MASENO UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS 2021/2022

FOURTH YEAR FIRST SEMESTER EXAMINATIONS FOR

THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN APPLIED
STATISTICS, ACTUARIAL SCIENCE, MATHEMATICAL
SCIENCE, MATHEMATICS AND BUSINESS STUDIES,
MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTER SCIENC,E AND
MATHEMATICS AND ECONOMICS WITH INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
(MAIN CAMPUS)

MIT 403: WRITING MACROS WITH LATEX

Date: XXth XX 2022 Time:X.XX-X.XX XX

INSTRUCTIONS:

• Answer question ONE and any other two.

QUESTION 1. (COMPULSORY: 30 MARKS)
(a) Name any two document classes in LATEX and state when they are used. [4 marks]
(b) Explain any two circumstances leading to each of the following types of errors in
LATEX. [4 marks]
i. Undefined control sequence
ii. Missing $ inserted
(c) Which one of the following is the odd one out. Why? [2 marks]
A) miktex B) pdftex C) texlive D) mactex
(d) State three reasons why you-as a mathematician-would choose LATEX to write your
academic report. [6 marks]
(e) Write the output of the following lines extracted from a LATEX editor: [4 marks]
This document
is in LaTeX. Consider $x+y=4$
This is the second
paragraph. Now consider $$2x+y=6$$
(f) Explain any two reasons why one would choose BibTeX bibliography management
style in their LATEX document. [4 marks]
(g) i. What is the first step you take to include a figure in your LATEXdocument before
writing the code to include it.
[2 marks]
ii. Suppose the picture file is named fig1.png. Write the code to include the figure
in your document. Use any caption of your choice and label the figure.
[4 marks]

QUESTION 2. (20 MARKS)

(a) Name any two differences between embedded and Bibtex bibliography management
style.
[4 mark]
(b) Write the code to produce the following matrices. [Ignore the preamble and docu-
ment environment].
 
 2 7
i. 
  [2 marks]
−4 8
 
5 −7
ii. [2 marks]
3 −3
(c) Give an example (code and output) to demonstrate the difference between ‘in-line’
and ‘display’ math.
[4 marks]
(d) Give any two scenarios that may lead to a missing package error can occur. Give
an example of each.
[4 marks]
(e) Write the following math in LATEX (Ignore preamble). [4 marks]

Page 2
 ∞ 
X nπx nπx 
f (x) = a0 + an cos + bn sin
n=1
L L

QUESTION 3. (20 MARKS)

(a) Identify and explain the errors in the following extract.
[6 marks]

(b) Give any 6 key attributes of @artricle in BibTeX.

[3 marks]
(c) Write the LATEX code for the following bibliography in embedded style. [8 marks]

(d) Explain where the FloatBarrier command is used in LATEX. [3 marks]

QUESTION 4. (20 MARKS)
(a) Wairimu is writing her Real Analysis notes in LATEX. She needs to create Theorem en-
vironments to write definitions, theorems, lemmas and corollaries. In the preamble of
her document she uses the theorem style plain by adding a line \theoremstyle{plain}.
i. Which package is required? [1 mark]
ii. Which error is he likely to obtain? [2 marks]
iii. Suppose he wants to use Theorem, Lemma and Corollary as thm, lem and cor
respectively, write the three lines that defines the theorem environments so that
their numbering is done within section and all follow same numbering. [3 marks]

Page 3
 (b) Write a code that will produce the following mathematical equation: [use dcases*]
[8 marks]
Z ∞



 x2 + 1, for x ≥ 10

 10
 10
f (x) = X

 (n)2 xn , when 0 < x < 10

 n=0


0, elsewhere


(c) Give any two reasons why it is important to create customised commands in LATEX?
[2 marks]
(d) Define commands with the given number of arguments that will work as explained
in the table below. [5 marks]
Command name No. of arguments Function
arg1


comb 2 arg2
seq 4 arg1arg2 + · · · + arg1arg3 + arg42

QUESTION 5. (20 MARKS) Write

Write a L TEX code to produce the following extract. Use Bibtex style for bibliography.
A

Assume that Figure 1 in the extract is stored by the name ‘cylinder.png’ in the mother
folder. [20 marks]

Page 4
 On regular prime graphs of nonsolvable
groups

Abstract

We study the simple graphs and character degree graphs of some

finite nonsolvable group G. We will in particular determine which
regular graphs occur as a character degree graph of some nonsolv-
able group.

1 Introduction
The character degree graph ∆( G ) os a group G has as its vertex set the set
ρ( G ) of all the prime divisors of cd( G ) = {χ(1)|χ ∈ Irr( G )}. Irr( G ) is the
set of irreducible complex characters of G.
This graph has been studied for more than 20 years now. M. Lewis and
Q. Meng in [4], showed that if ∆( G ) is a square, then G is a direct product
of groups H and K with disconnected graphs of two vertices. It has been
conjectured that ∆( G ) is a noncomplete and regular graph if and only if G
is the direct product of groups with the same property.

2 Previous results
The following result will help us prove the Main Theorem.

Lemma 2.1. [1, Lemma 5] Let N be a minimal normal subgroup of G so that

N = S1 × · · · × St , where Si ∼ = S, a nonabelian simple group. If θ ∈ Irr(S)
extends to Alt(S), then θ × · · · × θ ∈ Irr( N ) extends to G.

Page 5
Proof. See [1] for the proof.

The following result due to Gallagher is very useful in the study of

irreducible characters in the sense that it helps us identify Irr( G/N ) with
a subset of Irr( G ) where N C G.
Theorem 2.2. [3, Corollary 6.17] Let N C G and let χ ∈ Irr( G ) be such that
χ N = ϑ ∈ Irr( N ). Then the characters βχ for β ∈ Irr( G/N ) are irreducible,
distinct for distinct β and are all of the irreducible constituents of ϑ G . In particu-
lar, β(1)χ(1) ∈ cd( G ) for all β ∈ Irr( G/N ).

3 Main Results
Proof of Main Theorem. By classification of simple groups. All nonabelian
simple groups lie in the following classes:
(i) The alternating group An for n ≥ 5

(ii) The 26 sporadic groups

(iii) The groups of Lie type

We consider each case independently...

References
[1] M. Bianchi, D. Chillag, et al. Character degree graphs that are complete
graphs. Proc. Amer. Math. Soc., 135:671–676, 2007.

[2] B. Huppert. Character theory of finite groups. Walter De Gruyter, 1998.

[3] I. M. Isaacs. Character theory of finite groups. Academic Press, 1976.

[4] M. L. Lewis and Q. Meng. Square character degree graphs yield direct
products. J. Algebra, 349:185–200, 2012.

[5] C. P. M. Zuccari. Character degree graphs with no complete vertices.

J. Algebra, 353:22–30, 2012.

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