Let F denote the field of real numbers, complex numbers, or a finite algebraic extension of the p-adic field. We prove that the special linear group SLn(F) with the usual topology induced by F is a minimal topological group. This is accomplished by first proving the minimality of the upper triangular group in SLn(F). The proof for the upper triangular group uses an induction argument on a chain of upper triangular subgroups and relies on general results for locally compact topological groups, quotient groups, and subgroups. Minimality of SLn(F) is concluded by appealing to the associated Lie group decomposition as the product of a compact group and an upper triangular group. We also prove the universal minimality of homeomorphism groups of one dimensional manifolds, and we give a new simple proof of the universal minimality of S∞.

In this paper, the study of k-fold branched coverings for which the branch set is a stratified set is considered. First of all, the existence of universal k-fold branched coverings over CW-complexes with stratified branch set is proved using Brown's Representability Theorem. Next, an explicit construction of universal k-fold branched coverings over manifolds is given. Finally, some homotopy and homology groups are computed for some specific examples of Universal k-fold branched coverings.

In this paper, we prove, for a certain class of open billiard dynamical systems, the existence of a family of smooth probability measures on the leaves of the dynamical system's unstable manifold. These measures describe the conditional asymptotic behavior of forward trajectories of the system. Furthermore, properties of these families are proven which are germane to the PYC programme for these systems. Strong sufficient conditions for the uniqueness of such families are given which depend upon geometric properties of the system's phase space. In particular, these results hold for a fairly nonrestrictive class of triangular configurations of scatterers.

The dissertation focuses on the structure of π-regular (regular) rings.

This work deals with some aspects of universal topological and metric dynamic behavior of iterated maps of the interval.

In this study, we consider the generalized function solutions to nonlinear wave equation with distribution initial data. J. F. Colombeau shows that the initial value problem u_tt - Δu = F(u); m(x,0) = U_0; u_t (x,0) = i_1 where the initial data u_0 and u_1 are generalized functions, has a unique generalized function solution u. Here we take a specific F and specific distributions u_0, u_1 then inspect the generalized function representatives for the initial value problem solution to see if the generalized function solution is a distribution or is more singular. Using the numerical technics, we show for specific F and specific distribution initial data u_0, u_1, there is no distribution solution.

The purpose of this dissertation is to introduce a natural and unifying multifractal formalism which contains the above mentioned multifractal parameters, and gives interesting results for a large class of natural measures. In Part 2 we introduce the proposed multifractal formalism and study it properties. We also show that this multifractal formalism gives natural and interesting results when applied to (nonrandom) graph directed self-similar measures in Rd and "cookie-cutter" measures in R. In Part 3 we use the multifractal formalism introduced in Part 2 to give a detailed discussion of the multifractal structure of random (and hence, as a special case, non-random) graph directed self-similar measures in R^d.

A Polish space is a separable topological space that can be metrized by means of a complete metric. A subset A of a Polish space X is analytic if there is a Polish space Z and a continuous function f : Z —> X such that f(Z)= A. After proving that each uncountable Polish space contains a non-Borel analytic subset we conclude that there exists a universally measurable non-Borel set.

We describe groups of positive type and prove that a group G is of positive type if and only if G admits a non-trivial partition. We completely classify groups of type 2, and present examples of other groups of positive type as well as groups of type zero.

In this paper I formulate an explicit wavelet transform that, applied to any distribution in S^1(R^2), yields a function on phase space whose high-frequency singularities coincide precisely with the wave front set of the distribution. This characterizes the wave front set of a distribution in terms of the singularities of its wavelet transform with respect to a suitably chosen basic wavelet.

The notion of uniform countable additivity or uniform absolute continuity is present implicitly in the Lebesgue Dominated Convergence Theorem and explicitly in the Vitali-Hahn-Saks and Nikodym Theorems, respectively. V. M. Dubrovsky studied the connection between uniform countable additivity and uniform absolute continuity in a series of papers, and Bartle, Dunford, and Schwartz established a close relationship between uniform countable additivity in ca(Σ) and operator theory for the classical continuous function spaces C(K). Numerous authors have worked extensively on extending and generalizing the theorems of the preceding authors. Specifically, we mention Bilyeu and Lewis as well as Brooks and Drewnowski, whose efforts molded the direction and focus of this paper. This paper is a study of the techniques used by Bell, Bilyeu, and Lewis in their paper on uniform exhaustivity and Banach lattices to present a Banach lattice version of two important and powerful results in measure theory by Brooks and Drewnowski. In showing that the notions of exhaustivity and continuity take on familiar forms in certain Banach lattices of measures they show that these important measure theory results follow as corollaries of the generalized Banach lattice versions. This work uses their template to generalize results established by Bator, Bilyeu, and …

