Given a smooth compact surface without focal points and of higher genus, it is shown that its geodesic flow is semi-conjugate to a continuous expansive flow with a local product structure such that the semi-conjugation preserves time parametrization. It is concluded that the geodesic flow has a unique measure of maximal entropy.

For $a\in(0,\tfrac12]$ and $r\in(0,1)$, let $\mu_a(r)$ be the so-called generalized Grötzsch function which appears in Ramanujan's generalized modular equations. In this paper, several sharp inequalities for $\mu_a(r)$ are obtained and a conjecture on $\mu_a(r)$, which was presented by Qiu and Vuorinen in 1999, is proved.

In this paper we consider the existence and multiplicity of positive solutions of a nonlinear elliptic boundary-value problem with nonlinear boundary conditions which arises in population dynamics. While bifurcation problems from lines of trivial solutions are studied, the existence of bifurcation positive solutions from infinity is discussed. The former will be caught by the reduction to a bifurcation equation following the Lyapunov and Schmidt procedure. The latter will be based on a variational argument depending on the corresponding constrained minimization problem.

AMS 2000 Mathematics subject classification: Primary 35J65; 35J20; 35P30; 35B32; 92D25

The motion of a rigid sphere embedded in an adhering medium and subjected to an external force is analysed exactly in the context of classical elastodynamics. For the limiting case of an incompressible medium it is possible to write down a simple second order differential equation relating displacement of the ball to the external force.

The theory is generalised to the case of a viscoelastic solid and the results obtained are pertinent to recently developed experimental methods for testing the dynamical mechanical properties of very low modulus polymer gels.

We define a new height function $\mathcal{R}(\alpha)$, the Remak height of an algebraic number $\alpha$. We give sharp upper and lower bounds for $\mathcal{R}(\alpha)$ in terms of the classical Mahler measure $M(\alpha)$. Study of when one of these bounds is exact leads us to consideration of conjugate sets of algebraic numbers of norm $\pm 1$ lying on two circles centred at 0. We give a complete characterization of such conjugate sets. They turn out to be of two types: one related to certain cubic algebraic numbers, and the other related to a non-integer generalization of Salem numbers which we call extended Salem numbers.

AMS 2000 Mathematics subject classification: Primary 11R06

In a very remarkable work on the operational Calculus, Dr Balth. van der Pol has introduced a new function, playing with respect to Bessel function of order zero the same part as the cosine- or sine-integral with respect to the ordinary cosine or sine. He showed that this function—which he called Bessel-integral junction—can be used to express the differential coefficient of any Bessel function with respect to its index. But he did not investigate the further properties of his new function. I propose to give here some of them, which appear to be interesting, and to introduce and study the functions connected, in the same way, with Bessel functions of any order.

In this paper we examine the dependence of the solutions of an evolution inclusion on a parameter λ We prove two dependence theorems. In the first the parameter appears only in the orientor field and we show that the solution set depends continuously on it for both the Vietoris and Hausdorff topologies. In the second the parameter appears also in the monotone operator. Using the notion of G-convergence of operators we prove that the solution set is upper semicontinuous with respect to the parameter. Both results make use of a general existence theorem which we also prove in this paper. Finally, we present two examples. One from control theory and the other from partial differential inclusions.

We introduce the notion of wide representation of an inverse semigroup and prove that with a suitably defined topology there is a space of germs of such a representation that has the structure of an étale groupoid. This gives an elegant description of Paterson's universal groupoid and of the translation groupoid of Skandalis, Tu and Yu. In addition, we characterize the inverse semigroups that arise from groupoids, leading to a precise bijection between the class of étale groupoids and the class of complete and infinitely distributive inverse monoids equipped with suitable representations, and we explain the sense in which quantales and localic groupoids carry a generalization of this correspondence.

In 1948 P. Lévy formulated the following theorem: If U is an open subset of the complex plane and f:U → ℂ is a nonconstant analytic function, then f maps a 2-dimensional Brownian motion Bt (up to the exit time from U) into a time changed 2-dimensional Brownian motion. A rigorous proof of this result first appeared in McKean [22]. This theorem has been used by many authors to solve problems about analytic functions by reducing them to problems about Brownian motion where the arguments are often more transparent. The survey paper [8] is a good reference for some of these applications. Lévy's theorem has been generalized, first by Bernard, Campbell, and Davie [5], and subsequently by Csink and Øksendal [7]. In Section 1 of this note we use these generalizations of Lévy's theorem to extend some results about BMO functions in the unit disc to harmonic morphisms in ℝn to holomorphic functions in ℂn and to analytic functions on Riemann surfaces. In Section 2, we characterize the domains in ℝn which have the property that the expected exit time of elliptic diffusions is uniformly bounded as a function of the starting point. This extends a result of Hayman and Pommerenke [15], and Stegenga [24] about BMO domains in the complex plane.

We study a family of semi-ample divisors on the moduli space of n-pointed genus 0 curves given by higher-level conformal blocks. We derive formulae for their intersections with a basis of 1-cycles, show that they form a basis for the Sn-invariant Picard group, and generate a full-dimensional subcone of the Sn-invariant nef cone. We find their position in the nef cone and study their associated morphisms.

