Modules of piecewise polynomials and their freeness

Partially supported by NSF Grant DMS-9004123 and ARO through MSI Cornell (DAAG 29-85-C-0018)     

A characterization of polyhedral market games

The class of games without side payments obtainable from markets having finitely many commodities and continuous concave utility functions is considered. It is first shown that each of these so-called market games is totally balanced, for a reasonable generalization of the idea of a balanced side payment game. It is then shown that among polyhedral games (i.e., games for which each (V(S) is a polyhedron), this property characterizes the market games.     

Enumeration in Convex Geometries and Associated Polytopal Subdivisions of Spheres

We construct CW spheres from the lattices that arise as the closed sets of a convex closure, the meet-distributive lattices. These spheres are nearly polytopal, in the sense that their barycentric subdivisions are simplicial polytopes. The complete information on the numbers of faces and chains of faces in these spheres can be obtained from the defining lattices in a manner analogous to the relation between arrangements of hyperplanes and their underlying geometric intersection lattices.     

Noncommutative Enumeration in Graded Posets

We define a noncommutative algebra of flag-enumeration functionals on graded posets and show it to be isomorphic to the free associative algebra on countably many generators. Restricted to Eulerian posets, this ring has a particularly appealing presentation with kernel generated by Euler relations. A consequence is that even on Eulerian posets, the algebra is free, with generators corresponding to odd jumps in flags. In this context, the coefficients of the cd-index provide a graded basis.     

Geometry of the Space of Phylogenetic Trees

We consider a continuous space which models the set of all phylogenetic trees having a fixed set of leaves. This space has a natural metric of nonpositive curvature, giving a way of measuring distance between phylogenetic trees and providing some procedures for averaging or combining several trees whose leaves are identical. This geometry also shows which trees appear within a fixed distance of a given tree and enables construction of convex hulls of a set of trees. This geometric model of tree space provides a setting in which questions that have been posed by biologists and statisticians over the last decade can be approached in a systematic fashion. For example, it provides a justification for disregarding portions of a collection of trees that agree, thus simplifying the space in which comparisons are to be made.