arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Peter F. Stiller.
We prove that for all $d \geq 1$ a shellable $d$-dimensional simplicial complex with at most $d+3$ vertices is extendably shellable. The proof involves considering the structure of `exposed' edges in chordal graphs as well as a connection to linear quotients of quadratic monomial ideals.
We develop a compositional framework for formal synthesis of hybrid systems using the language of category theory. More specifically, we provide mutually compatible tools for hierarchical, sequential, and independent parallel composition. In our framework, hierarchies of hybrid systems correspond to template-anchor pairs, which we model as spans of subdividing and embedding semiconjugacies. Hierarchical composition of template-anchor pairs corresponds to the composition of spans via pullback. To model sequential composition, we introduce "directed hybrid systems," each of which flows from an initial subsystem to a final subsystem in a Conley-theoretic sense. Sequential composition of directed systems is given by a pushout of graph embeddings, rewriting the continuous dynamics of the overlapping subsystem to prioritize the second directed system. Independent parallel composition corresponds to a categorical product with respect to semiconjugacy. To formalize the compatibility of these three types of composition, we construct a vertically cartesian double category of hybrid systems where the vertical morphisms are semiconjugacies, and the horizontal morphisms are directed hybrid systems.
Following his discovery that finite metric spaces have injective envelopes naturally admitting a polyhedral structure, Isbell, in his pioneering work on injective metric spaces, attempted a characterization of cellular complexes admitting the structure of an injective metric space. A bit later, Mai and Tang confirmed Isbell's conjecture that a simplicial complex is injectively metrizable if and only if it is collapsible. Considerable advances in the understanding, classification and applications of injective envelopes have since been made by Dress, Huber, Sturmfels and collaborators, and most recently by Lang. Unfortunately a combination theory for injective polyhedra is still unavailable. Here we expose a connection to the duality theory of cubings -- simply connected non-positively curved cubical complexes -- which provides a more principled and accessible approach to Mai and Tang's result, providing one with a powerful tool for systematic construction of locally-compact injective metric spaces: Main Theorem. Any complete pointed Gromov--Hausdorff limit of locally-finite piecewise-$\ell_\infty$ cubings is injective. This result may be construed as a combination theorem for the simplest injective polytopes, $\ell_\infty$-parallelopipeds, where the condition for retaining injectivity is the combinatorial non-positive curvature condition on the complex. Thus it represents a first step towards a more comprehensive combination theory for injective spaces. In addition to setting the earlier work on injectively metrizable complexes within its proper context of non-positively curved geometry, this paper is meant to provide the reader with a systematic review of the results~ ---~ otherwise scattered throughout the geometric group theory literature~ ---~ on the duality theory and the geometry of cubings, which make this connection possible.
We prove several results about chordal graphs and weighted chordal graphs by focusing on exposed edges. These are edges that are properly contained in a single maximal complete subgraph. This leads to a characterization of chordal graphs via deletions of a sequence of exposed edges from a complete graph. Most interesting is that in this context the connected components of the edge-induced subgraph of exposed edges are 2-edge connected. We use this latter fact in the weighted case to give a modified version of Kruskal's second algorithm for finding a minimum spanning tree in a weighted chordal graph. This modified algorithm benefits from being local in an important sense.
This work draws inspiration from three important sources of research on dissimilarity-based clustering and intertwines those three threads into a consistent principled functorial theory of clustering. Those three are the overlapping clustering of Jardine and Sibson, the functorial approach of Carlsson and Mémoli to partition-based clustering, and the Isbell/Dress school's study of injective envelopes. Carlsson and Mémoli introduce the idea of viewing clustering methods as functors from a category of metric spaces to a category of clusters, with functoriality subsuming many desirable properties. Our first series of results extends their theory of functorial clustering schemes to methods that allow overlapping clusters in the spirit of Jardine and Sibson. This obviates some of the unpleasant effects of chaining that occur, for example with single-linkage clustering. We prove an equivalence between these general overlapping clustering functors and projections of weight spaces to what we term clustering domains, by focusing on the order structure determined by the morphisms. As a specific application of this machinery, we are able to prove that there are no functorial projections to cut metrics, or even to tree metrics. Finally, although we focus less on the construction of clustering methods (clustering domains) derived from injective envelopes, we lay out some preliminary results, that hopefully will give a feel for how the third leg of the stool comes into play.
We examine overlapping clustering schemes with functorial constraints, in the spirit of Carlsson--Memoli. This avoids issues arising from the chaining required by partition-based methods. Our principal result shows that any clustering functor is naturally constrained to refine single-linkage clusters and be refined by maximal-linkage clusters. We work in the context of metric spaces with non-expansive maps, which is appropriate for modeling data processing which does not increase information content.
Given a torsion section of a semistable elliptic surface, we prove equidistribution results for the components of singular fibers which are hit by the section, and for the root of unity (identifying the zero component with ${\Bbb C}$) which is hit by the section in case the section hits the zero component.
We survey some aspects of the theory of elliptic surfaces and give some results aimed at determining the Picard number of such a surface. For the surfaces considered, this will be equivalent to determining the Mordell-Weil rank of an elliptic curve defined over a function field in one variable. An interesting conjecture concerning Galois actions on the relative de~Rham cohomology of these surfaces is discussed.