In this paper, we show that the $\gamma $-vectors of Coxeter complexes (of types A and B) and associahedrons (of types A and B) can be obtained by using derivative polynomials of the tangent and secant functions. We provide a unified grammatical approach to generate these $\gamma $-vectors and the coefficient arrays of Narayana polynomials, Legendre polynomials and Chebyshev polynomials of both kinds.

For a positive integer $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}n$, let $\sigma (n)$ denote the sum of the positive divisors of $n$. Let $d$ be a proper divisor of $n$. We call $n$ a deficient-perfect number if $\sigma (n) = 2n - d$. In this paper, we show that there are no odd deficient-perfect numbers with three distinct prime divisors.

We determine a lower gap property for the growth of an unbounded $\mathbb{Z}$-valued $k$-regular sequence. In particular, if $f:\mathbb{N}\to \mathbb{Z}$ is an unbounded $k$-regular sequence, we show that there is a constant $c>0$ such that $|f(n)|>c\log n$ infinitely often. We end our paper by answering a question of Borwein, Choi and Coons on the sums of completely multiplicative automatic functions.

Recently, Keith used the theory of modular forms to study 9-regular partitions modulo 2 and 3. He obtained one infinite family of congruences modulo 3, and meanwhile proposed an analogous conjecture. In this note, we show that 9-regular partitions and 3-cores satisfy the same congruences modulo 3. Thus, we first derive several results on 3-cores, and then generalise Keith’s conjecture and get a stronger result, which implies that all of Keith’s results on congruences modulo 3 are consequences of our result.

We determine several variants of the classical interpolation formula for finite fields which produce polynomials that induce a desirable mapping on the nonspecified elements, and without increasing the number of terms in the formula. As a corollary, we classify those permutation polynomials over a finite field which are their own compositional inverse, extending work of C. Wells.

A subgroup $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}H$ of a finite group $G$ is said to be S-semipermutable in $G$ if $H$ permutes with every Sylow $q$-subgroup of $G$ for all primes $q$ not dividing $|H |$. A finite group $G$ is an MS-group if the maximal subgroups of all the Sylow subgroups of $G$ are S-semipermutable in $G$. The aim of the present paper is to characterise the finite MS-groups.

Let $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}G$ be a finite 2-group. If $G$ is of coclass 2 or $(G,Z(G))$ is a Camina pair, then $G$ admits a noninner automorphism of order 2 or 4 leaving the Frattini subgroup elementwise fixed.

It is shown that if $G$ is a finite $p$-group of coclass 2 with $p>2$, then $G$ has a noninner automorphism of order $p$.

The present paper is related to some recent studies in Abdollahi and Russo [‘On a problem of P. Hall for Engel words’, Arch. Math. (Basel) 97 (2011), 407–412] and Fernández-Alcober et al. [‘A note on conciseness of Engel words’, Comm. Algebra 40 (2012), 2570–2576] on the position of the $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}n$-Engel marginal subgroup $E^*_n(G)$ of a group $G$, when $n=3,4$. Describing the size of $E^*_n(G)$ for $n=3,4$, we show some generalisations of classical results on the partial margins of $E^*_3(G)$ and $E^*_4(G)$.

In this paper we prove that every group with at most 26 normalisers is soluble. This gives a positive answer to Conjecture 3.6 in the author’s paper [On groups with a finite number of normalisers’, Bull. Aust. Math. Soc.86 (2012), 416–423].

Assume that $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}m$ and $n$ are two positive integers which do not divide each other. If the set of conjugacy class sizes of primary and biprimary elements of a group $G$ is $\{1, m, n, mn\}$, we show that up to central factors $G$ is a $\{p,q\}$-group for two distinct primes $p$ and $q$.

Let $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}\langle X,d \rangle $ be a metric space. We characterise the family of subsets of $X$ on which each locally Lipschitz function defined on $X$ is bounded, as well as the family of subsets on which each member of two different subfamilies consisting of uniformly locally Lipschitz functions is bounded. It suffices in each case to consider real-valued functions.

Some better estimates for the difference between the integral mean of a function and its mean over a subinterval are established. Various applications for special means and probability density functions are also given.

Let $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}H(\mathbb{D})$ denote the space of holomorphic functions on the unit disc $\mathbb{D}$. Given $p>0$ and a weight $\omega $, the Hardy growth space $H(p, \omega )$ consists of those $f\in H(\mathbb{D})$ for which the integral means $M_p(f,r)$ are estimated by $C\omega (r)$, $0<r<1$. Assuming that $p>1$ and $\omega $ satisfies a doubling condition, we characterise $H(p, \omega )$ in terms of associated Fourier blocks. As an application, extending a result by Bennett et al. [‘Coefficients of Bloch and Lipschitz functions’, Illinois J. Math. 25 (1981), 520–531], we compute the solid hull of $H(p, \omega )$ for $p\ge 2$.

In this paper, we obtain the well posedness of the linear stochastic Korteweg–de Vries equation by the Galerkin method, and then establish the Carleman estimate, leading to the unique continuation property (UCP) for the linear stochastic Korteweg–de Vries equation. This UCP cannot be obtained from the classical Holmgren uniqueness theorem.

While the separable quotient problem is famously open for Banach spaces, in the broader context of barrelled spaces we give negative solutions. Obversely, the study of pseudocompact $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}X$ and Warner bounded $X$ allows us to expand Rosenthal’s positive solution for Banach spaces of the form $ C_{c}(X) $ to barrelled spaces of the same form, and see that strong duals of arbitrary $C_{c}(X) $ spaces admit separable quotients.

In this paper, it is proved that every isometry between the unit spheres of two real Banach spaces preserves the frames of the unit balls. As a consequence, if $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}X$ and $Y$ are $n$-dimensional Banach spaces and $T_0$ is an isometry from the unit sphere of $X$ onto that of $Y$ then it maps the set of all $(n-1)$-extreme points of the unit ball of $X$ onto that of $Y$.

Recently, H’michane et al. [‘On the class of limited operators’, Acta Math. Sci. (submitted)] introduced the class of weak$^*$ Dunford–Pettis operators on Banach spaces, that is, operators which send weakly compact sets onto limited sets. In this paper, the domination problem for weak$^*$ Dunford–Pettis operators is considered. Let $S, T:E\to F$ be two positive operators between Banach lattices $E$ and $F$ such that $0\leq S\leq T$. We show that if $T$ is a weak$^{*}$ Dunford–Pettis operator and $F$ is $\sigma $-Dedekind complete, then $S$ itself is weak$^*$ Dunford–Pettis.

In this paper we establish an existence result for a class of generalised variational-like inequalities, when the functions used in their definition are of type ql and satisfy some general continuity assumptions. We use a Brézis–Nirenberg–Stampacchia type result.

The paper considers a statistical concept of causality in continuous time between filtered probability spaces, based on Granger’s definition of causality. This causality concept is connected with the preservation of the martingale representation property when the filtration is getting smaller. We also give conditions, in terms of causality, for every martingale to be a continuous semimartingale, and we consider the equivalence between the concept of causality and the preservation of the martingale representation property under change of measure. In addition, we apply these results to weak solutions of stochastic differential equations. The results can be applied to the economics of securities trading.