of an efficient frequency domain regression coefficient estimator proposed by Hannan [Regression for time series, Proc. Sympos. Time Series Analysis (Brown Univ., 1962), Wiley, New York, 1963, pp. 17-37]. This estimator is a semiparametric estimator based on nonparametric spectral estimators. We derive the second order Edgeworth expansion of the distribution of . Then it is shown that the second order asymptotic properties are independent of the bandwidth choice for residual spectral estimator, which implies that has the same rate of convergence as in regular parametric estimation. This is a sharp contrast with the general semiparametric estimation theory. We also examine the second order Gaussian efficiency of . Numerical studies are given to confirm the theoretical results.     

Weak convergence in the functional autoregressive model

The functional autoregressive model is a Markov model taylored for data of functional nature. It revealed fruitful when attempting to model samples of dependent random curves and has been widely studied along the past few years. This article aims at completing the theoretical study of the model by addressing the issue of weak convergence for estimates from the model. The main difficulties stem from an underlying inverse problem as well as from dependence between the data. Traditional facts about weak convergence in non-parametric models appear: the normalizing sequence is not an , a bias term appears. Several original features of the functional framework are pointed out.     

On the convergence of Newton's method when estimating higher dimensional parameters

In this paper, we consider the estimation of a parameter of interest where the estimator is one of the possibly several solutions of a set of nonlinear empirical equations. Since Newton's method is often used in such a setting to obtain a solution, it is important to know whether the so obtained iteration converges to the locally unique consistent root to the aforementioned parameter of interest. Under some conditions, we show that this is eventually the case when starting the iteration from within a ball about the true parameter whose size does not depend on n. Any preliminary almost surely consistent estimate will eventually lie in such a ball and therefore provides a suitable starting point for large enough n. As examples, we will apply our results in the context of M-estimates, kernel density estimates, as well as minimum distance estimates.     

The minimum span of L(2,1)-labelings of certain generalized Petersen graphs

In the classical channel assignment problem, transmitters that are sufficiently close together are assigned transmission frequencies that differ by prescribed amounts, with the goal of minimizing the span of frequencies required. This problem can be modeled through the use of an L(2,1)-labeling, which is a function f from the vertex set of a graph G to the non-negative integers such that |f(x)-f(y)|? 2 if xand y are adjacent vertices and |f(x)-f(y)|?1 if xand y are at distance two. The goal is to determine the λ-number of G, which is defined as the minimum span over all L(2,1)-labelings of G, or equivalently, the smallest number k such that G has an L(2,1)-labeling using integers from {0,1,…,k}. Recent work has focused on determining the λ-number of generalized Petersen graphs (GPGs) of order n. This paper provides exact values for the λ-numbers of GPGs of orders 5, 7, and 8, closing all remaining open cases for orders at most 8. It is also shown that there are no GPGs of order 4, 5, 8, or 11 with λ-number exactly equal to the known lower bound of 5, however, a construction is provided to obtain examples of GPGs with λ-number 5 for all other orders. This paper also provides an upper bound for the number of distinct isomorphism classes for GPGs of any given order. Finally, the exact values for the λ-number of n-stars, a subclass of the GPGs inspired by the classical Petersen graph, are also determined. These generalized stars have a useful representation on Möebius strips, which is fundamental in verifying our results.     

CLP-compactness for topological spaces and groups

We study CLP-compact spaces (every cover consisting of clopen sets has a finite subcover) and CLP-compact topological groups. In particular, we extend a theorem on CLP-compactness of products from [J. Steprāns, A. Šostak, Restricted compactness properties and their preservation under products, Topology Appl. 101 (3) (2000) 213-229] and we offer various criteria for CLP-compactness for spaces and topological groups, that work particularly well for precompact groups. This allows us to show that arbitrary products of CLP-compact pseudocompact groups are CLP-compact. For every natural n we construct:

(i)

a totally disconnected, n-dimensional, pseudocompact CLP-compact group; and

(ii)

a hereditarily disconnected, n-dimensional, totally minimal, CLP-compact group that can be chosen to be either separable metrizable or pseudocompact (a Hausdorff group G is totally minimal when all continuous surjective homomorphisms G→H, with a Hausdorff group H, are open).

     

Relative copure injective and copure flat modules

Let R be a ring, n a fixed nonnegative integer and I_n (F_n) the class of all left (right) R-modules of injective (flat) dimension at most n. A left R-module M (resp., right R-module F) is called n-copure injective (resp., n-copure flat) if (resp., ) for any N∈I_n. It is shown that a left R-module M over any ring R is n-copure injective if and only if M is a kernel of an I_n-precover f:A→B of a left R-module B with A injective. For a left coherent ring R, it is proven that every right R-module has an F_n-preenvelope, and a finitely presented right R-module M is n-copure flat if and only if M is a cokernel of an F_n-preenvelope K→F of a right R-module K with F flat. These classes of modules are also used to construct cotorsion theories and to characterize the global dimension of a ring under suitable conditions.     

Valuations dominating regular local rings and proximity relations

We study zero-dimensional valuations dominating a regular local ring of dimension n≥2. For this we introduce the proximity matrix and the multiplicity sequence (extending classical definitions of the case n=2) that are associated with the sequence of the successive quadratic transforms of the ring along the valuation. We describe the precise relations between these invariants and study their properties.     

On universal central extensions of precrossed and crossed modules

We study the connection between universal central extensions in the categories of precrossed and crossed modules. They are compared with several kinds of universal central extensions in the categories of groups, epimorphisms of groups, groups with operators and modules over a group. We study the relationship between the homologies defined in these categories. Applications to relative algebraic K-theory are also obtained.