Show that for nonnegative real numbers $a,b$ and integers $n\ge 2$, \[\frac{a^n+b^n}{2}\ge\left(\frac{a+b}{2}\right)^n\] When does equality hold?

[color=darkred]On a table there are $k\ge 2$ piles having $n_1,n_2,\ldots,n_k$ pencils respectively. A [i]move[/i] consists in choosing two piles having $a$ and $b$ pencils respectively, $a\ge b$ and transferring $b$ pencils from the first pile to the second one. Find the necessary and sufficient condition for $n_1,n_2,\ldots,n_k$ , such that there exists a succession of moves through which all pencils are transferred to the same pile.[/color]

In a board school, there are 9 subjects, 512 students, and 256 rooms (two people in each room.) For every student there is a set (a subset of the 9 subjects) of subjects the student is interested in. Each student has a different set of subjects, (s)he is interested in, from all other students. (Exactly one student has no subjects (s)he is interested in.) Prove that the whole school can line up in a circle in such a way that every pair of the roommates has the two people standing next to each other, and those pairs of students standing next to each other that are not roommates, have the following properties. One of the two students is interested in all the subjects that the other student is interested in, and also exactly one more subject.

Prove that $ \prod_{i\equal{}1}^{n}(1\plus{}x_{1}\plus{}x_{2}\plus{}...\plus{}x_{i})\geq\sqrt{(n\plus{}1)^{n\plus{}1}x_{1}x_{2}...x_{n}}\forall x_{1},...,x_{n}> 0$.

Let $c$ be a positive integer. Consider the sequence $x_1,x_2,\ldots$ which satisfies $x_1=c$ and, for $n\ge 2$, \[x_n=x_{n-1}+\left\lfloor\frac{2x_{n-1}-(n+2)}{n}\right\rfloor+1\] where $\lfloor x\rfloor$ denotes the largest integer not greater than $x$. Determine an expression for $x_n$ in terms of $n$ and $c$. [i]Huang Yumin[/i]

Let $t$ and $n$ be fixed integers each at least $2$. Find the largest positive integer $m$ for which there exists a polynomial $P$, of degree $n$ and with rational coefficients, such that the following property holds: exactly one of \[ \frac{P(k)}{t^k} \text{ and } \frac{P(k)}{t^{k+1}} \] is an integer for each $k = 0,1, ..., m$. [i]Proposed by Michael Kural[/i]

In the space there are 8 points that no four of them are in the plane. 17 of the connecting segments are coloured blue and the other segments are to be coloured red. Prove that this colouring will create at least four triangles. Prove also that four cannot be subsituted by five. Remark: Blue triangles are those triangles whose three edges are coloured blue.

The integers $a_0, a_1, a_2, a_3,\ldots$ are defined as follows: $a_0 = 1$, $a_1 = 3$, and $a_{n+1} = a_n + a_{n-1}$ for all $n \ge 1$. Find all integers $n \ge 1$ for which $na_{n+1} + a_n$ and $na_n + a_{n-1}$ share a common factor greater than $1$.

Let $n$ be a positive integer and let $a_1, a_2, \ldots, a_n$ be positive reals. Show that $$\sum_{i=1}^{n} \frac{1}{2^i}(\frac{2}{1+a_i})^{2^i} \geq \frac{2}{1+a_1a_2\ldots a_n}-\frac{1}{2^n}.$$

Let $n$ be a positive integer, and $x$ be a positive real number. Prove that $$\sum_{k=1}^{n} \left( x \left[\frac{k}{x}\right] - (x+1)\left[\frac{k}{x+1}\right]\right) \leq n,$$ where $[x]$ denotes the largest integer not exceeding $x$.

Ben has a big blackboard, initially empty, and Francisco has a fair coin. Francisco flips the coin $2013$ times. On the $n^{\text{th}}$ flip (where $n=1,2,\dots,2013$), Ben does the following if the coin flips heads: (i) If the blackboard is empty, Ben writes $n$ on the blackboard. (ii) If the blackboard is not empty, let $m$ denote the largest number on the blackboard. If $m^2+2n^2$ is divisible by $3$, Ben erases $m$ from the blackboard; otherwise, he writes the number $n$. No action is taken when the coin flips tails. If probability that the blackboard is empty after all $2013$ flips is $\frac{2u+1}{2^k(2v+1)}$, where $u$, $v$, and $k$ are nonnegative integers, compute $k$. [i]Proposed by Evan Chen[/i]

For any $h = 2^{r}$ ($r$ is a non-negative integer), find all $k \in \mathbb{N}$ which satisfy the following condition: There exists an odd natural number $m > 1$ and $n \in \mathbb{N}$, such that $k \mid m^{h} - 1, m \mid n^{\frac{m^{h}-1}{k}} + 1$.

