A (round-robin) tournament Tn consists n of nodes u1, u2, …, un such that each pair of distinct nodes ui and uj is joined by one of the (oriented) arcs or The arcs in some set S are said to be consistent if it is possible to relabel the nodes of the tournament in such a way that if the arc is in S then i>j. (This is easily seen to be equivalent to requiring that the tournament contains no oriented cycles composed entirely of arcs of S.) Sets of consistent arcs are of interest, for example, when the tournament represents the outcome of a paired-comparison experiment [1]. The object in this note is to obtain bounds for f(n), the greatest integer k such that every tournament Tn contains a set of k consistent arcs.

We are here concerned with the problem of deciding when Σ∞n=1 f(n)/n ≠ 0, given that f is periodic and the series convergent. In particular, we consider

Conjecture A. Let p be a positive integer and f a (real-or complex-valued) number-theoretic function with period p.

In the course of preparing a book on group theory [1] with special reference to the Restricted Burnside Problem and allied problems I stumbled upon the concept of a dimension-linking operator. Later, when I lectured to the Third Summer Institute of the Australian Mathematical Society [2], G. E. Wall raised the question whether the dimension-linking operators could be made into a ring by introduction of a suitable definition of multiplication. The answer was easily found to be affirmative; the result wasthat the theory of dimen sion-linking operators became exceedingly simple.

This article consists of a list of problems connected with the theory of convex sets in the Euclidean space En, although in some cases the connection is indirect and/or inessential. The assumptions may often be relaxed or otherwise changed, thus giving rise to a wide variety of questions.

A particle is initially at the origin in the (X, Y) plane and each successive step it takes is of unit length and parallel either to the X-axis or to the Y-axis. Its path of n steps is called a spiral if (i) the particle never occupies the same position twice, (ii) any turns the path makes are all counter-clockwise or all clockwise and (iii) for every m > n, the path can be continued to m steps without violating (i) or (ii).

A graph G has a finite set V of points and a set X of lines each of which joins two distinct points (called its end-points), and no two lines join the same pair of points. A graph with one point and no line is trivial. A line is incident with each of its end-points. Two points are adjacent if they are joined by a line. The degree of a point is the number of lines incident with it. The line-graph L(G) of G has X as its set of points and two elements x, y of X are adjacent in L(G) whenever the lines x and y of G have a common end-point. A walk in G is an alternating sequence v1, x1, v2, x2, …, vn of points and lines, the first and last terms being points, such that xi is the line joining vi to vi+1 for i=1, …, n-1.

Packing problems of this kind are obviously equivalent to the problems of placing k (here 9) points in a unit square such that the minimum distance between any two of them be as large as possible. The solutions of these problems are known for 2 ≤ k ≤ 9. The largest possible minimum distances mk are given in table 1, and the corresponding "best" configurations shown in figure 1.

The configuration formed by N points in general position in space, together with the lines joining them in pairs will be called an N-clique. The N-clique is coloured by assigning to each edge exactly one colour from a set of t possible colours. A theorem due to Ramsey [4] ensures the existence of a least integer M(q1, q2, …, qt) such that if N ≥ M, any such colouring of the N-clique must contain either a q1-clique entirely of colour 1, or a q2-clique of colour 2, …, or a qt-clique of colour t. Another proof of Ramsey's theorem is given by Ryser [5].

Consider the following problem of Lagrange in the calculus of variations: relative to differentiable curves xi(t) satisfying xi(t0) = xi0 and xi(t1) = xi1 find a curve minimizing

1

A graph G is defined as a set X = {x1, …, xn} of elements xi called vertices, and a collection Γ of (not necessarily distinct) unordered pairs of distinct vertices, called edges. An edge (xi, xj) is said to be incident to xi and xj which are its end-vertices.

A graph with m(>1) vertices, each pair of distinct vertices connected by an edge, and also a graph obtained from such a graph by the process of subdividing edges through the insertion of new vertices of valency 2, will be denoted by ≪m, o≫. A graph obtained from a graph with m(>2) vertices in which each pair of distinct vertices are connected by an edge, by deleting n (≤ m-1) edges incident with one and the same vertex, and also a graph obtained from such a graph by the process of subdividing edges through the insertion of new vertices of valency 2, will be denoted by ≪m, n≫.

This paper is largely an expository account of known facts, but it contains at least one result believed to be new, Proposition 6.

Our main technique is the method of lifting idempotents developed in Part I. This has been treated in the literature, but not quite in the generality required here. It turns out that much of classical artinian ring theory can be done for the semi-perfect rings introduced by Bass, as will have been noticed by many other people.

Broadly speaking, the Hardy-Landau summation formula * is given by

where r(n) is the number of integer solutions of the Diophantine equation x2 + y2 = n, and f(x) and g(x) are transforms with respect to the Watson kernel that is:

and

A subset consisting of k elements chosen, from n distinct ordered elements, with given restrictions is called are stricted choice. For example, one restriction on the k elements may be that no two consecutive elements appear, while another may be that no two alternate elements appear. Certain restricted choices may be used to obtain solutions to permutation problems ([1, p. 349]; [4]). Each restricted choice corresponds to a "restricted sequence of Bernoulli trials" as described in [1], In this paper an elementary method of obtaining more general types of restricted choices is given. Some special cases of the restricted choices and restricted Bernoulli trials are presented in the form of examples.

We consider a system of differential equations

1

where 0 = (o, o) is an isolated singular point. Thus, there exists B > o such that S(0, B) contains only one singular point. Here, S(0, B) denotes a sphere centered at 0 with radius B. We shall denote the boundary of S(0, B) by ∂ S(0, B).

The celebrated criterion of Kuratowski [2] for the planarity of a graph G involves the determination of whether G contains a subgraph homeomorphic to K5 or K3, 3 shown in Figure 1.

Let R be a commutative ring with unit. Let (Aα, φ βα) (α ≤ β) (resp. (Bα, ψαβ) (α ≤ β)) be an infective (resp. projective) system of R-algebras indexed by a directed set I; let ((Xα, dα), fβα) (α ≤ β) (resp. ((Yα, δα), gαβ) (α≤β)) be an injective (resp. projective) system of complexes, indexed by the same set I, such that for each αϵI, (Xα, dα) (resp. (Yα, δα)) is a complex over Aα (resp. over Bα). The purpose of this paper is to show that the covariant functor from the category of all such injective systems of complexes and complex homomorphisms over the R-algebra Aα is such that it associates with an injective system ((Uα, dα), hβα) of universal complexes a universal complex over Aα whereas the same is not true of the covariant functor the category of all such projective systems of complexes and their maps.

Up to a duality, the known finite projective planes which are not translation planes all are equivalent to affine planes which contain the type of structure defined below to be a "derivable net". (Insofar as the known finite planes are concerned, this means that the intimate connection between projective geometry and linear algebra still holds for non-Desarguesian planes.)