In this paper, employing a new inequality, we show that under certain curvature pinching condition, the strictly convex closed smooth self-similar solution of $\sigma_k^{\alpha}$-flow must be a round sphere. We also obtain a similar result for the solutions of $F=-\langle X, e_{n+1}\rangle \, (*)$ with a non-homogeneous function $F$. At last, we prove that if $F$ can be compared with $\frac{(n-k+1)\sigma_{k-1}}{k\sigma_{k}}$, then a closed strictly $k$-convex solution of $(*)$ must be a round sphere.

1 Preliminaries 3 1.1 Linear algebra 3 1.1. 1 Vectors and matrices 3 1.1. 2 Symmetric bilinear forms 5 1.1. 3 Vector subspaces 6 1.1. 4 Linear maps from Rn to Rn 7 1.1. 5 A convention 9 1.2 Vector calculus 9

In this follow-up of our earlier two works D (11.1)(arXiv: 1406.0929 [math. DG]) and D (11.2)(arXiv: 1412.0771 [hep-th]) in the D-project, we study further the notion of adifferentiable map from an Azumaya/matrix manifold to a real manifold'. A conjecture is made that the notion of differentiable maps from Azumaya/matrix manifolds as defined in D (11.1) is equivalent to one defined through the contravariant ring-homomorphisms alone. A proof of this conjecture for the smooth (ie C^{\infty} ) case is given in this note. Thus, at least in the smooth case, our setting for D-branes in the realm of differential geometry is completely parallel to that in the realm of algebraic geometry, cf.\arXiv: 0709.1515 [math. AG] and arXiv: 0809.2121 [math. AG]. A related conjecture on such maps to C^{\infty} , as a C^{\infty} -manifold, and its proof in the C^{\infty} case is also given. As a by-product, a conjecture on a division lemma in the finitely differentiable case that generalizes the division lemma in the smooth case from Malgrange is given in the end, as well as other comments on the conjectures in the general C^{\infty} case. We remark that there are similar conjectures in general and theorems in the smooth case for the fermionic/super generalization of the notion.

The curvature estimates for k curvature equations with general right-hand sides is a longstanding problem. In this paper, we completely solve the problem when k . We also discuss some applications of our estimates.

We prove the factoriality of a nodal hypersurface in P4 of degree d that has at most 2(d ¡ 1)2=3 singular points, and we prove the factoriality of a double cover of P3 branched over a nodal surface of degree 2r having less than (2r ¡ 1)r singular points.