In 1892, Sylvester [7] proved that in the set of integers n, n+l,…, n+k—1, n> k > 1, there is a number containing a prime divisor greater than k. This theorem was rediscovered, in 1929, by Schur [6]. More recent results include an elementary proof by Erdös [1] and a proof of the following theorem by Faulkner [2]: Let pk be the least prime ≥2k; if n≥pk then has a prime divisor ≥pk with the exceptions and In that paper the author uses some deep results of Rosser and Schoenfeld [5] on the distribution of primes.

Let p*(n) denote the number of product partitions, that is, the number of ways of expressing a natural number n > 1 as the product of positive integers ≥ 2, the order of the factors in the product being irrelevant, with p*(1) = 1. For any integer if d is an ith power, and = 1, otherwise, and let . Using a suitable generating function for p*(n) we prove that

Lower bounds are given for the independence ratio in graphs satisfying certain girth and maximum degree requirements. In particular, the independence ratio of a graph with maximum degree Δ and girth at least six is at least (2Δ − 1)/(Δ2 + 2Δ − 1). Sharper bounds are given for cubic graphs.

A definition of an isometric shift operator on a Banach space is given which extends the usual definition of a shift operator on a separable Hilbert space. It is shown that there is no such shift on many of the common Banach spaces of continuous functions. The associated ideas of a semi-shift and a backward shift are also introduced and studied in the case of continuous function spaces.

A ring $R$ is called quasi-Baer if the right annihilator of every right ideal of $R$ is generated by an idempotent as a right ideal. We investigate the quasi-Baer property of skew group rings and fixed rings under a finite group action on a semiprime ring and their applications to ${{C}^{*}}$-algebras. Various examples to illustrate and delimit our results are provided.

Langlands has conjectured the existence of a universal group, an extension of the absolute Galois group, which would play a fundamental role in the classification of automorphic representations. We shall describe a possible candidate for this group. We shall also describe a possible candidate for the complexification of Grothendieck's motivic Galois group.

Suppose is a sequence of functions on ℝn with Δfk = fk+1 (where Δ is the Laplacian) that satisfies the growth condition: |fk(x)| ≤ Mk{1 + |x|)a where a ≥ 0 and the constants have sublinear growth Then Δf0 = —f0- This characterizes eigenfunctions f of Δ with polynomial growth in terms of the size of the powers Δkf, —∞ < k < ∞. It also generalizes results of Roe (where a = 0, Mk = M, and n = 1 ) and Strichartz (where a = 0, Mk = M for n). The analogue holds for formally self-adjoint constant coefficient linear partial differential operators on ℝn.

This paper characterizes when a Delone set $X$ in ${{\mathbb{R}}^{n}}$ is an ideal crystal in terms of restrictions on the number of its local patches of a given size or on the heterogeneity of their distribution. For a Delone set $X$, let ${{N}_{X}}\left( T \right)$ count the number of translation-inequivalent patches of radius $T$ in $X$ and let ${{M}_{X}}\left( T \right)$ be the minimum radius such that every closed ball of radius ${{M}_{X}}\left( T \right)$ contains the center of a patch of every one of these kinds. We show that for each of these functions there is a “gap in the spectrum” of possible growth rates between being bounded and having linear growth, and that having sufficiently slow linear growth is equivalent to $X$ being an ideal crystal.

Explicitly, for ${{N}_{X}}\left( T \right)$, if $R$ is the covering radius of $X$ then either ${{N}_{X}}\left( T \right)$ is bounded or ${{N}_{X}}\left( T \right)\,\ge \,T/2R$ for all $T\,>\,0$. The constant $1/2R$ in this bound is best possible in all dimensions.

For ${{M}_{X}}\left( T \right)$, either ${{M}_{X}}\left( T \right)$ is bounded or ${{M}_{X}}\left( T \right)\ge T/3$ for all $T\,>\,0$. Examples show that the constant 1/3 in this bound cannot be replaced by any number exceeding 1/2. We also show that every aperiodic Delone set $X$ has ${{M}_{X}}\left( T \right)\,\ge \,c\left( n \right)T$ for all $T\,>\,0$, for a certain constant $c\left( n \right)$ which depends on the dimension $n$ of $X$ and is $>\,1/3$ when $n\,>\,1$.

Two important mathematical constructions are: the construction of the rational s from the integers and the construction of the reals from the rationals. The first process can be carried out for any ring, producing its maximal ring of quotients [4, 5]. The second process can be carried out for any partially ordered set producing its Dedekind-MacNeille completion [2, p. 58]. We will show that for Boolean rings, which are both rings and partially ordered sets, the two constructions coincide.

