Treating Measurement Errors in the Run Rule Schemes Integrated with Shewhart X ¯ Chart

In modern quality control applications, there often exist significant measurement errors because observations are measured quickly in time order. As a result, the errors influence the power of a control chart to detect a given change in the process parameter(s) of a quality characteristic. In this paper, by using a covariate error model, the properties of the Shewhart X ¯ chart integrated with run rules are investigated when errors exist in the measurement of quality characteristic. Two metrics, the average run length and 95% quantile of the run length, are adopted to evaluate the chart’s performance for different mean shifts and sample sizes. Numerous simulations are conducted, and the results indicate that the errors in the measurement significantly affect the performance of the run rule X ¯ chart, especially when the errors are large. To reduce this negative effect on the run rule X ¯ chart, measuring more times of each item in each subgroup and increasing the coefficient in the covariate error model are shown to be good choices for practitioners.

A NOTE ON GROUP RINGS WITH TRIVIAL UNITS

Let R be a ring with identity of characteristic two and G a nontrivial torsion group. We show that if the units in the group ring $RG$ are all trivial, then G must be cyclic of order two or three. We also consider the case where R is a commutative ring with identity of odd prime characteristic and G is a nontrivial locally finite group. We show that in this case, if the units in $RG$ are all trivial, then G must be cyclic of order two. These results improve on a result of Herman et al. [‘Trivial units for group rings with G-adapted coefficient rings’, Canad. Math. Bull.48(1) (2005), 80–89].

On the tensor rank of the 3 x 3 permanent and determinant

The tensor rank and border rank of the $3 \times 3$ determinant tensor are known to be $5$ if the characteristic is not two. In characteristic two, the existing proofs of both the upper and lower bounds fail. In this paper, we show that the tensor rank remains $5$ for fields of characteristic two as well.