In this article we describe Hecke operators on the differential algebra of geometric quasi-modular forms. As an application for each natural number d we construct a vector field in six dimensions which determines uniquely the polynomial relations between the Eisenstein series of weight 2, 4 and 6 and their transformation under multiplication of the argument by d, and in particular, it determines uniquely the modular curve of degree d isogenies between elliptic curves.

A class of variable selection procedures for parametric models via nonconcave penalized likelihood was proposed in Fan and Li (2001a). It has been shown there that the resulting procedures perform as well as if the subset of significant variables were known in advance. Such a property is called an oracle property. The proposed procedures were illustrated in the context of linear regression, robust linear regression and generalized linear models. In this paper, the nonconcave penalized likelihood approach is extended further to the Cox proportional hazards model and the Cox proportional hazards frailty model, two commonly used semi-parametric models in survival analysis. As a result, new variable selection procedures for these two commonly-used models are proposed. It is demonstrated how the rates of convergence depend on the regularization parameter in the penalty function. Further, with a proper choice of

We study a variational problem whose critical point determines the Reeb vector field for a SasakiEinstein manifold. This extends our previous work on Sasakian geometry by lifting the condition that the manifolds are toric. We show that the EinsteinHilbert action, restricted to a space of Sasakian metrics on a link <i>L</i> in a CalabiYau cone <i>X</i>, is the volume functional, which in fact is a function on the space of Reeb vector fields. We relate this function both to the DuistermaatHeckman formula and also to a limit of a certain equivariant index on <i>X</i> that counts holomorphic functions. Both formulae may be evaluated by localisation. This leads to a general formula for the volume function in terms of topological fixed point data. As a result we prove that the volume of a SasakiEinstein manifold, relative to that of the round sphere, is always an algebraic number. In complex dimension <i>n</i>=3 these results provide, via AdS

We consider the Cauchy problem for the massless scalar wave equation in the Kerr geometry for smooth initial data compactly supported outside the event horizon. We prove that the solutions decay in time in <i>L</i>  _loc. The proof is based on a representation of the solution as an infinite sum over the angular momentum modes, each of which is an integral of the energy variable <i></i> on the real line. This integral representation involves solutions of the radial and angular ODEs which arise in the separation of variables.

For the steady-state solution of an integraldifferential equation from a two-dimensional model in transport theory, we shall derive and study a nonsymmetric algebraic Riccati equation B--XF--F+ X+ XB+ X= 0, where F I-s PD, B-(b I+ s P) D-and B+ b I+ s PD+ with a nonnegative matrix P, positive diagonal matrices D, and nonnegative parameters f, b b/(1-f) and s s/(1-f). We prove the existence of the minimal nonnegative solution X under the physically reasonable assumption f+ b+ s P (D++ D-)&lt; 1, and study its numerical computation by fixed-point iteration, Newtons method and doubling. We shall also study several special cases; eg when b = 0 and P is low-ranked, then X= s 2 UV is low-ranked and can be computed using more efficient iterative processes in U and V. Numerical examples will be given to illustrate our theoretical results.