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{\bf Bart De Bruyn}
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{\bf An Alternative Definition of the Notion Valuation in the Theory of Near Polygons}
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Valuations of dense near polygons were introduced in [9]. A valuation
of a dense near polygon ${\cal S}=({\cal P},{\cal L},{\rm I})$ is a
map $f$ from the point-set ${\cal P}$ of ${\cal S}$ to the set $\Bbb N$ 
of nonnegative integers satisfying very nice properties with respect to
the set of convex subspaces of ${\cal S}$. In the present paper, we
give an alternative definition of the notion valuation and prove that
both definitions are equivalent. In the case of dual polar spaces and
many other known dense near polygons, this alternative definition can
be significantly simplified.



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