I show that if X is the hyperstonian space of Lebesgue measure on [0,1], then there are open sets in X×X which are not measurable for the simple product outer measure. This answers a question of M. C. Godfrey and M. Sion.

By a composition of a positive integer n is meant a representation of n as a sum of one or more positive integers where the order of the summands is taken into account. Thus for example 4 has the eight compositions 4 = 3 + 1 = 1 +3 = 2 + 2 = 2 + 1 + 1 = 1 + 2 + 1 = 1 + 1 + 2 = 1 + 1 + 1 + 1. Now n can be written in the form 1 + 1 + … + 1 with n - 1 plus signs. Deletion of any subset of these plus signs breaks n into parts which form a composition of n. Conversely, any composition of n corresponds to a subset of plus signs, so that the number of compositions of n is the number of subsets of a set with n - 1 elements, namely 2n - 1. In this note we obtain a number of generalizations of this rather obvious remark by making use of the notion of a weighted composition and the method of generating series.

Given an essentially unitary contraction and an arbitrary unitary dilation of it, there is a naturally associated spectral flow that is shown to be equal to the index of the operator. This result is interpreted in terms of the K-theory of an associated mapping cone. It is then extended to connect Z2 indices of odd symmetric Fredholm operators to a Z2-valued spectral flow.

This expository note was prompted by some questions asked by Professor P. Hilton during his lectures "Catégories non-abétiennes" at the University of Montréal, July 1964.

The descriptions of set functions as one to one and as onto can be characterized in terms of set function composition. A set function is one to one iff it has the left cancellation property, that is, f · g = f · h implies g = h.

Let R denote an associative ring with 1, let n be a positive integer, and let k = 1, 2, or 3. The ring R will be called an (n, k)-ring if it satisfies the identities

for all integers m with n ≤ m ≤ n + k - 1. It was shown years ago by Herstein (See [2], [9], and [10]) that for n >1, any (n, l)-ring must have nil commutator ideal C(R). Later Luh [12] proved that primary (rc, 3)-rings must in fact be commutative, and Ligh and Richoux [11] recently showed that all (n, 3)-rings are commutative.

In [2], A. Sade gives a construction for quasigroups which he calls the singular direct product. In this paper we generalize Sades' construction. As an application we obtain a recursive construction for quasigroups orthogonal to their transposes. All quasigroups considered in this paper will be finite.

We provide vector analogues of the classical interpolation theorems for lower semicontinuous functions due to Dowker and to Hahn and Katetov-Tong.

We obtain mainly by using Jensen's inequality for convex functions an integral inequality, which contains as a special case Shun's generalization of Hardy's inequality.

Let Mn be the algebra of n × n matrices over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. For A ∊ Mn, denote by the collection of all matrices in Mn that are similar to A. In this paper we characterize those invertible linear operators ϕ on Mn that satisfy , where for some given A1,..., Ak ∊ Mn and denotes the (Zariski) closure of S. Our theorem covers a result of Howard on linear operators mapping the set of matrices annihilated by a given polynomial into itself, and extends a result of Chan and Lim on linear operators commuting with the function f(x) = xk for a given positive integer k ≥ 2. The possibility of weakening the invertibility assumption in our theorem is considered, a partial answer to a conjecture of Howard is given, and some extensions of our result to arbitrary fields are discussed.

In this paper we study left invariant Einstein–Randers metrics on compact Lie groups. First, we give a method to construct left invariant non-Riemannian Einstein–Randers metrics on a compact Lie group, using the Zermelo navigation data. Then we prove that this gives a complete classification of left invariant Einstein–Randers metrics on compact simple Lie groups with the underlying Riemannian metric naturally reductive. Further, we completely determine the identity component of the group of isometries for this type of metrics on simple groups. Finally, we study some geometric properties of such metrics. In particular, we give the formulae of geodesics and flag curvature of such metrics.

By a tournament we mean the outcome of a round-robin tournament in which there are no draws. Such a tournament may be represented by a graph in which the n players are represented by vertices labelled 1, 2, …, n, and the outcomes of the games are represented by directed edges so that every pair of vertices is joined by one directed edge. We call such a graph a complete directed graph. One can also represent such a tournament by an nXn matrix T=(tij) in which tij is 1 if i beats j, and 0 otherwise, so that T is a (0, 1) matrix with tij + tji = 1 for i≠j and (by definition) tii = 0.