Some axially symmetric boundary value problems of potential theory are formulated as integral equations of the first kind. In each case the kernel admits an expansion, for small values of a parameter of the problem, that leads to an approximate integral equation whose solution provides a direct asymptotic estimate for the physical quantity of primary interest. A manipulation of the original and modified integral equations provides an efficient formula for calculating higher order terms in the asymptotic expansion.

In the first part of the paper we prove several results on the existence of invariant closed ideals for semigroups of bounded operators on a normed Riesz space (of dimension greater than 1) possessing an atom. For instance, if S is a multiplicative semigroup of positive operators on such space that are locally quasinilpotent at the same atom, then S has a non-trivial invariant closed ideal. Furthermore, if T is a non-zero positive operator that is quasinilpotent at an atom and if S is a multiplicative semigroup of positive operators such that TS ≤ ST for all S ∈ S, then S and T have a common non-trivial invariant closed ideal. We also give a simple example of a quasinilpotent compact positive operator on the Banach lattice l∞ with no non-trivial invariant band.

The second part is devoted to the triangularizability of collections of operators on an atomic normed Riesz space L. For a semigroup S of quasinilpotent, order continuous, positive, bounded operators on L we determine a chain of invariant closed bands. If, in addition, L has order continuous norm, then this chain is maximal in the lattice of all closed subspaces of L.

In this paper finite groups factorized as products of pairwise totally permutable subgroups are studied in theframework of Fitting classes.

AMS 2000 Mathematics subject classification: Primary 20D10; 20D40

We decompose the topological stability (in the sense of P. Walters) into the corresponding notion for points. Indeed, we define a topologically stable point of a homeomorphism f as a point x such that for any C0-perturbation g of f there is a continuous semiconjugation defined on the g-orbit closure of x which tends to the identity as g tends to f. We obtain some properties of the topologically stable points, including preservation under conjugacy, vanishing for minimal homeomorphisms on compact manifolds, the fact that topologically stable chain recurrent points belong to the periodic point closure, and that the chain recurrent set coincides with the closure of the periodic points when all points are topologically stable. Next, we show that the topologically stable points of an expansive homeomorphism of a compact manifold are precisely the shadowable ones. Moreover, an expansive homeomorphism of a compact manifold is topologically stable if and only if every point is topologically stable. Afterwards, we prove that a pointwise recurrent homeomorphism of a compact manifold has no topologically stable points. Finally, we prove that every chain transitive homeomorphism with a topologically stable point of a compact manifold has the pseudo-orbit tracing property. Therefore, a chain transitive expansive homeomorphism of a compact manifold is topologically stable if and only if it has a topologically stable point.

We prove that if t is a compact linear operator that is not quasi-nilpotent and is appropriately normalised, then the closed semi-algebra A(t) generated by t is locally compact. The theory of locally compact semi-algebras (2) is therefore applicable to A(t), and we show that it can be used to obtain spectral properties of t.

Let X be a rearrangement invariant function space on [0,1] in which the Rademacher functions (rn) generate a subspace isomorphic to ℓ2. We consider the space Λ(R, X) of measurable functions f such that fg∈X for every function g=∑bnrn where (bn)∈ℓ2. We show that if X satisfies certain conditions on the fundamental function and on certain interpolation indices then the space Λ(R, X) is not order isomorphic to a rearrangement invariant space. The result includes the spaces Lp, q and certain classes of Orlicz and Lorentz spaces. We also study the cases X = Lexp and X = Lψ2 for ψ2) = exp(t2) – 1.

In this paper we study the existence and nonexistence of multiple positive solutions for the Dirichlet problem:

$$ -\Delta{u}-\mu\frac{u}{|x|^2}=\lambda(1+u)^p,\quad u\gt0,\quad u\in H^1_0(\varOmega), \tag{*} $$

where $0\leq\mu\lt(\frac{1}{2}(N-2))^2$, $\lambda\gt0$, $1\ltp\leq(N+2)/(N-2)$, $N\geq3$. Using the sub–supersolution method and the variational approach, we prove that there exists a positive number $\lambda^*$ such that problem (*) possesses at least two positive solutions if $\lambda\in(0,\lambda^*)$, a unique positive solution if $\lambda=\lambda^*$, and no positive solution if $\lambda\in(\lambda^*,\infty)$.

We relax the growth condition in time for uniqueness of solutions of the Cauchy problem for the heat equation as follows: Let u(x, t) be a continuous function on ℝn × [0, T] satisfying the heat equation in ℝn × (0, t) and the following:

(i) There exist constants a > 0, 0 < α < 1, and C > 0 such that

(ii) u(x, 0) = 0 for x ∈ ℝn.

Then u(x, t)≡ 0 on ℝn × [0, T]

We also prove that the condition 0 < α < 1 is optimal.

Throughout this paper, unless otherwise stated, n and L stand for positive integers and α, t, x, x1, x2, … for positive real numbers. Let

where

and

Strongly prime rings were introduced by Handelman and Lawrence [5] and in [2] Groenewald and Heyman investigated the upper radical determined by the class of all strongly prime rings. In this paper we extend the concept of strongly prime to near-rings. We show that the class M of distributively generated near-rings is a special class in the sense of Kaarli [6]. We also show that if N is any distributively generated near-ring, then UM(N), UM denotes the upper radical determined by the class M, coincides with the intersection of all the strongly prime ideals of N.