On uniform approximation to real numbers

Let $n \ge 2$ be an integer and $\xi$ a transcendental real number. We establish several new relations between the values at $\xi$ of the exponents of Diophantine approximation $w_n, w_{n}^{\ast}, \hat{w}_{n}$, and $\hat{w}_{n}^{\ast}$. Combining our results with recent estimates by Schmidt and Summerer allows us to refine the inequality $\hat{w}_{n}(\xi) \le 2n-1$ proved by Davenport and Schmidt in 1969.