The problem of estimating an unknown compact convex set K in the plane, from a sample (X 1,···,X n ) of points independently and uniformly distributed over K, is considered. Let K n be the convex hull of the sample, Δ be the Hausdorff distance, and Δn := Δ (K, K n ). Under mild conditions, limit laws for Δn are obtained. We find sequences (a n ), (b n ) such that

(Δn - b n )/a n → Λ (n → ∞), where Λ is the Gumbel (double-exponential) law from extreme-value theory. As expected, the directions of maximum curvature play a decisive role. Our results apply, for instance, to discs and to the interiors of ellipses, although for eccentricity e < 1 the first case cannot be obtained from the second by continuity. The polygonal case is also considered.

This paper has a twofold purpose. The first is to compute the Euler characteristics of hyperbolic Coxeter groups Ws of level 1 or 2 by a mixture of theoretical and computer aided methods. For groups of level 1 and odd values of |S|, the Euler characteristic is related to the volume of the fundamental region of Ws in hyperbolic space. Secondly we note two methods of imbedding such groups in each other. This reduces the amount of computation needed to determine the Euler characteristics and also reduces the number of essentially different hyperbolic groups that need to be considered.

For a stationary point process X of sets in the convex ring in ℝd , a relation is given between the mean particles of the section process X ∩ E (where E varies through the set of k-dimensional subspaces in ℝd ) and a mean particle of X. In particular, it is shown that the mean bodies of all planar sections of X determine the Blaschke body of X and hence the mean normal distribution of X.

A random polytope, Kn, is the convex hull of n points chosen randomly, independently, and uniformly from a convex body It is shown here that, with high probability, Kn can be obtained by taking the convex hull of m = o(n) points chosen independently and uniformly from a small neighbourhood of the boundary of K.

Given a convex function u, defined in an open bounded convex subset Ω of ℝn, we consider the set

where η is a Borel subset of Ω,ρ is nonnegative, and ∂u(x) denotes the subgradient (or subdifferential) of u at x. We prove that Pp(u; η) is a Borel set and its n-dimensional measure is a polynomial of degree n with respect to ρ. The coefficients of this polynomial are nonnegative measures defined on the Borel subsets of Ω. We find an upper bound for the values attained by these measures on the sublevel sets of u. Such a bound depends on the quermassintegrals of the sublevel set and on the Lipschitz constant of u. Finally we prove that one of these measures coincides with the Lebesgue measure of the image under the subgradient map of u.

A number of known estimates of the number of translates, or lattice translates, of a convex body H required to cover a convex body K are obtained as consequences of two simple results.

In this paper we prove that a maximal common summand of two compact convex sets in R2 is unique up to translation.

The prototype of isoperimetric problems is to minimize the surface area of a convex body with given volume. The minimal body is naturally the suitable ball. The solution to this problem in the planar case was already known to the ancient Greeks. In the higher dimensional cases, the first proofs were provided with the help of Steiner's symmetrization method towards the end of the last century. Important later contributors are, among others, Minkowski, Blaschke, Hadwiger. By their work, the optimality of the ball has been also verified for a much wider class of sets (see [14]).

The sum or Minkowski addition of two subsets, A, B ⊂ En is defined by:

C. M. Petty has conjectured the minimum value for a certain affine-invariant functional denned on the class of convex bodies. We give sharp bounds for this functional on a certain subclass of convex bodies, and we give a counterexample to an upper bound proposed by R. Schneider for the class of centrally symmetric convex bodies. We conjecture that the simplex provides the maximum on the class of all convex bodies, while the largest centrally symmetric subset of a simplex gives a sharp upper bound on the class of all centrally symmetric convex bodies.

We determine all continuous translation invariant simple valuations on the space of convex bodies in d-dimensional Euclidean space.

Methods of estimation of the oriented direction distribution (i.e. the distribution of unit outer normals over the boundary) of a planar set from the convex ring are proposed. The methods are based on an estimation of the area dilation of the investigated set by chosen test sets.

Is the intersection between an arbitrary but fixed plane and the spatial Poisson Voronoi tessellation a planar Voronoi tessellation? In this paper a negative answer is given to this long-standing question in stochastic geometry. The answer remains negative for the intersection between a t-dimensional linear affine space and the d-dimensional Poisson Voronoi tesssellation, where 2 ≦ t ≦ d − 1. Moreover, it is shown that each cell on this intersection is almost surely a non-Voronoi cell.

The Hausdorff distance between a compact convex set K ⊂ ℝd and random sets is studied. Basic inequalities are derived for the case of being a convex subset of K. If applied to special sequences of such random sets, these inequalities yield rates of almost sure convergence. With the help of duality considerations these results are extended to the case of being the intersection of a random family of halfspaces containing K.

In this paper we show that the Lorentz space Lw, 1(0, ∞) has the weak-star uniform Kadec-Klee property if and only if inft>0 (w(αt)/w(t)) > 1 and supt>0(φ(αt) / φ(t))< 1 for all α ∈ (0, 1), where φ(t) = ∫t0 w(s) ds.

The starting point for the present paper is the following question, which asks whether points can be replaced by flats (translates of linear subspaces of arbitrary dimension) as the basic objects in a convexity structure on ℝd.

The quadratic mean of the deviation between the probability content and the interior point proportion of a random convex hull in is investigated. We obtain, in particular, an explicit and distribution-independent bound.

A set-valued analog of the elementary renewal theorem for Minkowski sums of random closed sets is considered. The corresponding renewal function is defined as where are Minkowski (element-wise) sums of i.i.d. random compact convex sets. In this paper we determine the limit of H(tK)/t as t tends to infinity. For K containing the origin as an interior point, where hK (u) is the support function of K and is the set of all unit vectors u with EhA (u) > 0. Other set-valued generalizations of the renewal function are also suggested.

One of the most beautiful and important results in geometric convexity is Hadwiger's characterization theorem for the quermassintegrals. Hadwiger's theorem classifies all continuous rigid motion invariant valuations on convex bodies as consisting of the linear span of the quermassintegrals (or, equivalently, of the intrinsic volumes) [4]. Hadwiger's characterization leads to effortless proofs of numerous results in integral geometry, including various kinematic formulas [7, 9] and the mean projection formulas for convex bodies [10]. Hadwiger's result also provides a connection between rigid motion invariant set functions and symmetric polynomials [1, 7].

In this paper we study various classes of centrally symmetric sets in d-dimensional Euclidean space Rd. As we will see, it is appropriate to focus our attention on those sets which have interior points.