Let ${𝒫}_2$ denote a positive integer with at most $2$ prime factors, counted according to multiplicity. For integers $a$, $q$ such that $(a,q)=1$, let ${𝒫}_2(q,a)$ denote the least ${𝒫}_2$ in the arithmetic progression ${\{nq+a\}}_{n=1}^{\infty }$. It is proved that for sufficiently large $q$, we have $${𝒫}_2(q,a)\ll q^{1.825}.$$ This result constitutes an improvement upon that of J. Li, M. Zhang and Y. Cai (2023), who obtained ${𝒫}_2(q,a)\ll q^{1.8345}.$

Given an integer $n\ge 3$, let $u_1,...,u_n$ be pairwise coprime integers $\ge 2$, $𝒟$ a family of nonempty proper subsets of $\{1,...,n\}$ with “enough” elements, and $\epsilon$ a function $𝒟\to \{\pm 1\}$. Does there exist at least one prime $q$ such that $q$ divides ${\prod }_{i\in I}{u}_i-\epsilon \left(I\right)$ for some $I\in 𝒟$, but it does not divide $u_1\cdots u_n$? We answer this question in the positive when the $u_i$ are prime powers and $\epsilon$ and $𝒟$ are subjected to certain restrictions. We use the result to prove that, if ${\epsilon }_0\in \{\pm 1\}$ and $A$ is a set of three or more primes that contains all prime divisors of any...

Let $r(G_1,G_2)$ be the Ramsey number of the two graphs $G_1$ and $G_2$. For $n_1\ge n_2\ge 1$ let $S(n_1,n_2)$ be the double star given by $V\left(S(n_1,n_2)\right)=\{v_0,v_1,...,v_{n_1},w_0$, $w_1,...,w_{n_2}\}$ and $E\left(S(n_1,n_2)\right)=\{v_0{v}_1,...,v_0{v}_{n_1},v_0{w}_0,w_0{w}_1,...,w_0{w}_{n_2}\}$. We determine $r(K_{1,m-1},$ $S(n_1,n_2))$ under certain conditions. For $n\ge 6$ let $T_n^3=S(n-5,3)$, $T_n^{\text{'}\text{'}}=(V,E_2)$ and $T_n^{\text{'}\text{'}\text{'}}=(V,E_3)$, where $V=\{v_0,v_1,...,v_{n-1}\}$, $E_2=\{v_0{v}_1,...,v_0{v}_{n-4},v_1{v}_{n-3}$, $v_1{v}_{n-2},v_2{v}_{n-1}\}$ and $E_3=\{v_0{v}_1,...,v_0{v}_{n-4},v_1{v}_{n-3},$ $v_2{v}_{n-2},v_3{v}_{n-1}\}$. We also obtain explicit formulas for $r(K_{1,m-1},T_n)$, $r(T_m^{\text{'}},T_n)$ $(n\ge m+3)$, $r(T_n,T_n)$, $r(T_n^{\text{'}},T_n)$ and $r(P_n,T_n)$, where $T_n\in \{T_n^{\text{'}\text{'}},T_n^{\text{'}\text{'}\text{'}},T_n^3\}$, $P_n$ is the path on $n$ vertices and $T_n^{\text{'}}$ is the unique tree with $n$ vertices and maximal degree $n-2$.

