We describe the general form of surjective maps on the cone of all positive operators that preserve order and spectrum. The result is optimal as shown by counterexamples. As an easy consequence, we characterize surjective order and spectrum preserving maps on the set of all self-adjoint operators.

We analyze domination properties and factorization of operators in Banach spaces through subspaces of $L^{1}$-spaces. Using vector measure integration and extending classical arguments based on scalar integral bounds, we provide characterizations of operators factoring through subspaces of $L^{1}$-spaces of finite measures. Some special cases involving positivity and compactness of the operators are considered.

Recently, H’michane et al. [‘On the class of limited operators’, Acta Math. Sci. (submitted)] introduced the class of weak$^*$ Dunford–Pettis operators on Banach spaces, that is, operators which send weakly compact sets onto limited sets. In this paper, the domination problem for weak$^*$ Dunford–Pettis operators is considered. Let $S, T:E\to F$ be two positive operators between Banach lattices $E$ and $F$ such that $0\leq S\leq T$. We show that if $T$ is a weak$^{*}$ Dunford–Pettis operator and $F$ is $\sigma $-Dedekind complete, then $S$ itself is weak$^*$ Dunford–Pettis.

We give an affirmative answer to one of the questions posed by Bourin regarding a special type of inequality referred to as subadditivity inequalities in the case of the Hilbert–Schmidt and the trace norms. We formulate the solution for arbitrary commuting positive operators, and we conjecture that it is true for all unitarily invariant norms and all commuting positive operators. New related trace inequalities are also presented.

Let A be a uniformly complete vector sublattice of an Archimedean semiprime f-algebra B and p ∈ {1, 2,…}. It is shown that the set ΠBp (A) = {f1 … fp: fk ∈ A, k = 1, …, p } is a uniformly complete vector sublattice of B. Moreover, if A is provided with an almost f-algebra multiplication * then there exists a positive operator Tp, from ΠBp(A) into A such that fi *…* fp = Tp(f1 …fp) for all f1…fp ∈ A.

As application, being given a uniformly complete almost f-algebra (A, *) and a natural number p ≧ 3, the set Π*p(A) = {f1 *… *fp: fk ∈ A, k = 1…p} is a uniformly complete semiprime f-algebra under the ordering and the multiplication inherited from A.

Let ${{A}_{i}},\,{{B}_{i}}$ and ${{X}_{i}}\,(i\,=\,1,\,2,\ldots ,\,n)$ be operators on a separable Hilbert space. It is shown that if $f$ and $g$ are nonnegative continuous functions on $\left[ 0,\infty \right)$ which satisfy the relation $f\,(t)g(t)\,=\,t$ for all $t$ in $\left[ 0,\infty \right)$, then

$${{\left\| \left| \,{{\left| \sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}{A_{i}^{*}{{X}_{i}}{{B}_{i}}} \right|}^{r}} \right| \right\|}^{2}}\,\le \,\left\| \left| {{\left( \sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}{A_{i}^{*}f{{(\left| X_{i}^{*} \right|)}^{2}}{{A}_{i}}} \right)}^{r}} \right| \right\|\,\,\left\| \left| {{\left( \sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}{B_{i}^{*}g{{(\left| {{X}_{i}} \right|)}^{2}}\,{{B}_{i}}} \right)}^{r}} \right| \right\|$$

for every $r\,>\,0$ and for every unitarily invariant norm. This result improves some known Cauchy-Schwarz type inequalities. Norm inequalities related to the arithmetic-geometric mean inequality and the classical Heinz inequalities are also obtained.