In 1986, R. D. Cook proposed differential geometry to assess local influence of minor perturbations of statistical models. We construct a conformally invariant curvature, the conformal normal curvature, for the same purpose. This curvature provides a measure of local influence ranging from 0 to 1, with objective benchmarks to judge largeness. We study various approaches to using the conformal normal curvature and the relationships between these approaches.

1. Introduction. 1.1. Background. Covariance matrix estimation is fundamental for almost all areas of multivariate analysis and many other applied problems. In particular, covariance matrices and their inverses play a central role in risk management and portfolio allocation. For example, the smallest and largest eigenvalues are related to the minimum and maximum variances of the selected portfolio, respectively, and the eigenvectors are related to portfolio allocation. Therefore, we need a good covariance matrix estimator that is well-conditioned, ie inverting it does not excessively amplify the estimation error. See Goldfarb and Iyengar (2003) for applications of covariance matrices to portfolio selections and Johnstone (2001) for their statistical implications. Estimating large dimensional covariance matrices is intrinsically challenging. For example, in portfolio allocation and risk management, the number p of stocks can

Consider an N-Boson system interacting via a two-body repulsive short-range potential $V$ in a three dimensional box  of side length $L$. We take the $limit N,L \to \infty $ while keeping the density $\rho = N/L^3 fixed and small. We prove a new lower bound for its ground state energy per particle $$ \frac{E(N,\Lambda)}{N} \ge 4 \pi a \rho [1- O(\rho^{1/3} | log \rho |^3) ] $$ as $\rho \to 0$, where $a$ is the scattering length of $V$.

In this paper we show that stability for holomorphic vector bundles are equivalent to the existence of solutions to certain system of Monge Ampere equations parametrized by a parameter k. We solve this fully nonlinear elliptic system by singular perturbation technique and show that the vanishing of obstructions for the perturbation is given precisely by the stability condition. This can be interpreted as an infinite dimensional analog of the equivalencybetween Geometric Invariant Theory and Symplectic Reduction for moduli space of vector bundles.

We study the symplectic structure of the holomorphic coadjoint orbits, generalizing a theorem of McDuff on the symplectic structure of Hermitian symmetric spaces of noncompact type.