It is well known that the second-order cone and the circular cone have many analogous properties. In particular, there exists an important distance inequality associated with the second-order cone and the circular cone. The inequality indicates that the distances of arbitrary points to the second-order cone and the circular cone are equivalent, which is crucial in analyzing the tangent cone and normal cone for the circular cone. In this paper, we provide an alternative approach to achieve the aforementioned inequality. Although the proof is a bit longer than the existing one, the new approach offers a way to clarify when the equality holds. Such a clarification is helpful for further study of the relationship between the second-order cone programming problems and the circular cone programming problems.

Technological innovations have revolutionized the process of scientific research and knowledge discovery. The availability of massive data and challenges from frontiers of research and development have reshaped statistical thinking, data analysis and theoretical studies. The challenges of high-dimensionality arise in diverse fields of sciences and the humanities, ranging from computational biology and health studies to financial engineering and risk management. In all of these fields, variable selection and feature extraction are crucial for knowledge discovery. We first give a comprehensive overview of statistical challenges with high dimensionality in these diverse disciplines. We then approach the problem of variable selection and feature extraction using a unified framework: penalized likelihood methods. Issues relevant to the choice of penalty functions are addressed. We demonstrate that for a host of statistical problems, as long as the dimensionality is not excessively large, we can estimate the model parameters as well as if the best model is known in advance. The persistence property in risk minimization is also addressed. The applicability of such a theory and method to diverse statistical problems is demonstrated. Other related problems with high-dimensionality are also discussed.

Let (V, E) denote a graph with vertex set V= V (T) and edge set E= E (). Suppose a group TL acts on V such that:(i) for all g Ti,{gu, gv} GE if and only if {u, v} E,(ii) for any two vertices and v, there is a g T such that guv. Then we say is a homogeneous graph with the associated group Ti. In other words, is vertex-transitive under the action of Ti and We can identify V with the coset space Ti/X where X={g E Ti: gvv}, for a fixed vertex v, denotes the isotropy group. We note that the Cayley graph is a special case of homogeneous graphs with X trivial. The edge set of a homogeneous graph can be described by an (edge) generating set ii H such that each edge of is of the form {v, gv} for some v V, and g . In this paper we require the generating set to be symmetric, ie, g if and only if g^ 1 K. We say that a homogeneous graph is invariant if for every vertex a K, we have aKa-1= K.

Spin polynomial invariants, as denned by Pidstrigatch and Tyurin, are used to define differentiable invariants for Dolgachev surfaces. In order to define and compute these invariants, some machinery is developed to study the wall structure for Spin polynomials, to deal with the fact that the moduli spaces have the wrong dimension and to handle nonreduced structures. The invariants are then computed.

In the classical theory of multiple zeta values (MZV's), Furusho proposed a conjecture asserting that the p-adic MZV's satisfy the same Q-linear relations that their corresponding real-valued MZV counterparts satisfy. In this paper, we verify a stronger version of a function field analogue of Furusho's conjecture in the sense that we are able to deal with all linear relations over an algebraic closure of the given rational function field, not just the rational linear relations.