Irreducible Specht modules are signed Young modules

Recently Donkin defined signed Young modules as a simultaneous generalization of Young and twisted Young modules for the symmetric group. We show that in odd characteristic, if a Specht module $S^\lambda$ is irreducible, then $S^\lambda$ is a signed Young module. Thus the set of irreducible Specht modules coincides with the set of irreducible signed Young modules. This provides evidence for our conjecture that the signed Young modules are precisely the class of indecomposable self-dual modules with Specht filtrations. The theorem is false in characteristic two.Comment: to appear Journal of Algebr

SOME IMPACTS OF ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY (ADEQ) ENFORCEMENT IN THE DAIRY INDUSTRY IN MARICOPA COUNTY, ARIZONA

Although water quality is a valid purpose for watershed projects under the PL83-566 Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act, historically very few water quality projects have ever been implemented in Arizona. This is largely due to the difficulty in measuring "non-controversial" monetary benefits associated with positive water quality impacts and to policy biased in favor of those projects with a higher monetary benefit-cost ratio. These reasons, among others, has prompted NRCS field economists to seek alternate methods to measure project benefits and costs. While the direct measurement of water quality benefits would be the preferable method to use, IMPLAN, through regional economic impact analysis, provides a way of measuring another category of benefits that can be used in the economic analysis of watershed projects. The key to proper use of IMPLAN is the correct problem definition and accurate modeling of the local economy. The assumptions used in the analysis must be acceptable to the interdisciplinary team and the project sponsors.IMPLAN, Input-Output, watershed analysis, water quality, NRCS, conservation, regional analysis, Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

On the Power of Manifold Samples in Exploring Configuration Spaces and the Dimensionality of Narrow Passages

We extend our study of Motion Planning via Manifold Samples (MMS), a general algorithmic framework that combines geometric methods for the exact and complete analysis of low-dimensional configuration spaces with sampling-based approaches that are appropriate for higher dimensions. The framework explores the configuration space by taking samples that are entire low-dimensional manifolds of the configuration space capturing its connectivity much better than isolated point samples. The contributions of this paper are as follows: (i) We present a recursive application of MMS in a six-dimensional configuration space, enabling the coordination of two polygonal robots translating and rotating amidst polygonal obstacles. In the adduced experiments for the more demanding test cases MMS clearly outperforms PRM, with over 20-fold speedup in a coordination-tight setting. (ii) A probabilistic completeness proof for the most prevalent case, namely MMS with samples that are affine subspaces. (iii) A closer examination of the test cases reveals that MMS has, in comparison to standard sampling-based algorithms, a significant advantage in scenarios containing high-dimensional narrow passages. This provokes a novel characterization of narrow passages which attempts to capture their dimensionality, an attribute that had been (to a large extent) unattended in previous definitions.Comment: 20 page

The group of endotrivial modules for the symmetric and alternating groups.

We complete a classification of the groups of endotrivial modules for the modular group algebras of symmetric groups and alternating groups. We show that, for n ≥ p2, the torsion subgroup of the group of endotrivial modules for the symmetric groups is generated by the sign representation. The torsion subgroup is trivial for the alternating groups. The torsion-free part of the group is free abelian of rank 1 if n ≥ p2 + p and has rank 2 if p2 ≤ n < p2 + p. This completes the work begun earlier by Carlson, Mazza and Nakano

Optimal randomized incremental construction for guaranteed logarithmic planar point location

Given a planar map of $n$ segments in which we wish to efficiently locate points, we present the first randomized incremental construction of the well-known trapezoidal-map search-structure that only requires expected $O(n \log n)$ preprocessing time while deterministically guaranteeing worst-case linear storage space and worst-case logarithmic query time. This settles a long standing open problem; the best previously known construction time of such a structure, which is based on a directed acyclic graph, so-called the history DAG, and with the above worst-case space and query-time guarantees, was expected $O(n \log^2 n)$. The result is based on a deeper understanding of the structure of the history DAG, its depth in relation to the length of its longest search path, as well as its correspondence to the trapezoidal search tree. Our results immediately extend to planar maps induced by finite collections of pairwise interior disjoint well-behaved curves.Comment: The article significantly extends the theoretical aspects of the work presented in http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.543