Let S be a cancellative semigroup. This paper is motivated by the problem of finding a description of semigroup rings K[S] over a field K that are semiprime or prime. Results of this type are well-known in the case of a group ring K[G], cf. [8]. The description, as well as the proofs, involve the FC-centre of G defined as the subset of all elements with finitely many conjugates in G. In [4], [5] Krempa extended the FC-centre techniques to the case of an arbitrary cancellative semigroup S. He defined a subsemigroup Δ(S) of S which coincides with the FC-centre in the case of groups, and can be used to describe the centre and to study special elements of K[S]. His results were strengthened by the author in [7], where Δ(S) was also applied in the context of prime and semiprime algebras K[S]. However, Δ(S) itself is not sufficient to characterize semigroup rings of this type. We note that in [2], [3] Dauns developed a similar idea for a study of the centre of semigroup rings and certain of their generalizations.

The notions of isoparametric maps and submanifolds in semi-Riemannian spaces are the generalizations of such notions in Riemannian spaces. The generalizations are different according to the purposes. We take the definitions as in the Riemannian case. Quadratic isoparametric maps and submanifolds are interesting examples which can be studied in detail. In this paper we study what we call quadratic isoparametric systems. In fact we give a classification of such systems of codimension 2. We use three different methods to show that quadratic isoparametric submanifolds of codimension 2 are homogeneous. The classification of quadratic isoparametric systems is done algebraically. By this we have changed the geometric problem of classifying quadratic submanifolds of codimension 2 into the algebraic problem of classifying quadratic isoparametric systems of codimension 2. The classification of such systems with arbitrary codimension is still open.

The importance of the fundamental group of a graph in group theory has been well known for many years. The recent work of Meakin, Margolis and Stephen has shown how effective graph theoretic techniques can be in the study of word problems in inverse semigroups. Our goal here is to characterize those deterministic inverse word graphs that are Schutzenberger graphs and consider how deterministic inverse word graphs and Schutzenberger graphs can be constructed from subgroups of free groups.

Serre [6] has recently created a theory of some generality in response to a query from Manin about the size of the number N(x) of (indefinite) ternary quadratic forms AX2 + BY2 + CZ2 that represent zero and have coefficients of magnitudes not exceeding x.

The relation ℛ* is defined on a semigroup S by the rule that ℛ*b if and only if the elements a, b of S are related by the Green's relation ℛ in some oversemigroup of S. A semigroup S is an E-semigroup if its set E(S)of idempotents is a subsemilattice of S. A left adequate semigroup is an E-semigroup in which every ℛ*-class contains an idempotent. It is easy to see that, in fact, each ℛ*-class of a left adequate semigroup contains a unique idempotent [2]. We denote the idempotent in the ℛ*-class of a by a+.

The theory of isoparametric functions and a family of isoparametric hypersurfaces began essentially with E. Cartan in 1930's. He defined a real valued function V defined on a Riemannian space form to be isoparametric if ∥grad υ∥2=TV and ΔV = SV for some real valued functions S, T. Then a family of hypersurfaces Mt, is called isoparametric if Mt,=V-1 (t) where t is a regular value of V.

The Dedekind eta-function is defined for any τ in the upper half-plane by

where x = exp(2πiτ) and x1/24 = exp(2πiτ/24). By an eta-product we shall mean a function

where N ≥ 1 and eachrδ ∈ ℤ. In addition, we shall always assume that is an integer. Using the Legendre-Jacobi symbol (—), we define a Dirichlet character ∈ by

when a is odd. If p is a prime for which ∈(p) ≠ 0and if F is a function with a Fourier series

