Curvilinear schemes and maximum rank of forms
  We define the \emph{curvilinear rank} of a degree $d$ form $P$ in $n+1$ variables as the minimum length of a curvilinear scheme, contained in the $d$-th Veronese embedding of $\mathbb{P}^n$, whose span contains the projective class of $P$. Then, we give a bound for rank of any homogenous polynomial, in dependance on its curvilinear rank. 
Edoardo Ballico, Alessandra Bernardi (INRIA Sophia Antipolis)
math.AG