A colouring of the vertices of a regular polygon is symmetric if it is invariant under some reflection of the polygon. We count the number of symmetric $r$-colourings of the vertices of a regular $n$-gon.

A complete classification is given of pentavalent symmetric graphs of order $30p$, where $p\ge 5$ is a prime. It is proved that such a graph ${\Gamma }$ exists if and only if $p=13$ and, up to isomorphism, there is only one such graph. Furthermore, ${\Gamma }$ is isomorphic to $\mathcal{C}_{390}$, a coset graph of PSL(2, 25) with ${\sf Aut}\, {\Gamma }=\mbox{PSL(2, 25)}$, and ${\Gamma }$ is 2-regular. The classification involves a new 2-regular pentavalent graph construction with square-free order.

In this paper, we show that the $\gamma $-vectors of Coxeter complexes (of types A and B) and associahedrons (of types A and B) can be obtained by using derivative polynomials of the tangent and secant functions. We provide a unified grammatical approach to generate these $\gamma $-vectors and the coefficient arrays of Narayana polynomials, Legendre polynomials and Chebyshev polynomials of both kinds.

Let $m$, $a$, $c$ be positive integers with $a\equiv 3, 5~({\rm mod} \hspace{0.334em} 8)$. We show that when $1+ c= {a}^{2} $, the exponential Diophantine equation $\mathop{({m}^{2} + 1)}\nolimits ^{x} + \mathop{(c{m}^{2} - 1)}\nolimits ^{y} = \mathop{(am)}\nolimits ^{z} $ has only the positive integer solution $(x, y, z)= (1, 1, 2)$ under the condition $m\equiv \pm 1~({\rm mod} \hspace{0.334em} a)$, except for the case $(m, a, c)= (1, 3, 8)$, where there are only two solutions: $(x, y, z)= (1, 1, 2), ~(5, 2, 4). $ In particular, when $a= 3$, the equation $\mathop{({m}^{2} + 1)}\nolimits ^{x} + \mathop{(8{m}^{2} - 1)}\nolimits ^{y} = \mathop{(3m)}\nolimits ^{z} $ has only the positive integer solution $(x, y, z)= (1, 1, 2)$, except if $m= 1$. The proof is based on elementary methods and Baker’s method.

Let $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}G$ be a graph and ${{\tau }}$ be an assignment of nonnegative thresholds to the vertices of $G$. A subset of vertices, $D$, is an irreversible dynamic monopoly of $(G, \tau )$ if the vertices of $G$ can be partitioned into subsets $D_0, D_1, \ldots, D_k$ such that $D_0=D$ and, for all $i$ with $0 \leq i \leq k-1$, each vertex $v$ in $D_{i+1}$ has at least $\tau (v)$ neighbours in the union of $D_0, D_1, \ldots, D_i$. Dynamic monopolies model the spread of influence or propagation of opinion in social networks, where the graph $G$ represents the underlying network. The smallest cardinality of any dynamic monopoly of $(G,\tau )$ is denoted by $\mathrm{dyn}_{\tau }(G)$. In this paper we assume that the threshold of each vertex $v$ of the network is a random variable $X_v$ such that $0\leq X_v \leq \deg _G(v)+1$. We obtain sharp bounds on the expectation and the concentration of $\mathrm{dyn}_{\tau }(G)$ around its mean value. We also obtain some lower bounds for the size of dynamic monopolies in terms of the order of graph and expectation of the thresholds.

For a positive integer $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}n$, let $\sigma (n)$ denote the sum of the positive divisors of $n$. Let $d$ be a proper divisor of $n$. We call $n$ a deficient-perfect number if $\sigma (n) = 2n - d$. In this paper, we show that there are no odd deficient-perfect numbers with three distinct prime divisors.

We determine a lower gap property for the growth of an unbounded $\mathbb{Z}$-valued $k$-regular sequence. In particular, if $f:\mathbb{N}\to \mathbb{Z}$ is an unbounded $k$-regular sequence, we show that there is a constant $c>0$ such that $|f(n)|>c\log n$ infinitely often. We end our paper by answering a question of Borwein, Choi and Coons on the sums of completely multiplicative automatic functions.

