We investigate properties of the ineffability and the Ramsey operator, and a common generalization of those that was introduced by the second author, with respect to higher indescribability, as introduced by the first author. This extends earlier investigations on the ineffability operator by James Baumgartner, and on the Ramsey operator by Qi Feng, by Philip Welch et al., and by the first author.

Here we give short and direct proofs of the Feferman-Vaught theorem and other preservation theorems in products of structures. In 1952, Mostowski [5] first showed the preservation of ≡ωω by direct powers of structures. Subsequently, in 1959, Feferman and Vaught [2] proved the preservation of ≡ωω by arbitrary direct products and also by reduced products with respect to cofinite filters. In 1962, Frayne, Morel and Scott [3] noticed that the results extend to arbitrary reduced products. In 1970, Barwise and Eklof [1] showed the preservation of ≡∞λ by products and in 1971 Malitz [4] showed the preservation of ≡κλ with κ strongly inaccessible (or ∞) by products. Below, we give short proofs of the above results. The ideas used here have initiated, in [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], the introduction of several new methods in the theory of products, which on the one hand give new, direct proofs of the known results in the area, including generalizations or strengthenings of some of those, and, on the other hand, give several new results as well in the theory of products and related areas.

Below, L denotes a (first order) language, and by a structure we mean an L-structure. 0 and 1 denote the logically valid and false sentence, respectively. We may write ā ∈ A for ā ∈ An for some n. Also, the values 1 and 2 of a parameter l in the definitions below express a duality corresponding to disjunctive and conjunctive forms.

I. (Bull's system OIC, defined in [1] as positive implication plus ССССpqqrСССpqrr, can be axiomatised by adding this to a weaker base.)

1. СpСqp

2. ССpqССqrСpr

3. ССССpqqrСССpqrr

4. ССССqrСprsССpqs = D22

5. ССrСpqСССpqСrqСrq = D43

6. СССССpqССrqСrqsССrСpqs = D25

7. ССpСqrССpqСpr = D64

In this note, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for a BCK-formula to have the unique normal form proof.

We call implicational propositional formulas formulas for short. BCK-formulas are the formulas which are derivable from axioms B = (a → b) → (c → a) → c → b, C = (a→b→c)→b→a→c, and K = a→b→a by substitution and modus ponens. It is known that the property of being a BCK-formula is decidable (Jaskowski [11, Theorem 6.5], Ben-Yelles [3, Chapter 3, Theorem 3.22], Komori [12, Corollary 6]). The set of BCK-formulas is identical to the set of provable formulas in the natural deduction system with the following two inference rules.

Here γ occurs at most once in (→I). By the formulae-as-types correspondence [10], this set is identical to the set of type-schemes of closed BCK-λ-terms. (See [5].) A BCK-λ-term is a λ-term in which no variable occurs twice. Basic notion concerning the type assignment system can be found [4]. Uniqueness of normal form proofs has been known for balanced formulas. (See [2,14].) It is related to the coherence theorem in cartesian closed categories. A formula is balanced when no variable occurs more than twice in it. It was shown in [8] that the proofs of balanced formulas are BCK-proofs. Relevantly balanced formulas were defined in [9], and it was proved that such formulas have unique normal form proofs. Balanced formulas are included in the set of relevantly balanced formulas.

Basic results on the model theory of substructures of a fixed model are presented. The main point is to avoid the use of the compactness theorem, so this work can easily be applied to the model theory of Lω1,ω and its relatives. Among other things we prove the following theorem:

Let M be a model, and let λ be a cardinal satisfying λ∣L(M)∣ = λ. If M does not have the ω-order property, then for every A ⊆ M, ∣A∣ ≤ λ, and every I ⊆ M of cardinality λ+ there exists J ⊆ I cardinality λ+ which is an indiscernible set over A.

This is an improvement of a result of S. Shelah.

Let G be a group definable in a monster model of a rosy theory satisfying NIP. Assume that G has hereditarily finitely satisfiable generics and 1 < U b(G) < ∞. We prove that if G acts definably on a definable set of U р-rank 1, then, under some general assumption about this action, there is an infinite field interpretable in . We conclude that if G is not solvable-by-finite and it acts faithfully and definably on a definable set of U р-rank 1, then there is an infinite field interpretable in . As an immediate consequence, we get that if G has a definable subgroup H such that U р(G) = U р(H) + 1 and G/⋂g∈G Hg is not solvable-by-finite, then an infinite field interpretable in also exists.

