  This note quantifies, via a sharp inequality, an interplay between (a) the
characteristic rank of a vector bundle over a topological space X, (b) the
Z/2Z-Betti numbers of X, and (c) sums of the numbers of certain partitions of
integers. In a particular context, (c) is transformed into a sum of the readily
calculable Betti numbers of the real Grassmann manifolds.
