Let G be a graph and ζ(G) be the greatest integer n such that every set of n points in G lies on a cycle [8]. It is clear that ζ(G)≥2 for 2-connected planar graphs. Moreover, it is easy to construct arbitrarily large 2-connected planar graphs for which ζ=2. On the other hand, by a well-known theorem of Tutte [5], [6], if G is planar and 4-connected, it has a Hamiltonian cycle, i.e., ζ(G)=|V(G)| for all 4-connected (and hence for all 5-connected) planar graphs.

A new concept—that of pseudoconsistency—which seems to be particularly appropriate for the estimation of a quantile is introduced. It is shown without any conditions whatsoever on the underlying distributionthat the sample quantile is strongly pseudoconsistent for the corresponding population quantile. The asymptotic distribution of the sample quantiles and order statistics is derived when the underlying distribution is discrete.

Put

1

For the Appell function F4 defined by [3, p. 224]

2

Saxena [5, p. 216] proved a reduction formula in the form

3

where

It may be of interest to point out that formula (3) is not correct. Indeed we first establish the following general result.