It is shown that a separable Hilbert space can be covered by non-overlapping closed convex sets Ci with outer radii uniformly bounded from above and inner radii uniformly bounded from below. This answers a question originating from the work of Klee.

This paper extends Hlawka’s theorem (from the point of view of Siegel and Weil) on SL(n,ℝ)/SL(n,ℤ) to Sp(n,ℝ)/Sp(n,ℤ). Namely, if Vn=vol(Sp(n,ℝ)/Sp(n,ℤ), where the measure is the Sp(n,ℝ)-invariant measure on Sp(n,ℝ)/Sp(n,ℤ), then Vn can be expressed in terms of the Riemann zeta function by As a consequence, let D be a domain of a sufficiently regular set in ℝ2n. Then:

1. (i) if vol(D)>Vn, then some lattice in ℝ2n contains a non-zero point of D;

2. (ii) if vol(D)<Vn, then some lattice in ℝ2n contains only the zero point of D;

3. (iii) if D is star-shaped about the origin and vol(D)<ζ(2n)Vn, then some lattice in ℝ2n contains only the zero point of D.

Since any function f(x1, … , xm) from {0, 1}m in a finite field k can be uniquely written as a multilinear polynomial, we associate to it its inverse dual f*(x1, … , xm) expressing the coefficients of this canonical polynomial. We show that the unlikely hypothesis that the class P(k) of sequences of functions of polynomial complexity be closed by duality is equivalent to the well-known hypothesis P = #pP, where p is the characteristic of k.

In a first section we expose the result in the frame of classical Boolean calculus, that is, when k = ℤ/2ℤ. In a second section we treat the general case, introducing a notion of transformation whose duality is a special case; the transformations form a group isomorphic to GL2(k); among them, we distinguish the benign transformations, which have a weak effect on the complexity of functions; we show that, in this respect, all the non-benign transformations have the same power of harmfulness.

In the third section we consider functions from km into k, and in the last, after introducing #P = P to the landscape, we compare our results with those of Guillaume Malod, concerning the closure by ‘coefficient-function’ of various classes of complexity of sequences of polynomial defined in Valiant's way.

We develop an explicit descent theory in the context of Whitehead groups of non-commutative Iwasawa algebras. We apply this theory to describe the precise connection between main conjectures of non-commutative Iwasawa theory (in the spirit of Coates, Fukaya, Kato, Sujatha and Venjakob) and the equivariant Tamagawa number conjecture. The latter result is both a converse to a theorem of Fukaya and Kato and also provides an important means of deriving explicit consequences of the main conjecture and proving special cases of the equivariant Tamagawa number conjecture.

Thomas conjectured that there is an absolute constant c such that for every proper minor-closed class of graphs, there is a polynomial-time algorithm that can colour every G ∈ with at most χ(G) + c colours. We introduce a parameter ρ(), called the degenerate value of , which is defined to be the smallest r such that every G ∈ can be vertex-bipartitioned into a part of bounded tree-width (the bound depending only on ), and a part that is r-degenerate. Although the existence of one global bound for the degenerate values of all proper minor-closed classes would imply Thomas's conjecture, we prove that the values ρ() can be made arbitrarily large. The problem lies in the clique sum operation. As our main result, we show that excluding a planar graph with a fixed number of apex vertices gives rise to a minor-closed class with small degenerate value. As corollaries, we obtain that (i) the degenerate value of every class of graphs of bounded local tree-width is at most 6, and (ii) the degenerate value of the class of Kn-minor-free graphs is at most n + 1. These results give rise to P-time approximation algorithms for colouring any graph in these classes within an error of at most 7 and n + 2 of its chromatic number, respectively.

This paper by a criminologist explains why it makes more sense to model criminal acts than to model criminals, how many preconceptions about crime can mislead modellers and offers some simple crime modelling ideas. Many opportunities for simulation now exist, and new opportunities for real-data modelling are emerging. The author suggests mathematical models of crime, including offender foraging for crime targets, as a rich area for future research.

We review the Short model of urban residential burglary derived from taking the continuum limit of two difference equations – one of which models the attractiveness of individual houses to burglary, and the other of which models burglar movement. This leads to a system of non-linear partial differential equations. We propose a change to the Short model and also add deterrence caused by the presence of uniformed officers to the model. We solve the resulting system of non-linear partial differential equations numerically and present results both with and without deterrence.

Human societies are formed by different socio-economical classes which are characterized by their contribution to, and their share of, the common wealth available. Cheaters, defined as those individuals that do not contribute to the common wealth but benefit from it, have always existed, and are likely to be present in all societies in the foreseeable future. Their existence brings about serious problems since they act as sinks for the community wealth and deplete resources which are always limited and often scarce.

To fight cheaters, a society can invest additional resources to pursue one or several aims. For instance, an improvement in social solidarity (e.g. by fostering education) may be sought. Alternatively, deterrence (e.g. by increasing police budget) may be enhanced. Then the following questions naturally arise: (i) how much to spend and (ii) how to allocate the expenditure between both strategies above. This paper addresses this general issue in a simplified setting, which however we believe of some interest. More precisely, we consider a society constituted by two productive classes and an unproductive one, the cheaters, and proposes a dynamical system that describes their evolution in time. We find it convenient to formulate our model as a three-dimensional ordinary differential equation (ODE) system whose variables are the cheater population, the total wealth and one of the productive social classes. The stationary values of the cheater population and the total wealth are studied in terms of the two parameters: φ (how much to invest) and s (how to distribute such expenditure). We show that it is not possible to simultaneously minimize the cheater population and maximize the total wealth with respect to φ and s. We then discuss the possibility of defining a compromise function to find suitable values of φ and s that optimize the response to cheating. In our opinion, this qualitative approach may be of some help to plan and implement social strategies against cheating.