We study the existence, multiplicity, and nodal structure of solutions to a superlinear elliptic boundary value problem. Under specific hypotheses on the superlinearity, we show that there exist at least three nontrivial solutions. A pair of solutions are of one sign (positive and negative respectively), and the third solution changes sign exactly once. Our technique is variational, i.e., we study the critical points of the associated action functional to find solutions. First, we define a codimension 1 submanifold of a Sobolev space . This submanifold contains all weak solutions to our problem, and in our case, weak solutions are also classical solutions. We find nontrivial solutions which are local minimizers of our action functional restricted to various subsets of this submanifold. Additionally, if nondegenerate, the one-sign solutions are of Morse index 1 and the sign-changing solution has Morse index 2. We also establish that the action level of the sign-changing solution is bounded below by the sum of the two lesser levels of the one-sign solutions. Our results extend and complement the findings of Z. Q. Wang ([W]). We include a small sample of earlier works in the general area of superlinear elliptic boundary value problems.

This paper contains four main ideas. First, it shows global existence for the steepest descent in the uniformly convex setting. Secondly, it shows existence of critical points for convex functions defined on uniformly convex spaces. Thirdly, it shows an isomorphism between the dual space of H^{1,p}[0,1] and the space H^{1,q}[0,1] where p > 2 and {1/p} + {1/q} = 1. Fourthly, it shows how the Beurling-Denny theorem can be extended to find a useful function from H^{1,p}[0,1] to L_{p}[1,0] where p > 2 and addresses the problem of using that function to establish a relationship between the ordinary and the Sobolev gradients. The paper contains some numerical experiments and two computer codes.

The goal of this paper is to establish the dependency of the topology of a simple Lie group, specifically any of the special linear groups, on its underlying group structure. The intimate relationship between a Lie group's topology and its algebraic structure dictates some necessary topological properties, such as second countability. However, the extent to which a Lie group's topology is an "algebraic phenomenon" is, to date, still not known.

We develop a numerical method for solving singular differential equations and demonstrate the method on a variety of singular problems including first order ordinary differential equations, second order ordinary differential equations which have variational principles, and one partial differential equation.

Tensor products of Banach Spaces are studied. An introduction to tensor products is given. Some results concerning the reciprocal Dunford-Pettis Property due to Emmanuele are presented. Pelczyriski's property (V) and (V)-sets are studied. It will be shown that if X and Y are Banach spaces with property (V) and every integral operator from X into Y* is compact, then the (V)-subsets of (X⊗F)* are weak* sequentially compact. This in turn will be used to prove some stronger convergence results for (V)-subsets of C(Ω,X)*.

In this paper, we study continuous functions with no finite or infinite one-sided derivative anywhere. In 1925, A. S. Beskovitch published an example of such a function. Since then we call them Beskovitch functions. This construction is presented in chapter 2, The example was simple enough to clear the doubts about the existence of Besicovitch functions. In 1932, S. Saks showed that the set of Besicovitch functions is only a meager set in C[0,1]. Thus the Baire category method for showing the existence of Besicovitch functions cannot be directly applied. A. P. Morse in 1938 constructed Besicovitch functions. In 1984, Maly revived the Baire category method by finding a non-empty compact subspace of (C[0,1], || • ||) with respect to which the set of Morse-Besicovitch functions is comeager.

Lehr (1991) proved that, if M(q, r) denotes the set of real numbers whose expansion in base-r is q-automatic i.e., is recognized by an automaton A = (Aq, Ar, ao, δ, φ) (or is the image under a letter to letter morphism of a fixed point of a substitution of constant length q) then M(q, r) is closed under addition and rational multiplication. Similarly if we let M(r) denote the set of real numbers α whose base-r digit expansion is ultimately primitive substitutive, i.e., contains a tail which is the image (under a letter to letter morphism) of a fixed point of a primitive substitution then in an attempt to generalize Lehr's result we show that the set M(r) is closed under multiplication by rational numbers. We also show that M(r) is not closed under addition.