then we define a Hecke operator Tp by

where

and

For regular semigroups, the appropriate analogue of the concept of a variety seems to be that of an e(xistence)-variety, developed by Hall [6,7,8]. A class V of regular semigroups is an e-variety if it is closed under taking direct products, regular subsemigroups and homomorphic images. For orthodox semigroups, this concept has been introduced under the term “bivariety” by Kaďourek and Szendrei [12]. Hall showed that the collection of all e-varieties of regular semigroups forms a complete lattice under inclusion. Further, he proved a Birkhoff-type theorem: each e-variety is determined by a set of identities. For e-varieties of orthodox semigroups a similar result has been proved by Kaďourek and Szendrei. At variance with the case of varieties, prima facie the free objects in general do not exist for e-varieties. For instance, there is no free regular or free orthodox semigroup. This seems to be true for most of the naturally appearing e-varieties (except for cases of e-varieties which coincide with varieties of unary semigroups such as the classes of all inverse and completely regular semigroups, respectively). This is true if the underlying concept of free objects is denned as usual. Kaďourek and Szendrei adopted the definition of a free object according to e-varieties of orthodox semigroups by taking into account generalized inverses in an appropriate way. They called such semigroups bifree objects. These semigroups satisfy the properties one intuitively expects from the “most general members” of a given class of semigroups. In particular, each semigroup in the given class is a homomorphic image of a bifree object, provided the bifree objects exist on sets of any cardinality. Concerning existence, Kaďourek and Szendrei were able to prove that in any class of orthodox semigroups which is closed under taking direct products and regular subsemigroups, all bifree objects exist and are unique up to isomorphism. Further, similar to the case of varieties, there is an order inverting bijection between the fully invariant congruences on the bifree orthodox semigroup on an infinite set and the e-varieties of orthodox semigroups. Recently, Y. T. Yeh [22] has shown that suitable analogues to free objects exist in an e-variety V of regular semigroups if and only if all members of V are either E-solid or locally inverse.

We develop some ideas contained in the author's paper [8] which was, in turn, inspired by Bierlein and Stich [5]. The main body of the present paper is divided into three sections. Section 2 is concerned with some vector-lattice-theoretical results. They are then applied to extensions of quasi-measures and measures in Sections 3 and 4, respectively.

Let X be a vector lattice, let x ε X+ and let S be a non-empty set. Theorems 1 and 2 describe some properties of the convex set

(see Section 2 for the definition of the sum above). The extreme points of Dx,s are characterized in terms of the components of x. It is also shown that if X has the principal projection property and S is countable, then extr Dx,s is, in some sense, large in Dx,s. Furthermore, for finite S, each point in Dx,s is then a sσ-convex combination of extreme ones.

We give a short and constructive proof of the general (multi-dimensional) Implicit Function Theorem (IFT), using infinitesimal (i.e. nonstandard) methods to implement our basic intuition about the result. Here is the statement of the IFT, quoted from [4];

Theorem. Let A ⊂ ℝn × ℝmbe an open set and let F:A → ℝ be a function of class Cp (p≥1). Suppose that (xO, yO) ε A with F(xO, yO) = 0 (xO ε ℝn, yO ε ℝm) and that the Jacobian determinantis not zero at (xO, yO). Then there is an open neighbourhood U of xO and a unique function f:U→ ℝmwith

F(x, f(x)) = 0

for all x ε U. Moreover, f is of class Cp.

Let S be an ideal of a semigroup V. In such a case, V is an (ideal) extension of S by T = V/S. The problem considered in [2] is the construction of all congruences on V in terms of congruences on S and T. This did not succeed for all congruences but it did for those congruences whose restriction to S is weakly reductive. If the extension is strict, more precise constructions are also given there. With some relatively weak restrictions on S, we are able to obtain in this way all congruences on V in the form indicated above.

For any compact convex set K ⊂ ℂ there is a unital Banach algebra Ea(K) generated by an element h in which every polynomial in h attains its maximum norm over all Banach algebras subject to the numerical range V(h) being contained in K, [1]. In the case of K a line segment in ℝ, we show here that Ea(K) does not have Arens regular multiplication. We also show that ideas about Ea(K) give simple proofs of, and extend, two inequalities of C. Frappier [4].