Let A be an n×m matrix with real entries. Consider the set BadA of x∈[0,1)n for which there exists a constant c(x)>0 such that for any q∈ℤm the distance between x and the point {Aq} is at least c(x)|q|−m/n. It is shown that the intersection of BadA with any suitably regular fractal set is of maximal Hausdorff dimension. The linear form systems investigated in this paper are natural extensions of irrational rotations of the circle. Even in the latter one-dimensional case, the results obtained are new.

For a split semisimple Chevalley group scheme G with Lie algebra over an arbitrary base scheme S, we consider the quotient of by the adjoint action of G. We study in detail the structure of over S. Given a maximal torus T with Lie algebra and associated Weyl group W, we show that the Chevalley morphism π : /W → /G is an isomorphism except for the group Sp2n over a base with 2-torsion. In this case this morphism is only dominant and we compute it explicitly. We compute the adjoint quotient in some other classical cases, yielding examples where the formation of the quotient → /G commutes, or does not commute, with base change on S.

It is proved that solutions of the complex Monge–Ampère equation on compact Kähler manifolds with right hand side in Lp, p > 1, are uniformly Hölder continuous under the assumption on non-negative orthogonal bisectional curvature.

We are interested in the possible contributions of mathematical modelling of crime. We refer to numerous and quite recent papers that analyse and discuss empirical data in an attempt to discover stylised trends worthy of being understood through simple models. We summarise part of this literature and try to understand the reasons of important discrepancies in their conclusions. Then we present some recent modelling attempts that may help to understand the large variance in the statistical-based conclusions.

Decades of research demonstrate that crime is concentrated at a range of spatial scales. Such findings have clear implications for crime forecasting and police resource allocation models. More recent work has also shown that crime clusters in space and time with a regularity that might improve methods of crime prediction. In this paper I review some of the available evidence and provide illustrations of the types of analysis – spatial and spatio-temporal – conducted hitherto. With a few exceptions, the application of formal Mathematics in the study of space–time patterns of crime has been rather limited, and so a central aim of the paper is to stimulate interest in this area of research.

We study the slice filtration for the K-theory of a sheaf of Azumaya algebras A, and for the motive of a Severi-Brauer variety, the latter in the case of a central simple algebra of prime degree over a field. Using the Beilinson–Lichtenbaum conjecture, we apply our results to show the vanishing of SK2(A) for a central simple algebra A of square-free index (prime to the characteristic). This proves a conjecture of Merkurjev.

We consider a dynamic frictional contact problem between an elastic-visco-plastic body and a foundation. The contact is modelled with a normal damped response condition of such a type that the normal velocity is restricted with unilateral constraint, associated with the Coulomb law in which the coefficient of friction may depend on the velocity. We derive a variational formulation of the problem which has the form of a system coupling an integro–differential equation for the stress field with an evolutionary variational inequality for the displacement field. This inequality is approximated by a variational equation using a smoothing of the friction and the penalty approximation of the unilateral condition. The existence of a weak solution to the variational equation is proved by the Galerkin method for an auxiliary problem with given viscoplastic part of the stress and a fixed point argument. The solvability of the original problem is proved by passing to the limit of the penalty parameter and the smoothing parameter. This convergence is based on a certain regularity of solutions which is verified with the use of a local rectification of the boundary and a translation method.

Crime is disproportionally concentrated in few areas. Though long established, there remains uncertainty about the reasons for variation in the concentration of similar crime (repeats) or different crime (multiples). Wholly neglected have been composite crimes when more than one crime types coincide as parts of a single event. The research reported here disentangles area crime concentration into repeats, multiple and composite crimes. The results are based on estimated bivariate zero-inflated Poisson regression models with covariance structure which explicitly account for crime rarity and crime concentration. The implications of the results for criminological theorizing and as a possible basis for more equitable police funding are discussed.

Let −DpD be a differential operator on the compact interval [−b, b] whose leading coefficient is positive on (0, b] and negative on [−b, 0), with fixed, separated, self-adjoint boundary conditions at b and −b and an additional interface condition at 0. The self-adjoint extensions of the corresponding minimal differential operator are non-semibounded and are related to non-semibounded sesquilinear forms by a generalization of Kato's representation theorems. The theory of non-semibounded sesquilinear forms is applied to this concrete situation. In particular, the generalized Friedrichs extension is obtained as the operator associated with the unique regular closure of the minimal sesquilinear form. Moreover, among all closed forms associated with the self-adjoint extensions, the regular closed forms are identified. As a consequence, eigenfunction expansion theorems are obtained for the differential operators as well as for certain indefinite Kreĭn–Feller operators with a single concentrated mass.

This paper investigates the existence of solutions for boundary variational–hemivariational inequalities of elliptic type at resonance as well as at non-resonance. Using the notion of the generalized gradient of Clarke and the property of the first eigenfunction, we also build a Landesman–Lazer theory in the non-smooth framework of variational–hemivariational inequalities of elliptic type.