This paper contains a proof–theoretic account of unification in intermediate logics. It is shown that many existing results can be extended to fragments that at least contain implication and conjunction. For such fragments, the connection between valuations and most general unifiers is clarified, and it is shown how from the closure of a formula under the Visser rules a proof of the formula under a projective unifier can be obtained. This implies that in the logics considered, for the n-unification type to be finitary it suffices that the m-th Visser rule is admissible for a sufficiently large m. At the end of the paper it is shown how these results imply several well-known results from the literature.

We introduce the safe recursive set functions based on a Bellantoni–Cook style subclass of the primitive recursive set functions. We show that the functions computed by safe recursive set functions under a list encoding of finite strings by hereditarily finite sets are exactly the polynomial growth rate functions computed by alternating exponential time Turing machines with polynomially many alternations. We also show that the functions computed by safe recursive set functions under a more efficient binary tree encoding of finite strings by hereditarily finite sets are exactly the quasipolynomial growth rate functions computed by alternating quasipolynomial time Turing machines with polylogarithmic many alternations.

We characterize the safe recursive set functions on arbitrary sets in definability-theoretic terms. In its strongest form, we show that a function on arbitrary sets is safe recursive if and only if it is uniformly definable in some polynomial level of a refinement of Jensen's J-hierarchy, relativized to the transitive closure of the function's arguments.

We observe that safe recursive set functions on infinite binary strings are equivalent to functions computed by infinite-time Turing machines in time less than ωω. We also give a machine model for safe recursive set functions which is based on set-indexed parallel processors and the natural bound on running times.

Theorem. Suppose that k = (K, $$\prec_k$$) is an ℵ0-presentable abstract elementary class with Löwenheim–Skolem number ℵ0, satisfying the joint embedding and amalgamation properties in ℵ0. If K has only countably many models in ℵ1, then all are small. If, in addition, k is almost Galois ω-stable then k is Galois ω-stable. Suppose that k = (K, $$\prec_k$$) is an ℵ0-presented almost Galois ω-stable AEC satisfying amalgamation for countable models, and having a model of cardinality ℵ1. The assertion that K is ℵ1-categorical is then absolute.

We show that the theory of a nondegenerate representation of a C*-algebra ${\cal A}$ over a Hilbert space H is superstable. Also, we characterize forking, orthogonality and domination of types.

We give a new, simplified and detailed account of the correspondence between levels of the Sherali–Adams relaxation of graph isomorphism and levels of pebble-game equivalence with counting (higher-dimensional Weisfeiler–Lehman colour refinement). The correspondence between basic colour refinement and fractional isomorphism, due to Tinhofer [22; 23] and Ramana, Scheinerman and Ullman [17], is re-interpreted as the base level of Sherali–Adams and generalised to higher levels in this sense by Atserias and Maneva [1] and Malkin [14], who prove that the two resulting hierarchies interleave. In carrying this analysis further, we here give (a) a precise characterisation of the level k Sherali–Adams relaxation in terms of a modified counting pebble game; (b) a variant of the Sherali–Adams levels that precisely match the k-pebble counting game; (c) a proof that the interleaving between these two hierarchies is strict. We also investigate the variation based on boolean arithmetic instead of real/rational arithmetic and obtain analogous correspondences and separations for plain k-pebble equivalence (without counting). Our results are driven by considerably simplified accounts of the underlying combinatorics and linear algebra.

We present a cut elimination argument that witnesses the conservativity of the compositional axioms for truth (without the extended induction axiom) over any theory interpreting a weak subsystem of arithmetic. In doing so we also fix a critical error in Halbach’s original presentation. Our methods show that the admission of these axioms determines a hyper-exponential reduction in the size of derivations of truth-free statements.

We study ultrafilters on ω2 produced by forcing with the quotient of ${\cal P}$(ω2) by the Fubini square of the Fréchet filter on ω. We show that such an ultrafilter is a weak P-point but not a P-point and that the only nonprincipal ultrafilters strictly below it in the Rudin–Keisler order are a single isomorphism class of selective ultrafilters. We further show that it enjoys the strongest square-bracket partition relations that are possible for a non-P-point. We show that it is not basically generated but that it shares with basically generated ultrafilters the property of not being at the top of the Tukey ordering. In fact, it is not Tukey-above [ω1]<ω, and it has only continuum many ultrafilters Tukey-below it. A tool in our proofs is the analysis of similar (but not the same) properties for ultrafilters obtained as the sum, over a selective ultrafilter, of nonisomorphic selective ultrafilters.

The mad spectrum is the set of all cardinalities of infinite maximal almost disjoint families on ω. We treat the problem to characterize those sets ${\rm {\cal A}} $ which, in some forcing extension of the universe, can be the mad spectrum. We give a complete solution to this problem under the assumption $\vartheta ^{ < \vartheta } = \vartheta $, where $\vartheta = {\rm{min}}\left( {\rm {\cal A}} \right) $.