Let d be a positive integer and μ a generalized Cantor measure satisfying $\mu ={\sum }_{j=1}^m{a}_j\mu \circ S_j^{-1}$, where $0<a_j<1$, ${\sum }_{j=1}^m{a}_j=1$, $S_j=\rho R+b_j$ with 0 < ρ < 1 and R an orthogonal transformation of ${ℝ}^d$. Then ⎧1 < p ≤ 2 ⇒ ⎨$su{p}_{r>0}{r}^{d(1/{\alpha }^{\text{'}}-1/p^{\text{'}})}({\int }_{J_x^r}{\left|\mu ̂\left(y\right)\right|}^{p^{\text{'}}}{dy)}^{1/p^{\text{'}}}\le D₁{\rho }^{-d/{\alpha }^{\text{'}}}$, $x\in {ℝ}^d$, ⎩ p = 2 ⇒ infr≥1 rd(1/α’-1/2) (∫J₀r|μ̂(y)|² dy)1/2 ≥ D₂ρd/α’$,$where $J_x^r={\prod }_{i=1}^d(x_i-r/2,x_i+r/2)$, α’ is defined by ${\rho }^{d/{\alpha }^{\text{'}}}={\left({\sum }_{j=1}^m{a}_j^p\right)}^{1/p}$ and the constants D₁ and D₂ depend only on d and p.

The half-linear differential equation $$\left(\right|u^{\text{'}}{|}^{\alpha }\mathrm{sgn}{u}^{\text{'}}{)}^{\text{'}}=\alpha ({\lambda }^{\alpha +1}+b\left(t\right)){\left|u\right|}^{\alpha }\mathrm{sgn}u,t\ge t_0,$$ is considered, where $\alpha$ and $\lambda$ are positive constants and $b\left(t\right)$ is a real-valued continuous function on $[t_0,\infty )$. It is proved that, under a mild integral smallness condition of $b\left(t\right)$ which is weaker than the absolutely integrable condition of $b\left(t\right)$, the above equation has a nonoscillatory solution $u_0\left(t\right)$ such that $u_0\left(t\right)\sim {\mathrm{e}}^{-\lambda t}$ and $u_0^{\text{'}}\left(t\right)\sim -\lambda {\mathrm{e}}^{-\lambda t}$ ($t\to \infty$), and a nonoscillatory solution $u_1\left(t\right)$ such that $u_1\left(t\right)\sim {\mathrm{e}}^{\lambda t}$ and $u_1^{\text{'}}\left(t\right)\sim \lambda {\mathrm{e}}^{\lambda t}$ ($t\to \infty$).

We consider the equation $$-y^{\text{'}}\left(x\right)+q\left(x\right)y(x-\varphi \left(x\right))=f\left(x\right),x\in ℝ,$$ where $\varphi$ and $q$ ($q\ge 1$) are positive continuous functions for all $x\in ℝ$ and $f\in C\left(ℝ\right)$. By a solution of the equation we mean any function $y$, continuously differentiable everywhere in $ℝ$, which satisfies the equation for all $x\in ℝ$. We show that under certain additional conditions on the functions $\varphi$ and $q$, the above equation has a unique solution $y$, satisfying the inequality $$\parallel y^{\text{'}}{\parallel }_{C\left(ℝ\right)}+{\parallel qy\parallel }_{C\left(ℝ\right)}\le c{\parallel f\parallel }_{C\left(ℝ\right)},$$ where the constant $c\in (0,\infty )$ does not depend on the choice of $f$.

We discuss the validity of the Helmholtz decomposition of the Muckenhoupt $A_p$-weighted $L^p$-space ${\left(L_w^p\left(\Omega \right)\right)}^n$ for any domain $\Omega$ in ${ℝ}^n$, $n\in \mathbb{Z}$, $n\ge 2$, $1<p<\infty$ and Muckenhoupt $A_p$-weight $w\in A_p$. Set $p^{\text{'}}:=p/(p-1)$ and $w^{\text{'}}:=w^{-1/(p-1)}$. Then the Helmholtz decomposition of ${\left(L_w^p\left(\Omega \right)\right)}^n$ and ${\left(L_{w^{\text{'}}}^{p^{\text{'}}}\left(\Omega \right)\right)}^n$ and the variational estimate of $L_{w,\pi }^p\left(\Omega \right)$ and $L_{w^{\text{'}},\pi }^{p^{\text{'}}}\left(\Omega \right)$ are equivalent. Furthermore, we can replace $L_{w,\pi }^p\left(\Omega \right)$ and $L_{w^{\text{'}},\pi }^{p^{\text{'}}}\left(\Omega \right)$ by $L_{w,\sigma }^p\left(\Omega \right)$ and $L_{w^{\text{'}},\sigma }^{p^{\text{'}}}\left(\Omega \right)$, respectively. The proof is based on the reflexivity and orthogonality of $L_{w,\pi }^p\left(\Omega \right)$ and $L_{w,\sigma }^p\left(\Omega \right)$ and the Hahn-Banach theorem. As a corollary of our main result, we obtain the extrapolation...

