Promotion on oscillating and alternating tableaux and rotation of matchings and permutations

Using Henriques' and Kamnitzer's cactus groups, Sch\"utzenberger's promotion and evacuation operators on standard Young tableaux can be generalised in a very natural way to operators acting on highest weight words in tensor products of crystals. For the crystals corresponding to the vector representations of the symplectic groups, we show that Sundaram's map to perfect matchings intertwines promotion and rotation of the associated chord diagrams, and evacuation and reversal. We also exhibit a map with similar features for the crystals corresponding to the adjoint representations of the general linear groups. We prove these results by applying van Leeuwen's generalisation of Fomin's local rules for jeu de taquin, connected to the action of the cactus groups by Lenart, and variants of Fomin's growth diagrams for the Robinson-Schensted correspondence

Combinatorial Interpretations of the q-Faulhaber and q-Salie Coefficients

Recently, Guo and Zeng discovered two families of polynomials featuring in a q-analogue of Faulhaber's formula for the sums of powers and a q-analogue of Gessel-Viennot's formula involving Salie's coefficients for the alternating sums of powers. In this paper, we show that these are polynomials with symmetric, nonnegative integral coefficients by refining Gessel-Viennot's combinatorial interpretations.Comment: 15 page

GETTING TECHNOLOGY AND THE TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENT RIGHT: LESSONS FROM MAIZE DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

This paper examines two questions: (1) what were the most important factors that led to differential rates of adoption of maize technology by farmers in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi from 1910 to 1995? and (2) what do these experiences suggest about strategic investments in institutions and organizations needed to create a sustainable environment for technology development and adoption in the future? The analysis suggests that productivity increases are facilitated by (a) technology innovations throughout the agricultural system, (b) integration of technological innovations with changes in policies, organizations, human capital and infrastructure related to extension, input and output markets and processing services, and (c) coordination of these innovations across different stages of the agricultural system.Crop Production/Industries, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Combinatorics of symplectic invariant tensors

International audienceAn important problem from invariant theory is to describe the subspace of a tensor power of a representation invariant under the action of the group. According to Weyl's classic, the first main (later: 'fundamental') theorem of invariant theory states that all invariants are expressible in terms of a finite number among them, whereas a second main theorem determines the relations between those basic invariants.Here we present a transparent, combinatorial proof of a second fundamental theorem for the defining representation of the symplectic group $Sp(2n)$. Our formulation is completely explicit and provides a very precise link to $(n+1)$-noncrossing perfect matchings, going beyond a dimension count. As a corollary, we obtain an instance of the cyclic sieving phenomenon.Un problème important de la théorie des invariantes est de décrire le sous espace d’une puissance tensorielle d’une représentation invariant à l’action du groupe. Suivant la classique de Weyl, le théorème fondamental premier pour la représentation standard du groupe sympléctique dit que tous les invariants peuvent être exprimés entre un nombre fini d’entre eux. Par ailleurs, un théorème fondamental second détermine les relations entre ces invariants basiques.Ici, nous présentons une preuve transparente d’un théorème fondamental second pour la représentation standard du groupe sympléctique $Sp(2n)$. Notre formulation est complètement explicite et elle fournit un lien très précis avec les couplages parfaits $(n+1)$ -noncroissants, plus précis qu’un dénombrement de la dimension. Comme corollaire nous exhibons un phénomène de crible cyclique

Descent sets for symplectic groups

The descent set of an oscillating (or up-down) tableau is introduced. This descent set plays the same role in the representation theory of the symplectic groups as the descent set of a standard tableau plays in the representation theory of the general linear groups. In particular, we show that the descent set is preserved by Sundaram's correspondence. This gives a direct combinatorial interpretation of the branching rules for the defining representations of the symplectic groups; equivalently, for the Frobenius character of the action of a symmetric group on an isotypic subspace in a tensor power of the defining representation of a symplectic group.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figure

Advanced software techniques for space shuttle data management systems Final report

Airborne/spaceborn computer design and techniques for space shuttle data management system

Application of Turn- Key Construction to Industrialized Urban Housing in Missouri

Housing can be the answer to prayers for the declining technically-oriented aerospace industry. According to Look magazine the Soviet Union is outproducing the U.S. two to one in new housing units for its people and nearly every country in Western Europe now outproduces us. It would be most unfortunate if we were first on the moon, first in defense, but last in housing. Industrialization and new financing methods for housing offer great opportunities to provide success for most groups which are often at odds. A 50 billion dollar a year business will produce profits for stockholders, hundreds of thousands of new jobs for labor including minority groups, an opportunity for young people to rebuild America, and a new, diversified area for investors

Combinatorics of symplectic invariant tensors

An important problem from invariant theory is to describe the subspace of a tensor power of a representation invariant under the action of the group. According to Weyl's classic, the first main (later: 'fundamental') theorem of invariant theory states that all invariants are expressible in terms of a finite number among them, whereas a second main theorem determines the relations between those basic invariants.Here we present a transparent, combinatorial proof of a second fundamental theorem for the defining representation of the symplectic group $Sp(2n)$. Our formulation is completely explicit and provides a very precise link to $(n+1)$-noncrossing perfect matchings, going beyond a dimension count. As a corollary, we obtain an instance of the cyclic sieving phenomenon

Descent sets for oscillating tableaux

The descent set of an oscillating (or up-down) tableau is introduced. This descent set plays the same role in the representation theory of the symplectic groups as the descent set of a standard tableau plays in the representation theory of the general linear groups. In particular, we show that the descent set is preserved by Sundaram's correspondence. This gives a direct combinatorial interpretation of the branching rules for the defining representations of the symplectic groups; equivalently, for the Frobenius character of the action of a symmetric group on an isotypic subspace in a tensor power of the defining representation of a symplectic group

Watermelon configurations with wall interaction: exact and asymptotic results

We perform an exact and asymptotic analysis of the model of $n$ vicious walkers interacting with a wall via contact potentials, a model introduced by Brak, Essam and Owczarek. More specifically, we study the partition function of watermelon configurations which start on the wall, but may end at arbitrary height, and their mean number of contacts with the wall. We improve and extend the earlier (partially non-rigorous) results by Brak, Essam and Owczarek, providing new exact results, and more precise and more general asymptotic results, in particular full asymptotic expansions for the partition function and the mean number of contacts. Furthermore, we relate this circle of problems to earlier results in the combinatorial and statistical literature.Comment: AmS-TeX, 41 page