On the monotonicity of the number of positive entries in nonnegative five-element matrix powers (Q2238489)

Nonnegative matrices are matrices with nonnegative real entries. They find applications in many fields, such as probability, economics, and combinatorics. The authors define $F$ to be a function from the nonnegative square matrices to the integers that counts the number of positive entries in nonnegative square matrices. They study those conditions on an $m\times m$ square matrix $A$ with nonnegative entries to make the sequence $\{F(A^n)\}$ monotonic. The monotonicity is derived for $F(A)\leq 4$ (except three non-monotonic cases) and $F(A)\geq m^2-2m+2$. The authors extend this results to $F(A) = 5$.