We estimate double sums

$$\begin{eqnarray}S_{{\it\chi}}(a,{\mathcal{I}},{\mathcal{G}})=\mathop{\sum }\limits_{x\in {\mathcal{I}}}\mathop{\sum }\limits_{{\it\lambda}\in {\mathcal{G}}}{\it\chi}(x+a{\it\lambda}),\quad 1\leq a<p-1,\end{eqnarray}$$

${\it\chi}$

$p$

${\mathcal{I}}=\{1,\dots ,H\}$

${\mathcal{G}}$

$T$

$p$

$S_{{\it\chi}}(a,{\mathcal{I}},{\mathcal{G}})$

$H\geq p^{1/4+{\it\varepsilon}}$

$T\geq p^{1/2+{\it\varepsilon}}$

${\it\varepsilon}>0$

$H$

$T$

$$\begin{eqnarray}T_{{\it\chi}}(a,{\mathcal{G}})=\mathop{\sum }\limits_{{\it\lambda},{\it\mu}\in {\mathcal{G}}}{\it\chi}(a+{\it\lambda}+{\it\mu}),\quad 1\leq a<p-1,\end{eqnarray}$$

$p$

Let $q$ be an odd prime such that ${q}^{t} + 1= 2{c}^{s} $, where $c, t$ are positive integers and $s= 1, 2$. We show that the Diophantine equation ${x}^{2} + {q}^{m} = {c}^{n} $ has only the positive integer solution $(x, m, n)= ({c}^{s} - 1, t, 2s)$ under some conditions. The proof is based on elementary methods and a result concerning the Diophantine equation $({x}^{n} - 1)/ (x- 1)= {y}^{2} $ due to Ljunggren. We also verify that when $2\leq c\leq 30$ with $c\not = 12, 24$, the Diophantine equation ${x}^{2} + \mathop{(2c- 1)}\nolimits ^{m} = {c}^{n} $ has only the positive integer solution $(x, m, n)= (c- 1, 1, 2). $

In this paper, we prove that the Sato–Tate conjecture for primitive Maass forms holds on average. We also investigate the rate of convergence in the Sato–Tate conjecture and establish some estimates of the discrepancy with respect to the Sato–Tate measure on the average of primitive Maass forms.

Recently, Keith used the theory of modular forms to study 9-regular partitions modulo 2 and 3. He obtained one infinite family of congruences modulo 3, and meanwhile proposed an analogous conjecture. In this note, we show that 9-regular partitions and 3-cores satisfy the same congruences modulo 3. Thus, we first derive several results on 3-cores, and then generalise Keith’s conjecture and get a stronger result, which implies that all of Keith’s results on congruences modulo 3 are consequences of our result.

Let $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}P(x)$ be a polynomial of degree $d$ with zeros $\alpha _1, \ldots, \alpha _d$. Stulov and Yang [‘An elementary inequality about the Mahler measure’, Involve6(4) (2013), 393–397] defined the total distance of$P$ as ${\rm td}(P)=\sum _{i=1}^{d} | | \alpha _i| -1|$. In this paper, using the method of explicit auxiliary functions, we study the spectrum of the total distance for totally positive algebraic integers and find its five smallest points. Moreover, for totally positive algebraic integers, we establish inequalities comparing the total distance with two standard measures and also the trace. We give numerical examples to show that our bounds are quite good. The polynomials involved in the auxiliary functions are found by a recursive algorithm.

