More nonexistence results for symmetric pair coverings

A $(v,k,\lambda)$-covering is a pair $(V, \mathcal{B})$, where $V$ is a $v$-set of points and $\mathcal{B}$ is a collection of $k$-subsets of $V$ (called blocks), such that every unordered pair of points in $V$ is contained in at least $\lambda$ blocks in $\mathcal{B}$. The excess of such a covering is the multigraph on vertex set $V$ in which the edge between vertices $x$ and $y$ has multiplicity $r_{xy}-\lambda$, where $r_{xy}$ is the number of blocks which contain the pair $\{x,y\}$. A covering is symmetric if it has the same number of blocks as points. Bryant et al.(2011) adapted the determinant related arguments used in the proof of the Bruck-Ryser-Chowla theorem to establish the nonexistence of certain symmetric coverings with $2$-regular excesses. Here, we adapt the arguments related to rational congruence of matrices and show that they imply the nonexistence of some cyclic symmetric coverings and of various symmetric coverings with specified excesses.Comment: Submitted on May 22, 2015 to the Journal of Linear Algebra and its Application

Algebraically constructible functions

An algebraic version of Kashiwara and Schapira's calculus of constructible functions is used to describe local topological properties of real algebraic sets, including Akbulut and King's numerical conditions for a stratified set of dimension three to be algebraic. These properties, which include generalizations of the invariants modulo 4, 8, and 16 of Coste and Kurdyka, are defined using the link operator on the ring of constructible functions.Comment: AMS-TeX v2.1, 25 page

On the complexity of computing Gr\"obner bases for weighted homogeneous systems

Solving polynomial systems arising from applications is frequently made easier by the structure of the systems. Weighted homogeneity (or quasi-homogeneity) is one example of such a structure: given a system of weights $W=(w\_{1},\dots,w\_{n})$, $W$-homogeneous polynomials are polynomials which are homogeneous w.r.t the weighted degree $\deg\_{W}(X\_{1}^{\alpha\_{1}},\dots,X\_{n}^{\alpha\_{n}}) = \sum w\_{i}\alpha\_{i}$. Gr\"obner bases for weighted homogeneous systems can be computed by adapting existing algorithms for homogeneous systems to the weighted homogeneous case. We show that in this case, the complexity estimate for Algorithm~\F5 \left(\binom{n+\dmax-1}{\dmax}^{\omega}\right) can be divided by a factor $\left(\prod w\_{i} \right)^{\omega}$. For zero-dimensional systems, the complexity of Algorithm~\FGLM $nD^{\omega}$ (where $D$ is the number of solutions of the system) can be divided by the same factor $\left(\prod w\_{i} \right)^{\omega}$. Under genericity assumptions, for zero-dimensional weighted homogeneous systems of $W$-degree $(d\_{1},\dots,d\_{n})$, these complexity estimates are polynomial in the weighted B\'ezout bound $\prod\_{i=1}^{n}d\_{i} / \prod\_{i=1}^{n}w\_{i}$. Furthermore, the maximum degree reached in a run of Algorithm \F5 is bounded by the weighted Macaulay bound $\sum (d\_{i}-w\_{i}) + w\_{n}$, and this bound is sharp if we can order the weights so that $w\_{n}=1$. For overdetermined semi-regular systems, estimates from the homogeneous case can be adapted to the weighted case. We provide some experimental results based on systems arising from a cryptography problem and from polynomial inversion problems. They show that taking advantage of the weighted homogeneous structure yields substantial speed-ups, and allows us to solve systems which were otherwise out of reach

Torsion-free, divisible, and Mittag-Leffler modules

We study (relative) K-Mittag-Leffler modules, with emphasis on the class K of absolutely pure modules. A final goal is to describe the K-Mittag-Leffler abelian groups as those that are, modulo their torsion part, aleph_1-free, Cor.6.12. Several more general results of independent interest are derived on the way. In particular, every flat K-Mittag-Leffler module (for K as before) is Mittag-Leffler, Thm.3.9. A question about the definable subcategories generated by the divisible modules and the torsion-free modules, resp., has been left open, Quest.4.6