Consider the difference equation $$\Delta x\left(n\right)+\sum _{i=1}^m{p}_i\left(n\right)x\left({\tau }_i\left(n\right)\right)=0,n\ge 0\left[\nabla x\left(n\right)-\sum _{i=1}^m{p}_i\left(n\right)x\left({\sigma }_i\left(n\right)\right)=0,n\ge 1\right],$$ where $\left(p_i\left(n\right)\right)$, $1\le i\le m$ are sequences of nonnegative real numbers, ${\tau }_i\left(n\right)$ [${\sigma }_i\left(n\right)$], $1\le i\le m$ are general retarded (advanced) arguments and $\Delta$ [$\nabla$] denotes the forward (backward) difference operator $\Delta x\left(n\right)=x(n+1)-x\left(n\right)$ [$\nabla x\left(n\right)=x\left(n\right)-x(n-1)$]. New oscillation criteria are established when the well-known oscillation conditions $$\underset{n\to \infty }{lim\; sup}\sum _{i=1}^m\sum _{j=\tau \left(n\right)}^n{p}_i\left(j\right)>1\left[\underset{n\to \infty }{lim\; sup}\sum _{i=1}^m\sum _{j=n}^{\sigma \left(n\right)}{p}_i\left(j\right)>1\right]$$ and $$\underset{n\to \infty }{lim\; inf}\sum _{i=1}^m\sum _{j={\tau }_i\left(n\right)}^{n-1}{p}_i\left(j\right)>\frac{1}{\mathrm{e}}\left[\underset{n\to \infty }{lim\; inf}\sum _{i=1}^m\sum _{j=n+1}^{{\sigma }_i\left(n\right)}{p}_i\left(j\right)>\frac{1}{\mathrm{e}}\right]$$ are not satisfied. Here $\tau \left(n\right)={max}_{1\le i\le m}{\tau }_i\left(n\right)$ $[\sigma \left(n\right)={min}_{1\le i\le m}{\sigma }_i\left(n\right)]$. The results obtained essentially improve known results in the literature. Examples illustrating the results are also given.

Various techniques are presented for constructing $\Lambda$ (p) sets which are not $\Lambda (p+ϵ)$ for all $ϵ\>0$. The main result is that there is a $\Lambda$ (4) set in the dual of any compact abelian group which is not $\Lambda (4+ϵ)$ for all $ϵ\>0$. Along the way to proving this, new constructions are given in dual groups in which constructions were already known of $\Lambda$ (p) not $\Lambda (p+ϵ)$ sets, for certain values of $p$. The main new constructions in specific dual groups are: – there is a $\Lambda$ (2k) set which is not $\Lambda (2k+ϵ)$ in $\mathbf{Z}\left(2\right)\oplus \mathbf{Z}\left(2\right)\oplus \cdots$ for all $2\le k$, $k\in \mathbf{N}$ and...

For $a\in {\mathbf{R}}^n\setminus \left\{0\right\}$ and $\Omega$ an open bounded subset of ${\mathbf{R}}^n$ definie $L^p(\Omega ,a)$ as the closed subset of $L^p\left(\Omega \right)$ consisting of all functions that are constant almost everywhere on almost all lines parallel to $a$. For a given set of directions $a^{\nu }\in {\mathbf{R}}^n\setminus \left\{0\right\}$, $\nu =1,...,m$, we study for which $\Omega$ it is true that the vector space $$(*)L^p(\Omega ,a^1)+\cdots +L^p(\Omega ,a^m)\text{is}\text{a}\text{closed}\text{subspace}\text{of}{L}^p\left(\Omega \right).$$ This problem arizes naturally in the study of image reconstruction from projections (tomography). An essentially equivalent problem is to decide whether a certain matrix-valued differential operator...

Let $T:x\mapsto x+g$ be an ergodic translation on the compact group $C$ and $M\subseteq C$ a continuity set, i.e. a subset with topological boundary of Haar measure 0. An infinite binary sequence $\mathbf{a}:\mathbb{Z}\mapsto \{0,1\}$ defined by $\mathbf{a}\left(k\right)=1$ if $T^k\left(0_C\right)\in M$ and $\mathbf{a}\left(k\right)=0$ otherwise, is called a Hartman sequence. This paper studies the growth rate of $P_{\mathbf{a}}\left(n\right)$, where $P_{\mathbf{a}}\left(n\right)$ denotes the number of binary words of length $n\in \mathbb{N}$ occurring in $\mathbf{a}$. The growth rate is always subexponential and this result is optimal. If $T$ is an ergodic translation $x\mapsto x+\alpha$ $(\alpha =({\alpha }_1,...,{\alpha }_s))$ on ${𝕋}^s$ and $M$ is a box with...

For simply connected planar domains with the maximal conformal radius 1 it was proven in 1954 by G. Pólya and M. Schiffer that for the eigenvalues $\lambda$ of the fixed membrane for any $n$ the following inequality holds $$\sum _{k=1}^n\frac{1}{{\lambda }_k}\ge \sum _{k=1}^n\frac{1}{{\lambda }_k^{\left(\sigma \right)}},$$ where ${\lambda }_k^{\left(\sigma \right)}$ are the eigenvalues of the unit disk. The aim of the paper is to give a sharper version of this inequality and for the sum of all reciprocals to derive formulas which allow in some cases to calculate exactly this sum.

Let $M$ be a free module over a noetherian ring. For ${\omega }_1,...,{\omega }_k\in M$, let $𝒜$ be the ideal generated by coefficients of ${\omega }_1\wedge ...\wedge {\omega }_k$. For an element $\omega \in {\bigwedge }^{p}M$ with $p\<\mathrm{prof}.𝒜$, if $\omega \wedge {\omega }_1\wedge ...\wedge {\omega }_k=0$, there exists ${\eta }_1,...,{\eta }_k\in {\bigwedge }^{p-1}M$ such that $\omega ={\sum }_{i=1}^k{\eta }_i\wedge {\omega }_i$. This is a generalization of a lemma on the division of forms due to de Rham (Comment. Math. Helv., 28 (1954)) and has some applications to the study of singularities.