In 2012, Blecher [‘Geometry for totally symmetric plane partitions (TSPPs) with self-conjugate main diagonal’, Util. Math. 88 (2012), 223–235] introduced a special class of totally symmetric plane partitions, called $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}1$-shell totally symmetric plane partitions. Let $f(n)$ denote the number of $1$-shell totally symmetric plane partitions of weight $n$. More recently, Hirschhorn and Sellers [‘Arithmetic properties of 1-shell totally symmetric plane partitions’, Bull. Aust. Math. Soc. to appear. Published online 27 September 2013] discovered a number of arithmetic properties satisfied by $f(n)$. In this paper, employing some results due to Cui and Gu [‘Arithmetic properties of $l$-regular partitions’, Adv. Appl. Math. 51 (2013), 507–523], and Hirschhorn and Sellers, we prove several new infinite families of congruences modulo 4 and 8 for $1$-shell totally symmetric plane partitions. For example, we find that, for $n\geq 0$ and $\alpha \geq 1$,

$$\begin{equation*} f(8 \times 5^{2\alpha } n+39\times 5^{2\alpha -1})\equiv 0 \pmod 8. \end{equation*}$$

We determine several variants of the classical interpolation formula for finite fields which produce polynomials that induce a desirable mapping on the nonspecified elements, and without increasing the number of terms in the formula. As a corollary, we classify those permutation polynomials over a finite field which are their own compositional inverse, extending work of C. Wells.

In 1976, Wiegold asked if every finitely generated perfect group has weight 1. We introduce a new property of groups, finitely annihilated, and show that this might be a possible approach to resolving Wiegold’s problem. For finitely generated groups, we show that in several classes (finite, solvable, free), being finitely annihilated is equivalent to having noncyclic abelianisation. However, we also construct an infinite family of (finitely presented) finitely annihilated groups with cyclic abelianisation. We apply our work to show that the weight of a nonperfect finite group, or a nonperfect finitely generated solvable group, is the same as the weight of its abelianisation. This recovers the known partial results on the Wiegold problem: a finite (or finitely generated solvable) perfect group has weight 1.

A Brahmagupta quadrilateral is a cyclic quadrilateral whose sides, diagonals and area are all integer values. In this article, we characterise the notions of Brahmagupta, introduced by K. R. S. Sastry [‘Brahmagupta quadrilaterals’, Forum Geom. 2 (2002), 167–173], by means of elliptic curves. Motivated by these characterisations, we use Brahmagupta quadrilaterals to construct infinite families of elliptic curves with torsion group $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}\times \mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}$ having ranks (at least) four, five and six. Furthermore, by specialising we give examples from these families of specific curves with rank nine.

A subgroup $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}H$ of a finite group $G$ is said to be S-semipermutable in $G$ if $H$ permutes with every Sylow $q$-subgroup of $G$ for all primes $q$ not dividing $|H |$. A finite group $G$ is an MS-group if the maximal subgroups of all the Sylow subgroups of $G$ are S-semipermutable in $G$. The aim of the present paper is to characterise the finite MS-groups.

Let $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}G$ be a finite group of order $n$, and let $\text {C}_n$ be the cyclic group of order $n$. For $g\in G$, let ${\mathrm{o}}(g)$ denote the order of $g$. Let $\phi $ denote the Euler totient function. We show that $\sum _{g \in \text {C}_n} \phi ({\mathrm{o}}(g))\geq \sum _{g \in G} \phi ({\mathrm{o}}(g))$, with equality if and only if $G$ is isomorphic to $\text {C}_n$. As an application, we show that among all finite groups of a given order, the cyclic group of that order has the maximum number of bidirectional edges in its directed power graph.

Let $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}G$ be a finite 2-group. If $G$ is of coclass 2 or $(G,Z(G))$ is a Camina pair, then $G$ admits a noninner automorphism of order 2 or 4 leaving the Frattini subgroup elementwise fixed.

Let $\Gamma $ be a group and ${\Gamma }^{\prime } $ be a subgroup of $\Gamma $ of finite index. Let $M$ be a $\Gamma $-module. It is shown that $M$ is (strongly) Gorenstein flat if and only if it is (strongly) Gorenstein flat as a ${\Gamma }^{\prime } $-module. We also provide some criteria in which the classes of Gorenstein projective and strongly Gorenstein flat $\Gamma $-modules are the same.