The method of steepest descent is applied to a nonlinearly constrained optimization problem which arises in the study of liquid crystals. Let Ω denote the region bounded by two coaxial cylinders of height 1 with the outer cylinder having radius 1 and the inner having radius ρ. The problem is to find a mapping, u, from Ω into R^3 which agrees with a given function v on the surfaces of the cylinders and minimizes the energy function over the set of functions in the Sobolev space H^(1,2)(Ω; R^3) having norm 1 almost everywhere. In the variational formulation, the norm 1 condition is emulated by a constraint function B. The direction of descent studied here is given by a projected gradient, called a B-gradient, which involves the projection of a Sobolev gradient onto the tangent space for B. A numerical implementation of the algorithm, the results of which agree with the theoretical results and which is independent of any strong properties of the domain, is described. In chapter 2, the Sobolev space setting and a significant projection in the theory of Sobolev gradients are discussed. The variational formulation is introduced in Chapter 3, where the issues of differentiability and existence of …

In this dissertation several results in Steinhaus graphs are investigated. First under some further conditions imposed on the induced cycles in steinhaus graphs, the order of induced cycles in Steinhaus graphs is at most [(n+3)/2]. Next the results of maximum clique size in Steinhaus graphs are used to enumerate the Steinhaus graphs having maximal cliques. Finally the concept of jumbled graphs and Posa's Lemma are used to show that almost all Steinhaus graphs are Hamiltonian.

We study the effects of a deformation via the heat equation on closed, plane curves. We begin with an overview of the theory of curves in R3. In particular, we develop the Frenet-Serret equations for any curve parametrized by arc length. This chapter is followed by an examination of curves in R2, and the resultant adjustment of the Frenet-Serret equations. We then prove the rotation index for closed, plane curves is an integer and for simple, closed, plane curves is ±1. We show that a curve is convex if and only if the curvature does not change sign, and we prove the Isoperimetric Inequality, which gives a bound on the area of a closed curve with fixed length. Finally, we study the deformation of plane curves developed by M. Gage and R. S. Hamilton. We observe that convex curves under deformation remain convex, and simple curves remain simple.

A continuous convex function on an open interval of the real line is differentiable everywhere except on a countable subset of its domain. There has been interest in the problem of characterizing those Banach spaces where the continuous functions exhibit similar differentiability properties. In this paper we show that if a Banach space E has property (H*) and B_E• is weak* sequentially compact, then E is an Asplund space. In the case where the space is weakly compactly generated, it is shown that property (H*) is equivalent for the space to admit an equivalent Frechet differentiable norm. Moreover, we define the SH* spaces, show that every SH* space is an Asplund space, and show that every weakly sequentially complete SH* space is reflexive. Also, we study the relation between property (H*) and the asymptotic norming property (ANP). By a slight modification of the ANP we define the ANP*, and show that if the dual of a Banach spaces has the ANP*-I then the space admits an equivalent Fréchet differentiability norm, and that the ANP*-II is equivalent to the space having property (H*) and the closed unit ball of the dual is weak* sequentially compact. Also, we show that in the …

The results from this dissertation are an exact computation of ultrapowers by measures on cardinals $\aleph\sb{n},\ n\in w$, in $L(\IR$), and a proof that ordinals in $L(\IR$) below $\delta\sbsp{5}{1}$ represented by descriptions and the identity function with respect to sequences of measures are cardinals. An introduction to the subject with the basic definitions and well known facts is presented in chapter I. In chapter II, we define a class of measures on the $\aleph\sb{n},\ n\in\omega$, in $L(\IR$) and derive a formula for an exact computation of the ultrapowers of cardinals by these measures. In chapter III, we give the definitions of descriptions and the lowering operator. Then we prove that ordinals represented by descriptions and the identity function are cardinals. This result combined with the fact that every cardinal $<\delta\sbsp{5}{1}$ in $L(\IR$) is represented by a description (J1), gives a characterization of cardinals in $L(\IR$) below $\delta\sbsp{5}{1}. Concrete examples of formal computations are shown in chapter IV.

In this dissertation the results of Jerrum and Sinclair on the conductance of Markov chains are used to prove that almost all generalized Steinhaus graphs are rapidly mixing and an algorithm for the uniform generation of 2 - (4k + 1,4,1) cyclic Mendelsohn designs is developed.