In the combinatorial category, a two-complex X is said to be Kervaire if any set of equations modelled on X, over any group, has a solution in a larger group. The Kervaire-Laudenbach conjecture speculates that if H2(X) = 0 then X is Kervaire. We show that the validity of this conjecture would imply that all aspherical two-complexes are Kervaire. In particular, any two-complex homotopically equivalent to a two-manifold (≠ S2, RP2) would be Kervaire. We show that this is indeed the case for certain such two-complexes. We generalise this to staggered two-complexes, and, more generally, one-relator extensions of Kervaire complexes. We obtain similar results for diagrammatically reducible two-complexes. Our proofs make use of covering spaces.

We show that an isometric immersion of an n−dimensional compact Riemannian manifold of non-negative Ricci curvature with scalar curvature always less than n(n−1)λ−2 into a Euclidean space of dimension n + 1 can never be contained in a ball of radius λ.

Let R be a directly indecomposable finite ring. Let p be a prime, let m be a positive integer and suppose the radical of R has pm elements. Then we show that . As a consequence, we have that, for a given finite nilpotent ring N, there are up to isomorphism only finitely many finite rings not having simple ring direct summands, with radical isomorphic to N. Let R* denote the group of units of R. Then we prove that (1 − 1/p)m+1 ≤ |R*| / |R| ≤ 1 − 1/pm. As a corollary, we obtain that if R is a directly indecomposable non-simple finite 2′-ring then |R| < |R*| |Rad(R)|.

We prove that the number of factors of length k in any paperfolding sequence is equal to 4k once k ≥ 7.

In this paper a variant of Banach's contraction principle is established. By using the properties of the spectral radius of a bounded linear operator A defined in a suitable Banach space, we conclude that another operator A has exactly one fixed point in this space. In the second part of this paper some applications are given.

Let K be a 2-dimensional Cantor set. In this note we prove, in two cases, the analytic capacity and the continuous analytic capacity of K are equal.

We introduce a coefficient on general Banach spaces which allows us to derive the weak normal structure for those Banach spaces whose Banach-Mazur distance to James quasi reflexive space is less than .

In this paper, we prove a Gelfand-Mulvey type of duality for a certain class of rings which includes the Gelfand rings. We also show that the Maximal Ideal Theorem (MIT) can be replaced by the Prime Ideal Theorem (PIT) in the original Gelfand-Mulvey duality.

Let X be a Hausdorff locally convex space. We show that convergence of a net of continuous linear functionals on X with respect to a given polar topology on its continuous dual X′ can be explained in terms of the convergence of the corresponding net of its graphs in X × R, and the corresponding net of level sets at a fixed height in X, with respect to a natural generalisation of Attouch-Wets convergence in normable spaces.

We identify the multiplier space of continuous vector-valued function spaces as the bounded continuous multiplier-valued space in the strong topology.

In this paper we extend the concept of invexity to set-valued maps and study vector optimisation problems with invex set-valued data. Necessary and sufficient optimality conditions are established in terms of contingent derivatives. Wolfe type dual problems are constructed via two recently developed approaches which guarantee the zero-gap duality property.

Sufficient conditions are established for the oscillation of solutions of hyperbolic equations of neutral type of the form

where R+ = {0, ∞), Ω is a bounded domain in Rn with a piecewise smooth boundary ∂Ω.

In this paper, we first prove an improved version of the selection theorem of Yannelis-Prabhakar and next prove a fixed point theorem in a non-compact product space. As applications, an intersection theorem and two equilibrium existence theorems for a non-compact abstract economy are given.

An associative ring R is called a BT-ring if R is strongly right bounded, but not right duo, and not strongly left bounded. We show that the order of the smallest BT-rings (without unity) is 16, while we prove earlier that the order of the smallest unitary BT-rings is 32.

For a set E in a metric space X the index of non-separability is β(E) = inf{r > 0: E is covered by a countable-family of balls of radius less than r}.

Now, for a set-valued mapping Φ from a topological space A into subsets of a metric space X we say that Φ is β upper semi-continuous at t ∈ A if given ε > 0 there exists a neighbourhood U of t such that β(Φ(U)) < ε. In this paper we show that if the subdifferential mapping of a continuous convex function Φ is β upper semi-continuous on a dense subset of its domain then Φ is Fréchet differentiable on a dense Gδ subset of its domain. We also show that a Banach space is Asplund if and only if every weak* compact subset has weak* slices whose index of non-separability is arbitrarily small.

Some generalised invex conditions are given for a nondifferentiable constrained optimisation problem, generalising those of Hanson and Mond for differentiable problems. Some duality results are obtained.

Let A be a right alternative algebra, and [A, A] be the linear span of all commutators in A. If [A, A] is contained in the left nucleus of A, then left nilpotence implies nilpotence. If [A, A] is contained in the right nucleus, then over a commutative-associative ring with 1/2, right nilpotence implies nilpotence. If [A, A] is contained in the alternative nucleus, then the following structure results hold: (1) If A is prime with characteristic ≠ 2, then A is either alternative or strongly (–1, 1). (2) If A is a finite-dimensional nil algebra, over a field of characteristic ≠ 2, then A is nilpotent. (3) Let the algebra A be finite-dimensional over a field of characteristic ≠ 2, 3. If A/K is separable, where K is the nil radical of A, then A has a Wedderburn decomposition

In this paper, a generalisation of the Andersen, Hilton, Rodger Theorem for embedding partial idempotent latin squares is proved. This result is then used to prove that a partial directed m-cycle system of order n can be embedded in a directed m-cycle system of order (2n + 1)m if m is odd, of order 2nm if m ≥ 8 is even, 12n + 1 if m = 6 and approximately 2n + √2n if m = 4.

For f ∈ S, we study the Schwarzian coefficients sn defined by {f, z} = Σ snzn. Sharp bounds on s0, s1 and s2 are given, together with an order of growth estimate as n → ∞. We use the Grunsky Inequalities to estimate combinations of coefficients.

We investigate the structure of the C*-algebras 𝒪ρ constructed by Doplicher and Roberts from the intertwining operators between the tensor powers of a representation ρ of a compact group. We show that each Doplicher-Roberts algebra is isomorphic to a corner in the Cuntz-Krieger algebra 𝒪A of a {0,1}-matrix A = Aρ associated to ρ. When the group is finite, we can then use Cuntz's calculation of the K-theory of 𝒪A to compute K*(𝒪ρ).