The character and the wave front set correspondence in the stable range

We relate the distribution characters and the wave front sets of unitary representation for real reductive dual pairs of type I in the stable range.     

On the realization of Riemannian symmetric spaces in Lie groups

In this paper we give a realization of some symmetric space G/K as a closed submanifold P of G. We also give several equivalent representations of the submanifold P. Some properties of the set gK∩P are also discussed, where gK is a coset space in G.     

Asymptotique de la norme $L^2$ d'un cycle géodésique dans les revêtements de congruence d'une variété hyperbolique arithmétique

Let M be an arithmetic hyperbolic manifold and be a codimension 1 geodesic cycle. In this paper, we study the asymptotic growth of the -norm of the lifts of F in the congruence tower above M. We obtain an explicit value for the growth rate of this norm. In particular, we provide a new proof of a celebrated result of Millson [Mi] on the homology of the arithmetic hyperbolic manifolds. The method is quite general and gives a new way of getting non zero homology classes in certain locally symmetric spaces. Received: 20 April 2001; in final form: 26 September 2001 / Published online: 28 February 2002     

Hydroxylation-induced modifications of the Al2O3/NiAl(0 0 1) surface at low water vapour pressure

STM, STS, LEED and XPS data for crystalline θ-Al₂O₃ and non-crystalline Al₂O₃ ultra-thin films grown on NiAl(0 0 1) at 1025 K and exposed to water vapour at low pressure (1 × 10⁻⁷-1 × 10⁻⁵ mbar) and room temperature are reported. Water dissociation is observed at low pressure. This reactivity is assigned to the presence of a high density of coordinatively unsaturated cationic sites at the surface of the oxide film. The hydroxyl/hydroxide groups cannot be directly identify by their XPS binding energy, which is interpreted as resulting from the high BE positions of the oxide anions (O_1s signal at 532.5-532.8 eV). However the XPS intensities give evidence of an uptake of oxygen accompanied by an increase of the surface coverage by Al³⁺ cations, and a decrease of the concentration in metallic Al at the alloy interface. A value of ∼2 for the oxygen to aluminium ions surface concentration ratio indicates the formation of an oxy-hydroxide (AlO_xOH_y with x + y ∼ 2) hydroxylation product. STM and LEED show the amorphisation and roughening of the oxide film. At P(H₂O) = 1 × 10⁻⁷ mbar, only the surface of the oxide film is modified, with formation of nodules of ∼2 nm lateral size covering homogeneously the surface. STS shows that essentially the valence band is modified with an increase of the density of states at the band edge. With increasing pressure, hydroxylation is amplified, leading to an increased coverage of the alloy by oxy-hydroxide products and to the formation of larger nodules (∼7 nm) of amorphous oxy-hydroxide. Roughening and loss of the nanostructure indicate a propagation of the reaction that modifies the bulk structure of the oxide film. Amorphisation can be reverted to crystallization by annealing under UHV at 1025 K when the surface of the oxide film has been modified, but not when the bulk structure has been modified.     

Berezin transform on¶compact Hermitian symmetric spaces

Let X=G ^* be a compact Hermitian symmetric space. We study the Berezin transform on L ²(X) and calculate its spectrum under the decomposition of L ²(X) into the irreducible representations of G ^*. As applications we find the expansion of powers of the canonical polynomial (Bergman reproducing kernel for the canonical line bundle) in terms of the spherical polynomials on X, and we find the irreducible decomposition of tensor products of Bergman spaces on X. Received: 10 September 1996 / Revised version: 10 September 1997     

Intertwining differential operators and reducibility of generalized Verma modules

Supported in part by NSF Grant DMS-8610730     

Optimal convex hull algorithms on enhanced meshes

In this paper we propose time-optimal convex hull algorithms for two classes of enhanced meshes. Our first algorithm computes the convex hull of an arbitrary set ofn points in the plane inO (logn) time on a mesh with multiple broadcasting of sizen×n. The second algorithm shows that the same problem can be solved inO (1) time on a reconfigurable mesh of sizen×n. Both algorithms achieve time lower bounds for their respective model of computation.This work was supported by NASA under grant NCCI-99.Additional support by the National Science Foundation under grant CCR-8909996 is gratefully acknowledged.     

Countably compact topological group topologies on free Abelian groups from selective ultrafilters

Tkachenko showed in 1990 the existence of a countably compact group topology on the free Abelian group of size c using CH. Koszmider, Tomita and Watson showed in 2000 the existence of a countably compact group topology on the free Abelian group of size c² using a forcing model in which CH holds.Wallace's question from 1955, asks whether every both-sided cancellative countably compact semigroup is a topological group. A counterexample to Wallace's question has been called a Wallace semigroup. In 1996, Robbie and Svetlichny constructed a Wallace semigroup under CH. In the same year, Tomita constructed a Wallace semigroup from MAcountable.In this note, we show that the examples of Tkachenko, Robbie and Svetlichny, and Koszmider, Tomita and Watson can be obtained using a family of selective ultrafilters. As a corollary, the constructions presented here are compatible with the total failure of Martin's Axiom.     

Predicting automobile claims bodily injury severity with sequential ordered logit models

Despite the large cost of bodily injury (BI) claims in motor insurance, relatively little research has been done in this area. Many companies estimate (and therefore reserve) bodily injury compensation directly from initial medical reports. This practice may underestimate the final cost, because the severity is often assessed during the recovery period. Since the evaluation of this severity is often only qualitative, in this paper we apply an ordered multiple choice model at different moments in the life of a claim reported to an insurance company. We assume that the information available to the insurer does not flow continuously, because it is obtained at different stages. Using a real data set, we show that the application of sequential ordered logit models leads to a significant improvement in the prediction of the BI severity level, compared to the subjective classification that is used in practice. We also show that these results could improve the insurer’s reserves notably.     

Packing Non-Zero A-Paths In Group-Labelled Graphs

Let G=(V,E) be an oriented graph whose edges are labelled by the elements of a group Γ and let A⊂V. An A-path is a path whose ends are both in A. The weight of a path P in G is the sum of the group values on forward oriented arcs minus the sum of the backward oriented arcs in P. (If Γ is not abelian, we sum the labels in their order along the path.) We are interested in the maximum number of vertex-disjoint A-paths each of non-zero weight. When A = V this problem is equivalent to the maximum matching problem. The general case also includes Mader's S-paths problem. We prove that for any positive integer k, either there are k vertex-disjoint A-paths each of non-zero weight, or there is a set of at most 2k −2 vertices that meets each of the non-zero A-paths. This result is obtained as a consequence of an exact min-max theorem. These results were obtained at a workshop on Structural Graph Theory at the PIMS Institute in Vancouver, Canada. This research was partially conducted during the period the first author served as a Clay Mathematics Institute Long-Term Prize Fellow.