Let $G$ be a group and $\omega \left(G\right)$ be the set of element orders of $G$. Let $k\in \omega \left(G\right)$ and $m_k\left(G\right)$ be the number of elements of order $k$ in $G$. Let nse$\left(G\right)=\{m_k\left(G\right):k\in \omega \left(G\right)\}$. Assume $r$ is a prime number and let $G$ be a group such that nse$\left(G\right)=$ nse$\left(S_r\right)$, where $S_r$ is the symmetric group of degree $r$. In this paper we prove that $G\cong S_r$, if $r$ divides the order of $G$ and $r^2$ does not divide it. To get the conclusion we make use of some well-known results on the prime graphs of finite simple groups and their components.

It is proved that real functions on $ℝ$ which can be represented as the difference of two semiconvex functions with a general modulus (or of two lower $C^1$-functions, or of two strongly paraconvex functions) coincide with semismooth functions on $ℝ$ (i.e. those locally Lipschitz functions on $ℝ$ for which $f_{+}^{\text{'}}\left(x\right)={lim}_{t\to x+}{f}_{+}^{\text{'}}\left(t\right)$ and $f_{-}^{\text{'}}\left(x\right)={lim}_{t\to x-}{f}_{-}^{\text{'}}\left(t\right)$ for each $x$). Further, for each modulus $\omega$, we characterize the class $DS{C}_{\omega }$ of functions on $ℝ$ which can be written as $f=g-h$, where $g$ and $h$ are semiconvex with modulus $C\omega$ (for some $C>0$) using a new...

Let $\mathbb{Z}$ be the set of integers, ${\mathbb{N}}_0$ the set of nonnegative integers and $F(x_1,x_2)=u_1{x}_1+u_2{x}_2$ be a binary linear form whose coefficients $u_1$, $u_2$ are nonzero, relatively prime integers such that $u_1{u}_2\ne \pm 1$ and $u_1{u}_2\ne -2$. Let $f:\mathbb{Z}\to {\mathbb{N}}_0\cup \left\{\infty \right\}$ be any function such that the set $f^{-1}\left(0\right)$ has asymptotic density zero. In 2007, M. B. Nathanson (2007) proved that there exists a set $A$ of integers such that $r_{A,F}\left(n\right)=f\left(n\right)$ for all integers $n$, where $r_{A,F}\left(n\right)=\left|\{(a,a^{\text{'}}):n=u_{1}a+u_2{a}^{\text{'}}:a,a^{\text{'}}\in A\}\right|$. We add the structure of difference for the binary linear form $F(x_1,x_2)$.

For the dynamics $x^{\text{'}\text{'}}=-{\nabla }_{x}V\left(x\right)$, an equilibrium point $\underline{x}$ are always unstable when on a neighborhood of $\underline{x}$ the non constant $V$ satisfies $P(x,\partial )V=0$ for a real second order elliptic $P$. The proof uses a result of Kozlov [6].

We prove that almost all positive even integers $n$ can be represented as $p_2^2+p_3^3+p_4^4+p_5^5$ with $|p_k^k-\frac{1}{4}N|\le N^{1-1/54+\epsilon }$ for $2\le k\le 5$. As a consequence, we show that each sufficiently large odd integer $N$ can be written as $p_1+p_2^2+p_3^3+p_4^4+p_5^5$ with $|p_k^k-\frac{1}{5}N|\le N^{1-1/54+\epsilon }$ for $1\le k\le 5$.