This paper obtains a simple formula for the distance from a given operator to the set of invertible operators without requiring the underlying space to be separable. That formula is used to compute the distance to the Fredholm operators with a given index. These results require the further study of the concepts of essential nullity and essential deficiency, which permitted us to characterize the closure of the invertible operators. We also introduce a parameter called the modulus of Fredholmness.

Let s be a natural number, s ≥ 2. We seek a positive number λ(s) with the following property:

Let ε > 0. Let Q1(x1, …, xs), Q2(x1, …, xs) be real quadratic forms, then for N > C1(s, ε) we have

for some integers n1, …, ns,

Let S be a semigroup. A class of S-automata is called a hereditary pretorsion class (HPC) if it is closed under quotients, subautomata, coproducts (disjoint unions) and finite products. In this paper we present two characterizations of HPC. Specifically, we show that there is a bijective correspondence between the HPCs of S-automata, the right linear topologies on S′ and the idempotent preradicals r on the category of S-automata such that the set of automata {M|r(M) = M} is closed under subautomata and finite products.

Let be a group-theoretic property. We say a group has a finite covering by -subgroups if it is the set-theoretic union of finitely many -subgroups. The topic of this paper is the investigation of groups having a finite covering by nilpotent subgroups, n-abelian subgroups or 2-central subgroups.

R. Baer [12; 4.16] characterized central-by-finite groups as those groups having a finite covering by abelian subgroups. In [6] it was shown that [G: ZC (G)] finite implies the existence of a finite covering by subgroups of nilpotency class c, i.e. ℜc-groups. However, an example of a group is given there which has a finite covering by ℜ2-groups, but Z2(G) does not have finite index in the group. These results raise two questions, on which we will focus our investigations.

Let G be a group and let ℓ(G) be the set of all conjugacy classes [H] of subgroups H of G, where a partial order ≤ is defined by [H1] ≤ [H2] if and only if H1, is contained in some conjugate of H2.

A number of papers (see for example [1] and the references mentioned there) deal with the question of characterizing groups G by the poset ℓ(G). For example, in [1] it was shown that if ℓ(G) and ℓ(H) are order-isomorphic and G is a noncyclic p-group then |G| = |H|. Moreover, if G is abelian, then G = H, and if G is metacyclic then H is metacyclic.

We are interested in two parameter eigenvalue problems of the form

subject to Dirichlet boundary conditions

The weight function 5 and the potential q will both be assumed to lie in L2[0,1]. The problem (1.1), (1.2) generates eigencurves

in the sense that for any fixed λ, ν(λ) is the nth eigenvalue ν, (according to oscillation indexing) of (1.1), (1.2). These curves are in fact analytic functions of λ and have been the object of considerable study in recent years. The survey paper [1] provides background in this area and itemises properties of eigencurves.

The study of bounded distributive lattices endowed with an additional dual homomorphic operation began with a paper by J. Berman [3]. Subsequently these algebras were called distributive Ockham lattices and an order-topological duality theory for them was developed by A. Urquhart [12]. In [9], M. S. Goldberg extended this theory and described the injective algebras in the subvarieties of the variety O of distributive Ockham algebras which are generated by a single subdirectly irreducible algebra. The aim here is to investigate some elementary properties of injective algebras in join reducible members of the lattice of subvarieties of Kn,1 and to give a complete description of injectivealgebras in the subvarieties of the Ockham subvariety defined by the identity x Λ f2n(x) = x.

Let k be an algebraically closed field, and A a finite dimensional k-algebra, which we shall assume, without loss of generality, to be basic and connected. By module is meant throughout a finitely generated right A-module. Following Happel and Ringel [10], we shall say that a module Tλ is a tilting (respectively, cotilting) module if it satisfies the following three conditions:

(1)

(2)

(3) the number of non-isomorphic indecomposable summands of T equals the rank of the Grothendieck group K0(A) of A.