Let $X=\{1,2,\dots,n\},$ and let $k\in X.$ Show that there are exactly $k\cdot n^{n-1}$ functions $f:X\to X$ such that for every $x\in X$ there is a $j\ge 0$ such that $f^{(j)}(x)\le k.$ [Here $f^{(j)}$ denotes the $j$th iterate of $f,$ so that $f^{(0)}(x)=x$ and $f^{(j+1)}(x)=f\left(f^{(j)}(x)\right).$]

Evaluate $ \int_0^1 (1 \plus{} x \plus{} x^2 \plus{} \cdots \plus{} x^{n \minus{} 1})\{1 \plus{} 3x \plus{} 5x^2 \plus{} \cdots \plus{} (2n \minus{} 3)x^{n \minus{} 2} \plus{} (2n \minus{} 1)x^{n \minus{} 1}\}\ dx.$

Let $ n$ be positive integer, $ A,B\subseteq[0,n]$ are sets of integers satisfying $ \mid A\mid \plus{} \mid B\mid\ge n \plus{} 2.$ Prove that there exist $ a\in A, b\in B$ such that $ a \plus{} b$ is a power of $ 2.$

Let $n\geq 2$ be an integer and let $a_1,a_2,\ldots,a_n$ be real numbers. Prove that for any non-empty subset $S\subset \{1,2,3,\ldots, n\}$ we have \[ \left( \sum_{i \in S} a_i \right)^2 \leq \sum_{1\leq i \leq j \leq n } (a_i + \cdots + a_j ) ^2 . \] [i]Gabriel Dospinescu[/i]

Let $\left ( a_{n} \right )_{n \geq 1}$ be an increasing sequence of positive integers such that $a_1=1$, and for all positive integers $n$, $a_{n+1}\leq 2n$. Prove that for every positive $n$; there exists positive integers $p$ and $q$ such that $n=a_{p}-a_{q}$.

If $m\geq 2$ show that there does not exist positive integers $x_1, x_2, ..., x_m,$ such that \[x_1< x_2<...< x_m \ \ \text{and} \ \ \frac{1}{x_1^3}+\frac{1}{x_2^3}+...+\frac{1}{x_m^3}=1.\]

Prove that: a) the sequence $a_n=\frac{1}{n+1}+\frac{1}{n+2}+\ldots+\frac{1}{n+n},\ n\ge 1$ is monotonic. b) there is a sequence $(a_n)_{n\ge 1}\in \{0,1\}$ such that: \[\lim_{n\to \infty} \left(\frac{a_1}{n+1}+\frac{a_2}{n+2}+\ldots +\frac{a_n}{n+n}\right)=\frac{1}{2}\] [i]Radu Gologan[/i]

For all positive integer $ n\geq 2$, prove that product of all prime numbers less or equal than $ n$ is smaller than $ 4^{n}$.

Let $S$ denote the set of words $W = w_1w_2\ldots w_n$ of any length $n\ge0$ (including the empty string $\lambda$), with each letter $w_i$ from the set $\{x,y,z\}$. Call two words $U,V$ [i]similar[/i] if we can insert a string $s\in\{xyz,yzx,zxy\}$ of three consecutive letters somewhere in $U$ (possibly at one of the ends) to obtain $V$ or somewhere in $V$ (again, possibly at one of the ends) to obtain $U$, and say a word $W$ is [i]trivial[/i] if for some nonnegative integer $m$, there exists a sequence $W_0,W_1,\ldots,W_m$ such that $W_0=\lambda$ is the empty string, $W_m=W$, and $W_i,W_{i+1}$ are similar for $i=0,1,\ldots,m-1$. Given that for two relatively prime positive integers $p,q$ we have \[\frac{p}{q} = \sum_{n\ge0} f(n)\left(\frac{225}{8192}\right)^n,\]where $f(n)$ denotes the number of trivial words in $S$ of length $3n$ (in particular, $f(0)=1$), find $p+q$. [i]Victor Wang[/i]

In every $1\times1$ square of an $m\times n$ table we have drawn one of two diagonals. Prove that there is a path including these diagonals either from left side to the right side, or from the upper side to the lower side.

Let $f_1(x)=x^2-1$, and for each positive integer $n \geq 2$ define $f_n(x) = f_{n-1}(f_1(x))$. How many distinct real roots does the polynomial $f_{2004}$ have?

Let $ G$ be a finite group. For arbitrary sets $ U, V, W \subset G$, denote by $ N_{UVW}$ the number of triples $ (x, y, z) \in U \times V \times W$ for which $ xyz$ is the unity . Suppose that $ G$ is partitioned into three sets $ A, B$ and $ C$ (i.e. sets $ A, B, C$ are pairwise disjoint and $ G = A \cup B \cup C$). Prove that $ N_{ABC}= N_{CBA}.$

The set $A$ has exactly $n>4$ elements. Ann chooses $n+1$ distinct subsets of $A$, such that every subset has exactly $3$ elements. Prove that there exist two subsets chosen by Ann which have exactly one common element.