We introduce the notion of a strong representation of a semigroup in the monoid of endomorphisms of any mathematical structure, and use this concept to provide a theoretical description of the automorphism group of any semigroup. As an application of our general theorems, we extend to semigroups a well-known result concerning automorphisms of groups, and we determine the automorphism groups of certain transformation semigroups and of the fundamental inverse semigroups.

This paper deals with the interpolation of given real boundary values into a bounded domain in Euclidean n-space, under a prescribed gradient bound. It is well known that there exist an upper solution (an inf-convolution) and a lower solution (a sup-convolution) to this problem, provided that a certain compatibility condition is satisfied. If the upper and lower solutions coincide somewhere in the domain, then several interesting consequences follow. They are considered here. Basically, the upper and lower solutions must be regular wherever they coincide.

We give a qualitative description of the set 𝒪G(H) of overgroups in G of primitive subgroups H of finite alternating and symmetric groups G, and particularly of the maximal overgroups. We then show that certain weak restrictions on the lattice 𝒪G(H) impose strong restrictions on H and its overgroup lattice.

The best known results about the distribution of prime numbers in short intervals imply that all intervals [n,n+H]⊂[N,2N] contain the expected number of primes for all H≥N7/12, and almost all intervals [n,n+H]⊂[N,2N] contain the expected number of primes for all H≥N1/6. As a natural generalization, this paper is concerned with the distribution of prime numbers in intervals of type [nα,nα+H] with α>1.

We give a graph-theoretic definition for the number of ends of Cayley digraphs for finitely generated semigroups and monoids. For semigroups and monoids, left Cayley digraphs can be very different from right Cayley digraphs. In either case, the number of ends for the Cayley digraph does not depend upon which finite set of generators is used for the semigroup or monoid. For natural numbers m and n, we exhibit finitely generated monoids for which the left Cayley digraphs have m ends while the right Cayley digraphs have n ends. For direct products and for many other semidirect products of a pair of finitely generated infinite monoids, the right Cayley digraph of the semidirect product has only one end. A finitely generated subsemigroup of a free semigroup has either one end or else has infinitely many ends.

We prove that the relative class number of a nonabelian normal CM-field of degree 2pq (where p and q are two distinct odd primes) is always greater than four. Not only does this result solve the class number one problem for the nonabelian normal CM-fields of degree 42, but it has also been used elsewhere to solve the class number one problem for the nonabelian normal CM-fields of degree 84.