A chain, or linearly ordered set, is densely subuniform if it is dense and for every order type the elements whose corresponding initial sections have this order type, if any, are dense in the chain. It is uniform if all intial sections are isomorphic. This paper gives constructions for densely subuniform chains which are not uniform. The question arises from the study of congruence-free inverse semigroups, but may also have independent interest.

We discuss properties of arithmetic functions of higher order defined through the introduction of a new concept of divisor of higher order. We shall construct an infinite sequence of Euler-like functions and the well known Euler function will be the first member of this sequence. Asymptotic estimates of such functions are given and a study of error functions associated with the Euler-like sequence is made. We would like to mention that the familiar number theoretic functions become only the first members of an infinite sequence of functions of similar behaviour.

The inverse semigroup TE of isomorphisms of principal ideals of E onto principal ideals of E, where E is a semilattice, has been introduced and studied by Munn (1966, 1970). He showed that, for any inverse semigroup S with semilattice E, there is a representation of S by an inverse subsemigroup of TE. The Munn representation, however, is not always faithful. In this paper, the possibility is considered of enlarging the carrier set E of the Munn representation in order to obtain a faithful representation of S as an inverse subsemigroup of a structure resembling TE in many ways. A structure X is obtained by replacing each element of E by a set. Then X = ∪{Xe: e ∈ E}, where Xe, denotes some set, has a natural pre-order relation ≤ (where x ≤ y if and only if x ∈ Xe, y ∈ Xf and e ≦ f ) inherited from E such that if T = {(x, y)∈X × X;x ≤ y and y ≤ x} then X/T is isomorphic to E. Such a set X is referred to as a pre-semilattice with semilattice E. If Tx denotes the set of all isomorphisms of principal ideals of X onto principal ideals of X then Tx is an inverse semigroup. Basic properties of Tx are considered. It is shown that when X is locally uniform, that is, when |Xe| = |Xf|, for all e, f ∈ E, Tx may be described as a wreath product of a permutation group with TE.

The set s itself is a presemilattice with semilattice E with respect to the pre-order ≤ defined by a ≤ b if and only if a−1a ≦ b−1b. It is then shown that the Vagner-Preston representation embeds S as a full inverse subsemigroup of Ts. As an application of these concepts the following result is established. Let R and S be inverse semigroups and let θ1(θ2) be an isomorphism of a semilattice E onto the semilattice of R(S). Then there exists a locally uniform presemilattice W and embeddings ϕ1, ϕ2 of R and S, respectively, as full inverse subsemigroups of Tw such that (1) θ1ϕ1 = θ2ϕ2 and (2) (eθ1ϕ1, eθ2ϕ2) ∈ if and only if Ee is isomorphic to Ef.

Let E be a real Banach space ordered by a closed, normal and generating cone. Suppose also that the order induced on E has the Riesz decomposition property. It is shown that if T:E → E is a positive linear operator with the property that y, z, a ∈ E with a ≧ Ty, Tz implies there is x ∈ E with x ≧ y, z and a ≧ Tx then the approximate point spectrum and spectrum of T are cyclic subsets of the complex plane. That is, if α = |α|γ lies in one of these sets then so does |α|γk for all integers k.

In this paper we define two semigroups of continuous relations on topological spaces and determine a large class of spaces for which Banach-Stone type theorems hold, i.e. spaces for which isomorphism of the semigroups implies homeomorphism of the spaces. This class includes all 0-dimensional Hausdorff spaces and all those completely regular Hausdorff spaces which contain an arc; indeed all of K. D. Magill's S*-spaces are included. Some of the algebraic structure of the semigroup of all continuous relations is elucidated and a method for producing examples of topological semigroups of relations is discussed.

There have been investigations (Janko (1966), Janko and Thompson (1966), Yamaki (1972)) of finite groups G which contain a central involution t whose centralizer (in G) has the form C(t) = 〈t〉 × F, where F is isomorphic to a non-abelian simple group. Here it is shown such a group cannot be simple when F is isomorphic to an exceptional Lie type simple group of odd characteristic. Specifically the following theorem is proved.

This paper is the result of our attempt to carry over the method of our characterization of the linear groups PSL(n, q) (Phan (1972)) to that of the unitary groups PSU (n, q). It appears desirable to have available a result on the generation of the unitary groups more closely related to the splitting of the underlying hermitian spaces of these groups into orthogonal direct sum of anisotropic lines. Another motivation comes also from our work on the unitary groups in which we obtained a fusion pattern different from that of the unitary group when the dimension of the underlying space is eight. This fusion pattern produces a group whose structure is not immediately apparent. In order to identify this group, the result of this paper appears to be a necessary step.

It is proved that R is a near-ring with identity in which every element is a power of itself if and only if it is isomorphic with a near-ring of sections of a sheaf of near-fields in which every element is a power of itself. We also obtain that the Boolean spectrum is homeomorphic with the space of all completely prime ideals of R with the Zariski topology.

Let S be a locally compact semigroup and M(S) its measure algebra. It is shown that the dual M(S)* is isometrically order isomorphic to the space GL(S) of all generalised functions on S first introduced by Šreǐder (1950). Moreover, convolutions of elements in each of the spaces M(S)* and GL(S) can be defined in such a way that the above isomorphism preserves convolutions. These results on representation of functionals in M(S)* by generalised functions practically open up a new chapter in abstract harmonic analysis. As an example, some applications to invariant means on locally compact semigroups are given.

A new basis for discrete analytic polynomials is presented for which the series converges absolutely to a discrete analytic function in the upper right quarter lattice whenever

Let A be a dual B*-algebra and Ap the p-class in A. We show that the conjugate space of A1 is A**, the second conjugate space of A. We also obtain a three lines theorem for Ap (1 ≦p≦∞).

It is known that all locally flat projective planes in S4 have homeomorphic normal disk bundles. In this paper we investigate the homeomorphisms of Q3 (= boundary of the normal disk bundle) on to itself. We show that a homeomorphisms of Q3 onto itself is determined, up to isotopy, by the outerautomorphism of π1(Q3) that it induces. Since Q3 is an irreducible, not sufficiently large 3-manifold with finite fundamental group this characterization is interesting in its own right. The characterization of homeomorphisms is then used to study certain questions about embeddings of the projective plane in S4. One result is that there are at most two distinct projective planes in S4 with a given complement.