Beginning in 1960, and continuing for about a decade and a half, Shepherdson's self-referential formulae dominated the applications of diagonalization in metamathematics. In 1976, it was doubly toppled from its position of supremacy by two demonstrably more powerful such sentences introduced by D. Guaspari. The goal of the present note is to understand and explain the first (and, for the time being, more important) of Guaspari's self-referential sentences, which we dub “Guaspari sentences of the first kind”, or, less poetically, “Guaspari fixed points”.

Both Shepherdson's and Guaspari's fixed points are generalizations of the Rosser sentence. But, where Shepherdson merely tacks on side-formulae, Guaspari takes a more revolutionary step: He views the basic components, PrT(⌈¬φ⌉) and PrT(⌈φ⌉), of the Rosser sentence as attempts to refute something and replaces them by refutations of something else. Ignoring their Shepherdsonesque side-formulae (tacked on for the sake of more esoteric applications), our analysis of Guaspari fixed points can be viewed as merely the isolation of those properties whose refutations can be used in this context.

In §1 we offer the outcome of this analysis—i.e. a delineation of properties whose refutations can so be used. Some simple examples are cited and the Guaspari fixed points are defined. The main theorem—a master Fixed Point Calculation—is proven in §2.

We specialise Aronszajn trees by an ωω-bounding forcing that adds reals. We work with creature forcings on uncountable spaces.

As an application of these notions of forcing, we answer a question of Moore, Hrušák and Džamonja whether implies the existence of a Souslin tree in a negative way by showing that “ and every Aronszajn tree is special” is consistent relative to ZFC.

In this note a proof is supplied of a fairly easily-made conjecture: that the system S3.5, formulated by Åqvist in [1] and proved complete with respect to some Kripke-style semantics by Cresswell in [2], is indeed the same system as S3(S), formulated by Lemmon in [3]. Any otherwise unexplained terms and notation are taken from the latter two papers.

It is shown that the positive existential theory of the structure (ℤ[S−1]; =, 0, 1, + , |), where S is a nonempty finite set of prime numbers, is undecidable. This result should be put in contrast with the fact that the positive existential theory of (ℤ; =, 0, 1, + |) is decidable.

Let be a standard formalization of type theory. In [6] Kreisel introduced N-models for . These are general models in the sense of [1] in which the numerals have their standard denotations.

If ξ is a closed term of we shall denote the object denoted by ξ in the N-model M by ξM. In particular, ξ* is the object denoted by ξ in the standard model of .

Let L be a first order predicate language with two sorts of variables and a single dyadic predicate letter whose first place is to be filled by variables of one sort and whose second place is to be filled by variables of the other sort. In answer to a question of M. H. Löb we show that there is no decision procedure for determining whether or not a sentence of L is universally valid.

Let us consider countable languages L containing a unary predicate symbol P and L− =L\{P}. We also assume that L is relational. Then for any L-structure M, N = PM can naturally be considered as an L−-substructure of M. The main object of this paper will be the study of the following question: Under what condition does M have to be ℵ0-categorical. ℵ1-categorical, or stable if N is?

Hodges and Pillay [6] proved that if M is a countable symmetric extension of N and T = Th(M) is minimal over P (they said that T is one-cardinal over P), then the total categoricity of N implies that of M. This is a solution to a problem in Ahlbrandt and Ziegler [1]. The condition that “M is a symmetric extension of N” is an interpretation of the condition “every relation on N definable in M is definable within N”. We shall give several interpretations of this phrase: They are the Ø-reduction property, the reduction property, the strong reduction property, and the uniform reduction property (Definition 1). Under the assumptions, we study the question proposed above.

In §3 we treat the case that M is countable and show that if T is minimal over P and M has the strong reduction property over N, then M is ℵ0-categorical if N is (Theorem 5). This is a slight extension of the result of Hodges and Pillay mentioned above. (If M is countable and saturated, then the strong reduction property is equivalent to the condition that M will be symmetric over N if we add a finite number of appropriate constants.) A counterexample to this theorem has been obtained by Hrushovski in the case that only the Ø-reduction property is assumed. We also give a stronger result: If M has the Ø-reduction property over N and is ℵ0-categorical, M\N is infinite, and N is algebraically closed, then there is an expansion M* of M such that M* is not ℵo-categorical but M* still has the Ø-reduction property over N (Theorem 6). Moreover, we give an example such that M has the uniform reduction property over N. Th(M*) is minimal over P. N is ℵ0-categorical but M is not.

We will describe the Ziegler spectrum over the ring of entire complex valued functions.

Our main result is that there exist structures which cannot be computably recovered from their tree of tuples. This implies that there are structures with no computable copies which nevertheless cannot code any information in a natural/functorial way.