TITLE: f-vectors of Pure Complexes and Eulerian Complexes
QUESTION [5 upvotes]: Let $\Delta$ be a simplical complex. 
Call $\Delta$ pure if all the maximal faces have the same dimension. 
Call $\Delta$ Eulerian if it is pure and $\chi (lk (F))= \chi (S^{dim (lk(F))})$ for any $F \in \Delta$.
Question 1: From what I understand characterizing the $f$-vectors of pure simplicial complexes is hopeless at the moment.
What if however I give you an $f$ (or $h$)-vector? What are some necessary conditions that I can check for it to be the $f$-vector of a pure simplicial complex. 
Say I give you something like this:  $(1,19,99,276, 504, 630, 546, 324, 126, 28)$. One can check the Kruskal-Katona bounds (which hold in this case) and even produce the shifted complex, however this is not generally pure even if the $f$-vector is pure. Are there any similar constructions of these type?
Questions 2: What can one say about the $h$-vectors of Eulerian complexes other that they are symmetric?
Thank you!

REPLY [3 votes]: As Gil remarks in his comment, Corollary 1 of the paper which I mentioned does not in fact imply the upper bound conjecture except when one additionally assumes isolated singularities. Still, I hope that this paper and its references may be of some use to the OP.

At least partial answers to both your questions may be found in the following paper:

Patricia Hersh and Isabella Novik, A short simplicial $h$-vector and the upper bound theorem, Discrete & Computational Geometry, 28 (3): 283-289 (2002).

In particular, the main theorem implies (via Corollary 1) that if the dimension $d$ is odd, then the first $d-1$ entries of your $f$-vector will be bounded above by those of the cyclic polytope $C(n,d)$. For additional details, look for the "upper bound conjecture" as well as the references in this paper.
I don't think much is known when $d$ is even.