We prove the unimodality of some coloured $q$-Eulerian polynomials, which involve the flag excedances, the major index and the fixed points on coloured permutation groups, via two recurrence formulas. In particular, we confirm a recent conjecture of Mongelli about the unimodality of the flag excedances over type B derangements. Furthermore, we find the coloured version of Gessel’s hook factorisation, which enables us to interpret these two recurrences combinatorially. We also provide a combinatorial proof of a symmetric and unimodal expansion for the coloured derangement polynomial, which was first established by Shin and Zeng using continued fractions.

Let $G$ be a finite group and ${\rm\Gamma}$ a $G$-symmetric graph. Suppose that $G$ is imprimitive on $V({\rm\Gamma})$ with $B$ a block of imprimitivity and ${\mathcal{B}}:=\{B^{g};g\in G\}$ a system of imprimitivity of $G$ on $V({\rm\Gamma})$. Define ${\rm\Gamma}_{{\mathcal{B}}}$ to be the graph with vertex set ${\mathcal{B}}$ such that two blocks $B,C\in {\mathcal{B}}$ are adjacent if and only if there exists at least one edge of ${\rm\Gamma}$ joining a vertex in $B$ and a vertex in $C$. Xu and Zhou [‘Symmetric graphs with 2-arc-transitive quotients’, J. Aust. Math. Soc. 96 (2014), 275–288] obtained necessary conditions under which the graph ${\rm\Gamma}_{{\mathcal{B}}}$ is 2-arc-transitive. In this paper, we completely settle one of the cases defined by certain parameters connected to ${\rm\Gamma}$ and ${\mathcal{B}}$ and show that there is a unique graph corresponding to this case.

In this paper, by using the theory of reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces and the pair correlation formula constructed by Chandee et al. [‘Simple zeros of primitive Dirichlet $L$-functions and the asymptotic large sieve’, Q. J. Math.65(1) (2014), 63–87], we prove that at least 93.22% of low-lying zeros of primitive Dirichlet $L$-functions are simple in a proper sense, under the assumption of the generalised Riemann hypothesis.

We examine the tail distributions of integer partition ranks and cranks by investigating tail moments, which are analogous to the positive moments introduced by Andrews et al. [‘The odd moments of ranks and cranks’, J. Combin. Theory Ser. A120(1) (2013), 77–91].

The subgroup commutativity degree of a group $G$ is the probability that two subgroups of $G$ commute, or equivalently that the product of two subgroups is again a subgroup. For the dihedral, quasi-dihedral and generalised quaternion groups (all of 2-power cardinality), the subgroup commutativity degree tends to 0 as the size of the group tends to infinity. This also holds for the family of projective special linear groups over fields of even characteristic and for the family of the simple Suzuki groups. In this short note, we show that the family of finite $P$-groups also has this property.

A subset $X$ of a group $G$ is a set of pairwise noncommuting elements if $ab\neq ba$ for any two distinct elements $a$ and $b$ in $X$. If $|X|\geq |Y|$ for any other set of pairwise noncommuting elements $Y$ in $G$, then $X$ is called a maximal subset of pairwise noncommuting elements and the cardinality of such a subset (if it exists) is denoted by ${\it\omega}(G)$. In this paper, among other things, we prove that, for each positive integer $n$, there are only finitely many groups $G$, up to isoclinism, with ${\it\omega}(G)=n$, and we obtain similar results for groups with exactly $n$ centralisers.

We explore transversals of finite index subgroups of finitely generated groups. We show that when $H$ is a subgroup of a rank-$n$ group $G$ and $H$ has index at least $n$ in $G$, we can construct a left transversal for $H$ which contains a generating set of size $n$ for $G$; this construction is algorithmic when $G$ is finitely presented. We also show that, in the case where $G$ has rank $n\leq 3$, there is a simultaneous left–right transversal for $H$ which contains a generating set of size $n$ for $G$. We finish by showing that if $H$ is a subgroup of a rank-$n$ group $G$ with index less than $3\cdot 2^{n-1}$, and $H$ contains no primitive elements of $G$, then $H$ is normal in $G$ and $G/H\cong C_{2}^{n}$.

In this paper, we prove that the finite simple groups $\text{PSp}_{6}(q)$, ${\rm\Omega}_{7}(q)$ and $\text{PSU}_{7}(q^{2})$ are $(2,3)$-generated for all $q$. In particular, this result completes the classification of the $(2,3)$-generated finite classical simple groups up to dimension 7.

We calculate the rank and idempotent rank of the semigroup ${\mathcal{E}}(X,{\mathcal{P}})$ generated by the idempotents of the semigroup ${\mathcal{T}}(X,{\mathcal{P}})$ which consists of all transformations of the finite set $X$ preserving a nonuniform partition ${\mathcal{P}}$. We also classify and enumerate the idempotent generating sets of minimal possible size. This extends results of the first two authors in the uniform case.

In this note, we prove a uniqueness theorem for finite-order meromorphic solutions to a class of difference equations of Malmquist type. Such solutions $f$ are uniquely determined by their poles and the zeros of $f-e_{j}$ (counting multiplicities) for two finite complex numbers $e_{1}\neq e_{2}$.

In this paper, we give some Łojasiewicz-type inequalities for continuous definable functions in an o-minimal structure. We also give a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a global error bound and the relationship between the Palais–Smale condition and this global error bound. Moreover, we give a Łojasiewicz nonsmooth gradient inequality at infinity near the fibre for continuous definable functions in an o-minimal structure.

In this work we study the homogenisation problem for nonlinear elliptic equations involving $p$-Laplacian-type operators with sign-changing weights. We study the asymptotic behaviour of variational eigenvalues which consist of a double sequence of eigenvalues. We show that the $k$th positive eigenvalue goes to infinity when the average of the weights is nonpositive, and converges to the $k$th variational eigenvalue of the limit problem when the average is positive for any $k\geq 1$.

Our aim in this paper is to deal with Sobolev inequalities for Riesz potentials of functions in Lebesgue spaces of variable exponents near Sobolev’s exponent over nondoubling metric measure spaces.

In this paper, we will show that the spherical symmetric slices are the convex bodies that maximise the volume, the surface area and the integral of mean curvature when the minimum width and the circumradius are prescribed and the symmetric $2$-cap-bodies are the ones which minimise the volume, the surface area and the integral of mean curvature given the diameter and the inradius.

Finite subset spaces of a metric space $X$ form a nested sequence under natural isometric embeddings $X=X(1)\subset X(2)\subset \cdots \,$. We prove that this sequence admits Lipschitz retractions $X(n)\rightarrow X(n-1)$ when $X$ is a Hilbert space.

In this paper, we establish a translation theorem for the generalised analytic Feynman integral of functionals that belong to the Banach algebra ${\mathcal{F}}(C_{a,b}[0,T])$.