It is well known that the minimum crossing number of an alternating link equals the number of crossings in any reduced alternating link diagram of the link. This remarkable result is an application of the Jones polynomial. In the case of the braid index of an alternating link, Yamada showed that the minimum number of Seifert circles over all regular projections of a link equals the braid index. Thus one may conjecture that the number of Seifert circles in a reduced alternating diagram of the link equals the braid index of the link, but this turns out to be false. In this paper we prove the next best thing that one could hope for: we characterise exactly those alternating links for which their braid indices equal the numbers of Seifert circles in their corresponding reduced alternating link diagrams. More specifically, we prove that if D is a reduced alternating link diagram of an alternating link L, then b(L), the braid index of L, equals the number of Seifert circles in D if and only if GS(D) contains no edges of weight one. Here GS(D), called the Seifert graph of D, is an edge weighted simple graph obtained from D by identifying each Seifert circle of D as a vertex of GS(D) such that two vertices in GS(D) are connected by an edge if and only if the two corresponding Seifert circles share crossings between them in D and that the weight of the edge is the number of crossings between the two Seifert circles. This result is partly based on the well-known MFW inequality, which states that the a-span of the HOMFLY polynomial of L is a lower bound of 2b(L)−2, as well as the result of Yamada relating the minimum number of Seifert circles over all link diagrams of L to b(L).

We propose topological Hochschild homology as a tool for measuring ramification of maps of structured ring spectra. We determine second order topological Hochschild homology of the p-local integers. For the tamely ramified extension of the map from the connective Adams summand to p-local complex topological K-theory we determine the relative topological Hochschild homology and show that it detects the tame ramification of this extension. We show that the complexification map from connective topological real to complex K-theory shows features of a wildly ramified extension. We also determine relative topological Hochschild homology for some quotient maps with commutative quotients.

We provide a non-trivial measure of irrationality for a class of Mahler numbers defined by infinite products. This class includes the Thue–Morse constant. Among other things, our results imply a generalisation to [12].

This paper considers an invariant of modules over a finite-dimensional Hopf algebra, called the critical group. This generalises the critical groups of complex finite group representations studied in [1, 11]. A formula is given for the cardinality of the critical group generally, and the critical group for the regular representation is described completely. A key role in the formulas is played by the greatest common divisor of the dimensions of the indecomposable projective representations.

Let χ(t) = a0tn – a1tn−1 + ⋯ + (−1)rartn−r be the chromatic polynomial of a graph, the characteristic polynomial of a matroid, or the characteristic polynomial of an arrangement of hyperplanes. For any integer k = 0, 1, …, r and real number x ⩾ k − r − 1, we obtain a linear bound of the coefficient sequence, that is

\begin{align*} {r+x\choose k}\leqslant \sum_{i=0}^{k}a_{i}{x\choose k-i}\leqslant {m+x\choose k}, \end{align*}

We present a definable smooth version of the Thom transversality theorem. We show further that the set of non-transverse definable smooth maps is nowhere dense in the definable smooth topology. Finally, we prove a definable version of a theorem of Trotman which says that the Whitney (a)-regularity of a stratification is necessary and sufficient for the stability of transversality.

We show that the parabola is of strong Khintchine type for convergence, which is the first result of its kind for curves. Moreover, Jarník type theorems are established in both the simultaneous and the dual settings, without monotonicity on the approximation function. To achieve the above, we prove a new counting result for the number of rational points with fixed denominators lying close to the parabola, which uses Burgess’s bound on short character sums.

We prove an upper bound for the fifth moment of Hecke L-functions associated to holomorphic Hecke cusp forms of full level and weight k in a dyadic interval K ≤ k ≤2K, as K → ∞. The bound is sharp on Selberg’s eigenvalue conjecture.

We analyse the asymptotic extremal growth rate of the Betti numbers of clique complexes of graphs on n vertices not containing a fixed forbidden induced subgraph H.

In particular, we prove a theorem of the alternative: for any H the growth rate achieves exactly one of five possible exponentials, that is, independent of the field of coefficients, the nth root of the maximal total Betti number over n-vertex graphs with no induced copy of H has a limit, as n tends to infinity, and, ranging over all H, exactly five different limits are attained.

For the interesting case where H is the 4-cycle, the above limit is 1, and we prove a superpolynomial upper bound.

A generalisation of von Staudt’s theorem that every permutation of the projective line that preserves harmonic quadruples is a projective semilinear map is given. It is then concluded that any proper supergroup of permutations of the projective semilinear group over an algebraically closed field of transcendence degree at least 1 is 4-transitive.

A group K is said to be a B-group if every permutation group containing K as a regular subgroup is either imprimitive or 2-transitive. In the second edition of his influential textbook on finite groups, Burnside published a proof that cyclic groups of composite prime-power degree are B-groups. Ten years later, in 1921, he published a proof that every abelian group of composite degree is a B-group. Both proofs are character-theoretic and both have serious flaws. Indeed, the second result is false. In this paper we explain these flaws and prove that every cyclic group of composite order is a B-group, using only Burnside’s character-theoretic methods. We also survey the related literature, prove some new results on B-groups of prime-power order, state two related open problems and present some new computational data.