The slicing problem can be reduced to the study of isotropic convex bodies K with $diam\left(K\right)\le c\surd n{L}_K$, where $L_K$ is the isotropic constant. We study the ψ₂-behaviour of linear functionals on this class of bodies. It is proved that ${\left|\right|⟨·,\theta ⟩\left|\right|}_{\psi ₂}\le C{L}_K$ for all θ in a subset U of $S^{n-1}$ with measure σ(U) ≥ 1 - exp(-c√n). However, there exist isotropic convex bodies K with uniformly bounded geometric distance from the Euclidean ball, such that $ma{x}_{\theta \in S^{n-1}}{\left|\right|⟨·,\theta ⟩\left|\right|}_{\psi ₂}\ge c∜n{L}_K$. In a different direction, we show that good average ψ₂-behaviour of linear functionals on an isotropic...

An investigation is launched into the fundamental characteristics of operations on and between sets, with a focus on compact convex sets and star sets (compact sets star-shaped with respect to the origin) in $n$-dimensional Euclidean space ${ℝ}^n$. It is proved that if $n\ge 2$, with three trivial exceptions, an operation between origin-symmetric compact convex sets is continuous in the Hausdorff metric, $GL\left(n\right)$ covariant, and associative if and only if it is $L_p$ addition for some $1\le p\le \infty$. It is also demonstrated that if $n\ge 2$,...

In 1989 R. Arnold proved that for every pair (A,B) of compact convex subsets of ℝ there is an Euclidean isometry optimal with respect to L₂ metric and if f₀ is such an isometry, then the Steiner points of f₀(A) and B coincide. In the present paper we solve related problems for metrics topologically equivalent to the Hausdorff metric, in particular for $L_p$ metrics for all p ≥ 2 and the symmetric difference metric.

The information divergence of a probability measure $P$ from an exponential family $ℰ$ over a finite set is defined as infimum of the divergences of $P$ from $Q$ subject to $Q\in ℰ$. All directional derivatives of the divergence from $ℰ$ are explicitly found. To this end, behaviour of the conjugate of a log-Laplace transform on the boundary of its domain is analysed. The first order conditions for $P$ to be a maximizer of the divergence from $ℰ$ are presented, including new ones when $P$ is not projectable to $ℰ$.