Smooth planar rr-splines of degree 2r2r

In \cite{as}, Alfeld and Schumaker give a formula for the dimension of the space of piecewise polynomial functions (splines) of degree $d$ and smoothness $r$ on a generic triangulation of a planar simplicial complex $\Delta$ (for $d \ge 3r+1$) and any triangulation (for $d\geq 3r+2$). In \cite{ss}, it was conjectured that the Alfeld-Schumaker formula actually holds for all $d \ge 2r+1$. In this note, we show that this is the best result possible; in particular, there exists a simplicial complex $\Delta$ such that for any $r$, the dimension of the spline space in degree $d=2r$ is not given by the formula of \cite{as}. The proof relies on the explicit computation of the nonvanishing of the first local cohomology module described in \cite{ss2}.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur

Exponential stabilization without geometric control

We present examples of exponential stabilization for the damped wave equation on a compact manifold in situations where the geometric control condition is not satisfied. This follows from a dynamical argument involving a topological pressure on a suitable uncontrolled set

Toric surface codes and Minkowski sums

Toric codes are evaluation codes obtained from an integral convex polytope $P \subset \R^n$ and finite field \F_q. They are, in a sense, a natural extension of Reed-Solomon codes, and have been studied recently by J. Hansen and D. Joyner. In this paper, we obtain upper and lower bounds on the minimum distance of a toric code constructed from a polygon $P \subset \R^2$ by examining Minkowski sum decompositions of subpolygons of $P$. Our results give a simple and unifying explanation of bounds of Hansen and empirical results of Joyner; they also apply to previously unknown cases.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures; This version contains some minor editorial revisions -- to appear SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematic