关于Steiner比猜想

本文所讨论的是Ｓｔｅｉｎｅｒ比猜想。全文共分两部分：第一部分包括历史回顾和对ｎ＝３,４,５三种情况对该猜想的正确性给出了简单的证明;第二部分则对于一般的ｎ给出了一个证明。     

Spanning trees without adjacent vertices of degree 2

Albertson, Berman, Hutchinson, and Thomassen showed in 1990 that there exist highly connected graphs in which every spanning tree contains vertices of degree 2. Using a result of Alon and Wormald, we show that there exists a natural number $d$ such that every graph of minimum degree at least $d$ contains a spanning tree without adjacent vertices of degree 2. Moreover, we prove that every graph with minimum degree at least 3 has a spanning tree without three consecutive vertices of degree 2.     

Milnor numbers, spanning trees, and the Alexander–Conway polynomial

We study relations between the Alexander–Conway polynomial _L and Milnor higher linking numbers of links from the point of view of finite-type (Vassiliev) invariants. We give a formula for the first non-vanishing coefficient of _L of an m-component link L all of whose Milnor numbers μ_i1…ip vanish for pn. We express this coefficient as a polynomial in Milnor numbers of L. Depending on whether the parity of n is odd or even, the terms in this polynomial correspond either to spanning trees in certain graphs or to decompositions of certain 3-graphs into pairs of spanning trees. Our results complement determinantal formulas of Traldi and Levine obtained by geometric methods.     

A homotopy equivalence that is not homotopic to a topological embedding

An open subset W of Sⁿ, n 6 or N = 4, and a homotopy equivalence ƒ: S² × S^{n − 4} → W are constructed having the property that ƒ is not homotopic to any topological embedding.     

Saddle points and Lagrangian-type duality for discrete minmax fractional subset programming problems with generalized convex functions

In this paper we present four sets of saddle-point-type optimality conditions, construct two Lagrangian-type dual problems, and prove weak and strong duality theorems for a discrete minmax fractional subset programming problem. We establish these optimality and duality results under appropriate (b,?,ρ,θ)-convexity hypotheses.     

Packing algorithms for arborescences (and spanning trees) in capacitated graphs

In a digraph with real-valued edge capacities, we pack the greatest number of arborescences in time O(n ³m log(n ²/m)); the packing uses at mostm distinct arborescences. Heren andm denote the number of vertices and edges in the given graph, respectively. Similar results hold for integral packing: we pack the greatest number of arborescences in time O(min{n, logN}n ²m log(n ²/)) using at mostm + n – 2 distinct arborescences; hereN denotes the largest (integral) capacity of an edge. These resuts improve the best previous bounds for capacitated digraphs. The algorithm extends to several related problems, including packing spanning trees in an undirected capacitated graph, and covering such graphs by forests. The algorithm provides a new proof of Edmonds' theorem for arborescence packing, for both integral and real capacities, based on a laminar family of sets derived from the packing. © 1998 The Mathematical Programming Society, Inc. Published by Elsevier Science B.V.     

Characters of association schemes containing a strongly normal closed subset of prime index

We consider a relation between characters of an association scheme and its strongly normal closed subsets with prime index. As an application of our result, we show that an association scheme of prime square order with a proper strongly normal closed subset is commutative.

     

A generalized linear production model: A unifying model

We introduce a generalized linear production model whose attractive feature being that the resources held by any subset of producersS is not restricted to be the vector sum of the resources held by the members ofS. We provide sufficient conditions for the non-emptiness of the core of the associated generalized linear production game, and show that if the core of the game is not empty then a solution in it can be produced from a dual optimal solution to the associated linear programming problem. Our generalized linear production model is a proper generalization of the linear production model introduced by Owen, and it can be used to analyze cooperative games which cannot be studied in the ordinary linear production model framework. We use the generalized model to show that the cooperative game induced by a network optimization problem in which players are the nodes of the network has a non-empty core. We further employ our model to prove the non-emptiness of the core of two other classes of cooperative games, which were not previously studied in the literature, and we also use our generalized model to provide an alternative proof for the non-emptiness of the core of the class of minimum cost spanning tree games. Thus, it appears that the generalized linear production model is a unifying model which can be used to explain the non-emptiness of the core of cooperative games generated by various, seemingly different, optimization models.This research was partially done while the author was visiting the Graduate School of Business Administration at Tel-Aviv University. The research was partially supported by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Canada Grant A4181 and by SSHRC leave fellowship 451-83-0030.Dedicated to George B. Dantzig.     

Small set in a large box

Let K ? ?^d be a compact convex set which is an intersection of half-spaces defined by at most two coordinates. Let Q be the smallest axes-parallel box containing K. We show that, as the dimension d grows, the ratio diam Q/ diam K can be arbitrarily large. We also give examples of compact sets in Banach spaces which are not contained in any compact contractive set.