We prove that, for 1 ≤ p < q < ∞, the partially ordered set P(ω)/Fin can be embedded into Borel equivalence relations between ℝω/ℓp and ℝω/ℓq. Since there is an antichain of size continuum in P(ω)/Fin, there are continuum many pairwise incomparable Borel equivalence relations between ℝω/ℓp and ℝω/ℓq.

In this paper we investigate the reverse mathematics of higher-order analogues of the theory $$ATR_0$$ within the framework of higher order reverse mathematics developed by Kohlenbach [11]. We define a theory $$RCA_0^3$$, a close higher-type analogue of the classical base theory $$RCA_0$$ which is essentially a conservative subtheory of Kohlenbach’s base theory $$RCA_{\rm{0}}^\omega$$. Working over $$RCA_0^3$$, we study higher-type analogues of statements classically equivalent to $$ATR_0$$, including open and clopen determinacy, and examine the extent to which $$ATR_0$$ remains robust at higher types. Our main result is the separation of open and clopen determinacy for reals, using a variant of Steel’s tagged tree forcing; in the presentation of this result, we develop a new, more flexible framework for Steel-type forcing.

In this paper, we analyze structures of Zermelo degrees via a list of four degree theoretic questions (see §2) in various fine structure extender models, or under large cardinal assumptions. In particular we give a detailed analysis of the structures of Zermelo degrees in the Mitchell model for ω many measurable cardinals. It turns out that there is a profound correlation between the complexity of the degree structures at countable cofinality singular cardinals and the large cardinal strength of the relevant cardinals. The analysis applies to general degree notions, Zermelo degree is merely the author’s choice for illustrating the idea.

I0(λ) is the assertion that there is an elementary embedding j : L(Vλ+1) → L(Vλ+1) with critical point < λ. We show that under I0(λ), the structure of Zermelo degrees at λ is very complicated: it has incomparable degrees, is not dense, satisfies Posner–Robinson theorem etc. In addition, we show that I0 together with a mild condition on the critical point of the embedding implies that the degree determinacy for Zermelo degrees at λ is false in L(Vλ+1). The key tool in this paper is a generic absoluteness theorem in the theory of I0, from which we obtain an analogue of Perfect Set Theorem for “projective” subsets of Vλ+1, and the Posner–Robinson follows as a corollary. Perfect Set Theorem and Posner–Robinson provide evidences supporting the analogy between $$AD$$ over L(ℝ) and I0 over L(Vλ+1), while the failure of degree determinacy is one for disanalogy. Furthermore, we conjecture that the failure of degree determinacy for Zermelo degrees at any uncountable cardinal is a theorem of $$ZFC$$.

Suppose p is the generic type of a differential-algebraic jet space to a finite dimensional differential-algebraic variety at a generic point. It is shown that p satisfies a certain strengthening of almost internality to the constants. This strengthening, which was originally called “being Moishezon to the constants” in [9] but is here renamed preserving internality to the constants, is a model-theoretic abstraction of the generic behaviour of jet spaces in complex-analytic geometry. An example is given showing that only a generic analogue holds in the differential-algebraic case: there is a finite dimensional differential-algebraic variety X with a subvariety Z that is internal to the constants, such that the restriction of the differential-algebraic tangent bundle of X to Z is not almost internal to the constants.

In this paper we describe an intuitionistic theory SLP. It is a relatively strong theory containing intuitionistic principles for functionals of many types, in particular, the theory of the “creating subject”, axioms for lawless functionals and some versions of choice axioms. We construct a Beth model for the language of intuitionistic functionals of high types and use it to prove the consistency of SLP.

We also prove that the intuitionistic theory SLP is equiconsistent with a classical theory TI. TI is a typed set theory, where the comprehension axiom for sets of type n is restricted to formulas with no parameters of types > n. We show that each fragment of SLP with types ≤ s is equiconsistent with the corresponding fragment of TI and that it is stronger than the previous fragment of SLP. Thus, both SLP and TI are much stronger than the second order arithmetic. By constructing the intuitionistic theory SLP and interpreting in it the classical set theoryTI, we contribute to the program of justifying classical mathematics from the intuitionistic point of view.

We refine a construction of Choi, Farah, and Ozawa to build a nonseparable amenable operator algebra ${\rm {\cal A}}$ ⊆ ℓ∞ (M2) whose nonseparable subalgebras, including ${\rm {\cal A}}$, are not isomorphic to a C*-algebra. This is done using a Luzin gap and a uniformly bounded group representation.

Next, we study additional properties of ${\rm {\cal A}}$ and of its separable subalgebras, related to the Kadison Kastler metric.