The Kumar-Becker-Lin scheme revisited

The Kumar-Becker-Lin scheme introduces a slowly vanishing cost bias in the parameter estimation part of self-tuning control in order to improve its performance. This paper establishes the a.s. optimality of a variant of this scheme for Markov chains on a countable state space when the action space is compact metric and the parameter space is a compact subset ofR ^m .     

Designs and Representation of the Symmetric Group

We study (generalized) designs supported by words of given composition. We characterize them in terms of orthogonality relations with Specht modules; we define some zonal functions for the symmetric group and we give a closed formula for them, indexed on ordered pair of semi-standard generalized tableaux: Hahn polynomials are a particular case. We derive an algorithm to test if a set is a design. We use it to search designs in some ternary self-dual codes.     

Irreducible Representations of Wreath Products of Association Schemes

The wreath product of finite association schemes is a natural generalization of the notion of the wreath product of finite permutation groups. We determine all irreducible representations (the Jacobson radical) of a wreath product of two finite association schemes over an algebraically closed field in terms of the irreducible representations (Jacobson radicals) of the two factors involved.     

Further results on large sets of disjoint group‐divisible designs with block size three and type 2n41

Large sets of disjoint group‐divisible designs with block size three and type 2ⁿ4¹ were first studied by Schellenberg and Stinson because of their connection with perfect threshold schemes. It is known that such large sets can exist only for n ≡0 (mod 3) and do exist for all odd n ≡ (mod 3) and for even n=24m, where m odd ≥ 1. In this paper, we show that such large sets exist also for n=2^k(3m), where m odd≥ 1 and k≥ 5. To accomplish this, we present two quadrupling constructions and two tripling constructions for a special large set called ^*LS(2ⁿ). © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 11: 24–35, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/jcd.10032     

A monotone iterative scheme for a nonlinear second order equation based on a generalized anti–maximum principle

In this paper, a generalized anti–maximum principle for the second order differential operator with potentials is proved. As an application, we will give a monotone iterative scheme for periodic solutions of nonlinear second order equations. Such a scheme involves the L^p norms of the growth, 1 ≤ p ≤ ∞, while the usual one is just the case p = ∞.     

On the efficiency of selection criteria in spline regression

This paper concerns the cubic smoothing spline approach to nonparametric regression. After first deriving sharp asymptotic formulas for the eigenvalues of the smoothing matrix, the paper uses these formulas to investigate the efficiency of different selection criteria for choosing the smoothing parameter. Special attention is paid to the generalized maximum likelihood (GML), C _p and extended exponential (EE) criteria and their marginal Bayesian interpretation. It is shown that (a) when the Bayesian model that motivates GML is true, using C _p to estimate the smoothing parameter would result in a loss of efficiency with a factor of 10/3, proving and strengthening a conjecture proposed in Stein (1990); (b) when the data indeed come from the C _p density, using GML would result in a loss of efficiency of ; (c) the loss of efficiency of the EE criterion is at most 1.543 when the data are sampled from its consistent density family. The paper not only studies equally spaced observations (the setting of Stein, 1990), but also investigates general sampling scheme of the design points, and shows that the efficiency results remain the same in both cases.This work is supported in part by NSF grant DMS-0204674 and Harvard University Clark-Cooke Fund. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000):Primary: 62G08; Secondary: 62G20     

Varieties of Complete Pairs of Zero-Dimensional Subschemes of Lengths ≥2 and ≥4 in Algebraic Surfaces

We prove that the varieties of complete pairs of zero-dimensional subschemes of lengths d ₁ 2, d ₂ 4 on a smooth irreducible projective algebraic surface are singular.     

Galerkin Approximations for the Linear Parabolic Equation with the Third Boundary Condition

We solve a linear parabolic equation in ^d , d 1, with the third nonhomogeneous boundary condition using the finite element method for discretization in space, and the -method for discretization in time. The convergence of both, the semidiscrete approximations and the fully discretized ones, is analysed. The proofs are based on a generalization of the idea of the elliptic projection. The rate of convergence is derived also for variable time step-sizes.     

Researches of DC—Problem Under the Model S in which the Numbers of Defective Coins are not Fixed

In this paper,we research general Defective Cion Problem under the model S,i.e,the number d of Defective cions is not fixed. For d=O,1,or 2. we get some good results.