The normal cycle of a singular subset $X$ of a smooth manifold is a basic tool for understanding and computing the curvature of $X$. If $X$ is replaced by a singular function on ${ℝ}^n$ then there is a natural companion notion called the of $f$, which has been introduced by the author and by R. Jerrard. We discuss a few fundamental facts and open problems about functions $f$ that admit gradient cycles, with particular attention to the first nontrivial dimension $n=2$.

An orientation of a simple graph is referred to as an oriented graph. Caccetta and Häggkvist conjectured that any digraph on $n$ vertices with minimum outdegree $d$ contains a directed cycle of length at most $\lceil n/d\rceil$. In this paper, we consider short cycles in oriented graphs without directed triangles. Suppose that ${\alpha }_0$ is the smallest real such that every $n$-vertex digraph with minimum outdegree at least ${\alpha }_{0}n$ contains a directed triangle. Let $ϵ<(3-2{\alpha }_0)/(4-2{\alpha }_0)$ be a positive real. We show that if $D$ is an oriented graph...

We prove that every vertex v of a tournament T belongs to at least $maxmin\delta ⁺\left(T\right),2\delta ⁺\left(T\right)-d{⁺}_T\left(v\right)+1,min\delta ¯\left(T\right),2\delta ¯\left(T\right)-d{¯}_T\left(v\right)+1$ arc-disjoint cycles, where δ⁺(T) (or δ¯(T)) is the minimum out-degree (resp. minimum in-degree) of T, and $d{⁺}_T\left(v\right)$ (or $d{¯}_T\left(v\right)$) is the out-degree (resp. in-degree) of v.

A proper vertex coloring of a graph $G$ is acyclic if there is no bicolored cycle in $G$. In other words, each cycle of $G$ must be colored with at least three colors. Given a list assignment $L=\left\{L\right(v):v\in V\}$, if there exists an acyclic coloring $\pi$ of $G$ such that $\pi \left(v\right)\in L\left(v\right)$ for all $v\in V$, then we say that $G$ is acyclically $L$-colorable. If $G$ is acyclically $L$-colorable for any list assignment $L$ with $\left|L\right(v\left)\right|\ge k$ for all $v\in V$, then $G$ is acyclically $k$-choosable. In 2006, Montassier, Raspaud and Wang conjectured that every planar graph without...

We consider limit cycles of a class of polynomial differential systems of the form $$\left\{\begin{array}{c}\dot{x}=y,\hfill \\ \dot{y}=-x-\epsilon (g_{21}\left(x\right)y^{2\alpha +1}+f_{21}\left(x\right)y^{2\beta })-{\epsilon }^2(g_{22}\left(x\right)y^{2\alpha +1}+f_{22}\left(x\right)y^{2\beta }),\hfill \end{array}\right.$$ where $\beta$ and $\alpha$ are positive integers, $g_{2j}$ and $f_{2j}$ have degree $m$ and $n$, respectively, for each $j=1,2$, and $\epsilon$ is a small parameter. We obtain the maximum number of limit cycles that bifurcate from the periodic orbits of the linear center $\dot{x}=y$, $\dot{y}=-x$ using the averaging theory of first and second order.

A real form $G$ of a complex semi-simple Lie group $G^{ℂ}$ has only finitely many orbits in any given $G^{ℂ}$-flag manifold $Z=G^{ℂ}/Q$. The complex geometry of these orbits is of interest, e.g., for the associated representation theory. The open orbits $D$ generally possess only the constant holomorphic functions, and the relevant associated geometric objects are certain positive-dimensional compact complex submanifolds of $D$ which, with very few well-understood exceptions, are parameterized by the Wolf cycle...

For graphs $G$, $F_1$, $F_2$, we write $G\to (F_1,F_2)$ if for every red-blue colouring of the edge set of $G$ we have a red copy of $F_1$ or a blue copy of $F_2$ in $G$. The size Ramsey number $\widehat{r}(F_1,F_2)$ is the minimum number of edges of a graph $G$ such that $G\to (F_1,F_2)$. Erdős and Faudree proved that for the cycle $C_n$ of length $n$ and for $t\ge 2$ matchings $t{K}_2$, the size Ramsey number $\widehat{r}(t{K}_2,C_n)<n+(4t+3)\sqrt{n}$. We improve their upper bound for $t=2$ and $t=3$ by showing that $\widehat{r}(2K_2,C_n)\le n+2\sqrt{3n}+9$ for $n\ge 12$ and $\widehat{r}(3K_2,C_n)<n+6\sqrt{n}+9$ for $n\ge 25$.

The Ramsey number $R(G,H)$ for a pair of graphs $G$ and $H$ is defined as the smallest integer $n$ such that, for any graph $F$ on $n$ vertices, either $F$ contains $G$ or $\overline{F}$ contains $H$ as a subgraph, where $\overline{F}$ denotes the complement of $F$. We study Ramsey numbers for some subgraphs of generalized wheels versus cycles and paths and determine these numbers for some cases. We extend many known results studied in [5, 14, 18, 19, 20]. In particular we count the numbers $R(K_1+L_n,P_m)$ and $R(K_1+L_n,C_m)$ for some integers $m$, $n$, where $L_n$ is...

We introduce two entire functions $f_{{\mathrm{A}}_{\frac{1}{2}\infty }}$ and $f_{{\mathrm{D}}_{\frac{1}{2}\infty }}$ in two variables. Both of them have only two critical values $0$ and $1$, and the associated maps ${\mathbf{C}}^2\to \mathbf{C}$ define topologically locally trivial fibrations over $\mathbf{C}\setminus \{0,1\}$. All critical points in the singular fibers over $0$ and $1$ are ordinary double points, and the associated vanishing cycles span the middle homology group of the general fiber, whose intersection diagram forms bi-partitely decomposed infinite quivers of type ${\mathrm{A}}_{\frac{1}{2}\infty }$ and ${\mathrm{D}}_{\frac{1}{2}\infty }$, respectively. Coxeter elements...

Following a problem posed by Lovász in 1969, it is believed that every finite connected vertex-transitive graph has a Hamilton path. This is shown here to be true for cubic Cayley graphs arising from finite groups having a $(2,s,3)$-presentation, that is, for groups $G=\langle a,b\mid a^2=1,b^s=1,{\left(ab\right)}^3=1,\cdots \rangle$ generated by an involution $a$ and an element $b$ of order $s\ge 3$ such that their product $ab$ has order $3$. More precisely, it is shown that the Cayley graph $X=Cay(G,\{a,b,b^{-1}\})$ has a Hamilton cycle when $\left|G\right|$ (and thus $s$) is congruent to 2 modulo 4, and has a...

We consider the equation $$-r\left(x\right)y^{\text{'}}\left(x\right)+q\left(x\right)y\left(x\right)=f\left(x\right),x\in ℝ$$ where $f\in L_p\left(ℝ\right)$, $p\in [1,\infty ]$ ($L_{\infty }\left(ℝ\right):=C\left(ℝ\right)$) and $$0<r\in C^{}\left(ℝ\right),0\le q\in L_1^{}\left(ℝ\right).$$ We obtain minimal requirements to the functions $r$ and $q$, in addition to (), under which equation () is correctly solvable in $L_p\left(ℝ\right)$, $p\in [1,\infty ]$.