A dichotomy property for locally compact groups

We extend to metrizable locally compact groups Rosenthal's theorem describing those Banach spaces containing no copy of $l_1$. For that purpose, we transfer to general locally compact groups the notion of interpolation ($I_0$) set, which was defined by Hartman and Ryll-Nardzewsky [25] for locally compact abelian groups. Thus we prove that for every sequence $\lbrace g_n \rbrace_{n<\omega}$ in a locally compact group $G$, then either $\lbrace g_n \rbrace_{n<\omega}$ has a weak Cauchy subsequence or contains a subsequence that is an $I_0$ set. This result is subsequently applied to obtain sufficient conditions for the existence of Sidon sets in a locally compact group $G$, an old question that remains open since 1974 (see [32] and [20]). Finally, we show that every locally compact group strongly respects compactness extending thereby a result by Comfort, Trigos-Arrieta, and Wu [13], who established this property for abelian locally compact groups.Comment: To appear in J. of Functional Analysi

A correction on Shiloach's algorithm for minimum linear arrangement of trees

More than 30 years ago, Shiloach published an algorithm to solve the minimum linear arrangement problem for undirected trees. Here we fix a small error in the original version of the algorithm and discuss its effect on subsequent literature. We also improve some aspects of the notation.Comment: A new introductory paragraph has been added; error solutions and notation improvements are discussed with more dept

Interpolation sets in spaces of continuous metric-valued functions

Let $X$ and $M$ be a topological space and metric space, respectively. If $C(X,M)$ denotes the set of all continuous functions from X to M, we say that a subset $Y$ of $X$ is an \emph{$M$-interpolation set} if given any function $g\in M^Y$ with relatively compact range in $M$, there exists a map $f\in C(X,M)$ such that $f_{|Y}=g$. In this paper, motivated by a result of Bourgain in \cite{Bourgain1977}, we introduce a property, stronger than the mere \emph{non equicontinuity} of a family of continuous functions, that isolates a crucial fact for the existence of interpolation sets in fairly general settings. As a consequence, we establish the existence of $I_0$ sets in every nonprecompact subset of a abelian locally $k_{\omega}$-groups. This implies that abelian locally $k_{\omega}$-groups strongly respects compactness

Synthesizing Probabilistic Invariants via Doob's Decomposition

When analyzing probabilistic computations, a powerful approach is to first find a martingale---an expression on the program variables whose expectation remains invariant---and then apply the optional stopping theorem in order to infer properties at termination time. One of the main challenges, then, is to systematically find martingales. We propose a novel procedure to synthesize martingale expressions from an arbitrary initial expression. Contrary to state-of-the-art approaches, we do not rely on constraint solving. Instead, we use a symbolic construction based on Doob's decomposition. This procedure can produce very complex martingales, expressed in terms of conditional expectations. We show how to automatically generate and simplify these martingales, as well as how to apply the optional stopping theorem to infer properties at termination time. This last step typically involves some simplification steps, and is usually done manually in current approaches. We implement our techniques in a prototype tool and demonstrate our process on several classical examples. Some of them go beyond the capability of current semi-automatic approaches