A diagrammatic view of the equals sign: arithmetical equivalence as a means,not an end

It is recommended in the mathematics education literature that pupils be presented with equality statements that can be assessed for numerical balance by attending to notational structure rather than computation. I describe an alternative, diagrammatic approach in which pupils do not assess statements but instead use them to make substitutions of notation. I report on two trials of a computer-based task conducted with pairs of pupils and highlight two findings. First, the pupils found it useful to articulate the distinct substitutive effects of commutative (‘swap’, ‘switch’) and partitional (‘split’, ‘separate’) statements when working on the task. Secondly, the pupils did not notice that some of the statements presented were in fact false, which suggests their substituting activities were independent of numerical equivalence conceptions. This demonstrates that making substitutions offers task designers a mathematical utility for equality statements that is distinct from, but complementary to, assessing numerical balance.     

A structural characterization of real k-potent matrices

Some well-known characterizations of nonnegative k-potent matrices have been obtained by Flor [P. Flor, On groups of nonnegative matrices, Compositio Math. 21 (1969), pp. 376–382.] and Jeter and Pye [M. Jeter and W. Pye, Nonnegative (s,?t)-potent matrices, Linear Algebra Appl. 45 (1982), pp. 109–121.]. In this article, we obtain a structural characterization of a real k-potent matrix A, provided that (sgn(A)) ^k+1 is unambiguously defined, regardless of whether A is nonnegative or not.     

Imprimitive non-powerful sign pattern matrices with maximum base

You et al. [L.H. You, J.Y. Shao, and H.Y. Shan, Bounds on the bases of irreducible generalized sign pattern matrices, Linear Algebra Appl. 427 (2007), pp. 285–300], obtained an upper bound of the bases for imprimitive non-powerful sign pattern matrices. In this article, we characterize those imprimitive non-powerful sign pattern matrices whose bases reach this upper bound.     

On reducible matrix patterns

A tool to study the inertias of reducible nonzero (resp. sign) patterns is presented. Sumsets are used to obtain a list of inertias attainable by the pattern 𝒜 ⊕ ? dependent upon inertias attainable by patterns 𝒜 and ?. It is shown that if ? is a pattern of order n, and 𝒜 is an inertially arbitrary pattern of order at least 2(n ? 1), then 𝒜 ⊕ ? is inertially arbitrary if and only if ? allows the inertias (0, 0, n), (0, n, 0) and (n, 0, 0). We illustrate how to construct other reducible inertially (resp. spectrally) arbitrary patterns from an inertially (resp. spectrally) arbitrary pattern 𝒜 ⊕ ?, by replacing 𝒜 with an inertially (resp. spectrally) arbitrary pattern 𝒮. We identify reducible inertially (resp. spectrally) arbitrary patterns of the smallest orders that contain some irreducible components that are not inertially (resp. spectrally) arbitrary. It is shown there exist nonzero (resp. sign) patterns 𝒜 and ? of orders 4 and 5 (resp. 4 and 4) such that both 𝒜 and ? are non-inertially-arbitrary, and 𝒜 ⊕ ? is inertially arbitrary.     

The kth upper and lower bases of primitive nonpowerful minimally strong signed digraphs

In this article, we study the kth upper and lower bases of primitive nonpowerful minimally strong signed digraphs. A bound on the kth upper bases for primitive nonpowerful minimally strong signed digraphs is obtained, and the equality case of the bound is characterized. For the kth lower bases, we obtain some bounds. For some cases, the bounds are best possible and the extremal signed digraphs are characterized. We also show that there exist ‘gaps’ in both the kth upper base set and the kth lower base set of primitive nonpowerful minimally strong signed digraphs.     

A duality principle corresponding to the parabolic equations

Our principal problem consists in finding threshold values for a family of blow-up solutions of nonlinear evolution problems depending on a real parameter λ. We seek to obtain the solution of the problem in a constructive and unified approach which would provide the answer for the following general question: Is there is a constructive method for finding the threshold values? We illustrate our approach by means of an example of finding a threshold value for a family of parabolic equations with nonlinearity indefinite in sign. In the main result, the threshold value is expressed via explicitly specified dual variational principles of a new type.     

一类含有2n个非零元的极小谱任意符号模式

设A为n阶符号模式,如果对任意n次首1实系数多项式r(x),都有一个实矩阵B在符号模式A的定性矩阵类Q(Α)中,且B的特征多项式为f(x)=r(x),则称A是谱任意的.如果A是谱任意的并且A的真子模式都不是谱任意的,则称A为极小谱任意的.文章对一类新的含有2n个非零元的n阶符号模式运用幂零——雅可比方法证明了其为极小谱任意模式.