Let $\Lambda \subset {ℝ}^n\times {ℝ}^m$ and $k$ be a positive integer. Let $f:{ℝ}^n\to {ℝ}^m$ be a locally bounded map such that for each $(\xi ,\eta )\in \Lambda$, the derivatives $D_{\xi }^{j}f\left(x\right):=\frac{d^j}{d{t}^j}f(x+t\xi ){|}_{t=0}$, $j=1,2,\cdots k$, exist and are continuous. In order to conclude that any such map $f$ is necessarily of class $C^k$ it is necessary and sufficient that $\Lambda$ be not contained in the zero-set of a nonzero homogenous polynomial $\Phi (\xi ,\eta )$ which is linear in $\eta =({\eta }_1,{\eta }_2,\cdots ,{\eta }_m)$ and homogeneous of degree $k$ in $\xi =({\xi }_1,{\xi }_2,\cdots ,{\xi }_n)$. This generalizes a result of J. Boman for the case $k=1$. The statement and the proof of a theorem of Boman for the case $k=\infty$ is...

If $\Omega \subset {ℝ}^n$ is a bounded domain with Lipschitz boundary $\partial \Omega$ and $\Gamma$ is an open subset of $\partial \Omega$, we prove that the following inequality $${\left({\int }_{\Omega }{\left|A\left(x\right)\nabla u\left(x\right)\right|}^{p}dx\right)}^{1/p}+{\left({\int }_{\Gamma }{\left|u\left(x\right)\right|}^{p}d{\mathscr{H}}^{n-1}\left(x\right)\right)}^{1/p}\ge c{\parallel u\parallel }_{W^{1,p}\left(\Omega \right)}$$ holds for all $u\in W^{1,p}(\Omega ;{ℝ}^m)$ and $1<p<\infty$, where $${\left(A\left(x\right)\nabla u\left(x\right)\right)}_k=\sum _{i=1}^m\sum _{j=1}^n{a}_k^{ij}\left(x\right)\frac{\partial u_i}{\partial x_j}\left(x\right)(k=1,2,...,r;r\ge m)$$ defines an elliptic differential operator of first order with continuous coefficients on $\overline{\Omega }$. As a special case we obtain $${\int }_{\Omega }{\left|\nabla u\left(x\right)F\left(x\right)+{\left(\nabla u\left(x\right)F\left(x\right)\right)}^T\right|}^{p}dx\ge c{\int }_{\Omega }{\left|\nabla u\left(x\right)\right|}^{p}dx,(*)$$ for all $u\in W^{1,p}(\Omega ;{ℝ}^n)$ vanishing on $\Gamma$, where $F:\overline{\Omega }\to M^{n\times n}\left(ℝ\right)$ is a continuous mapping with $detF\left(x\right)\ge \mu >0$. Next we show that $(*)$ is not valid if $n\ge 3$, $F\in L^{\infty }\left(\Omega \right)$ and $detF\left(x\right)=1$, but does hold if $p=2$, $\Gamma =\partial \Omega$ and $F\left(x\right)$ is symmetric and positive definite in $\Omega$.

Bourgain’s discretization theorem asserts that there exists a universal constant $C\in (0,\infty )$ with the following property. Let $X,Y$ be Banach spaces with $dimX=n$. Fix $D\in (1,\infty )$ and set $\delta =e^{-n^{Cn}}$. Assume that $𝒩$ is a $\delta$-net in the unit ball of $X$ and that $𝒩$ admits a bi-Lipschitz embedding into $Y$ with distortion at most $D$. Then the entire space $X$ admits a bi-Lipschitz embedding into $Y$ with distortion at most $CD$. This mostly expository article is devoted to a detailed presentation of a proof of Bourgain’s theorem. ...

We study the realization $A$ of the operator $\mathcal{A}=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{△}-(DU,D\cdot )$ in $L^2\left(\mathrm{\Omega },\mu \right)$, where $\mathrm{\Omega }$ is a possibly unbounded convex open set in ${\mathbb{R}}^N$, $U$ is a convex unbounded function such that ${lim}_{x\to \partial \mathrm{\Omega },x\in \mathrm{\Omega }}U\left(x\right)=+\mathrm{\infty }$ and ${lim}_{\left|x\right|\to +\mathrm{\infty },x\in \mathrm{\Omega }}U\left(x\right)=+\mathrm{\infty }$, $DU\left(x\right)$ is the element with minimal norm in the subdifferential of $U$ at $x$, and $\mu \left(dx\right)=c\exp \left(-2U\left(x\right)\right)dx$ is a probability measure, infinitesimally invariant for $\mathcal{A}$. We show that $A$, with domain $D\left(A\right)=\left\{u\in H^2\left(\mathrm{\Omega },\mu \right):\left(DU,Du\right)\in L^2\left(\mathrm{\Omega },\mu \right)\right\}$ is a dissipative self-adjoint operator in $L^2\left(\mathrm{\Omega },\mu \right)$. Note that the functions in the domain of $A$ do not satisfy any particular boundary condition. Log-Sobolev and Poincaré inequalities...