Kantorovich and Livenson [6] initiated the study of infinitary Boolean operations applied to the subsets of the Baire space and related spaces. It turns out that a number of interesting collections of subsets of the Baire space, such as the collection of Borel sets of a given type (e.g. the F σ sets) or the collection of analytic sets, can be expressed as the range of an ω-ary Boolean operation applied to all possible ω-sequences of clopen sets. (Such collections are called clopen-ω-Boolean.) More recently, the ranges of I-ary Boolean operations for uncountable I have been considered; specific questions include whether the collection of Borel sets, or the collection of sets at finite levels in the Borel hierarchy, is clopen-I-Boolean.

The main purpose of this paper is to give a characterization of those collections of subsets of the Baire space (or similar spaces) that are clopen-I-Boolean for some I. The Baire space version can be stated as follows: a collection of subsets of the Baire space is clopen-I-Boolean for some I iff it is nonempty and closed downward and σ-directed upward under Wadge reducibility, and in this case we may take I = ω 2. The basic method of proof is to use discrete subsets of spaces of the form K 2 to put a number of smaller clopen-I-Boolean classes together to form a large one. The final section of the paper gives converse results indicating that, at least in some cases, ω 2 cannot be replaced by a smaller index set.

We describe a first-order theory of generalized sets intended to allow a similar treatment of sets and proper classes. The theory is motivated by the iterative conception of set. It has a ternary membership symbol interpreted as membership relative to a set-building step. Set and proper class are defined notions. We prove that sets and proper classes with a defined membership form an inner model of Bernays-Morse class theory. We extend ordinal and cardinal notions to generalized sets and prove ordinal and cardinal results in the theory. We prove that the theory is consistent relative to ZFC + (∃x) [x is a strongly inaccessible cardinal].

In [1], Lemmon provides us with his now well-known formulations of the Lewis-modal systems S1 through S4. This paper will present similar bases for the related systems S1° and S2° of Feys [2], and S3° and S4° of Sobocinski [3]. Notation and definitions here will be as in [1]. Standard bases for the Lewis-modal systems may be drawn from the following stock of axioms and rules, as is done in [1].

Determining the truth value of self-referential sentences is an interesting and often tricky problem. The Gödel sentence, asserting its own unprovability in P (Peano arithmetic), is clearly true in N(the standard model of P), and Löb showed that a sentence asserting its own provability in P is also true in N (see Smorynski [Sm, 4.1.1]). The problem is more difficult, and still unsolved, for sentences of the kind constructed by Kreisel [K1], which assert their own falsity in some model N* of P whose complete diagram is arithmetically defined. Such a sentence χ has the property that N ⊨ iff N* ⊭ χ (note that ¬χ has the same property).

We show in §1 that the truth value in N of such a sentence χ, after a certain normalization that breaks the symmetry between it and its negation, is determined by the parity of a natural number, called the rank of N, for the particular construction of N* used. The rank is the number of times the construction can be iterated starting from N and is finite for all the usual constructions. We also show that modifications of, e.g., Henkin's construction (in his completeness proof of predicate calculus) allow arbitrary finite values for the rank of N. Thus, on the one hand the truth value of χ in N, for a given “nice” construction of N*, is independent of the particular (normalized) choice of χ, and we shall see that χ is unique up to (provable) equivalence in P. On the other hand, the truth value in question is sensitive to minor changes in the definition of N* and its determination seems to be largely a combinatorial problem.

In this paper an affirmative solution is given for the following problem in many-valued logic posed by Rosser and Turquette in [6] p. 110:

For every triple ‹s, t, m› with 1 ≤ s < t < m, is it possible to define a system of m-valued logic which satisfies the following conditions? I. Every statement which always takes values ≦ s is provable. II. No statement which ever takes a value > t is provable. III. Of those statements which always take values ≤ t and sometimes take a value > s, some are provable and some are not.

We state now, temporarily deferring comment, a more demanding alternative to Condition III: III′. For every truth value k such that s < k ≦ t, there are statements P and Q such that each takes the value k at least once, but never takes a value > k, and P is provable and Q is not.

In § 2 a solution is given on the level of the statement calculus. The remainder of the present section is devoted to some negative results which serve to clarify the problem, and one positive result which shall cause us to replace Condition III by III′. We confine our attention to the statement calculus.

We consider the effect on decidability of adding, to the decidable theory of algebraically closed fields of characteristic zero, relation symbols for algebraic independence or function symbols for differentiation. Our results show that the corresponding theories are usually undeeidable.

Let k and K be algebraically closed fields of characteristic zero. Let K be an extension of k of transcendence degree n over k. Since k has characteristic 0, we may assume that the rational field, Q, is a subfield of k.

Let Indn be the n-ary relation on K which holds for exactly those n-tuples from K which are algebraically independent over k.

Let x1, …, xn be a transcendence base for K over k. For i = 1, 2, …, n, let Di: K → K be the partial differentiation function with respect to xi and this base.

Let KnInd = (K, +, ·, Indn), n ≤ 1 and let KnDiff = (K, +, ·, D1, …, Dn), n ≤ 1 where K has transcendence degree n over k.

We show that the theories of these structures are independent of k when k has infinite transcendence degree over Q, that KnDiff has undeeidable theory for n ≤ 1 and that KnInd has undeeidable theory for n ≤ 2. The theory of K1Ind is decidable.

This is the second of two papers based on Chapter V of the author's Ph.D. thesis [K1]. For acknowledgements please refer to [K3]. In this paper I apply some of the ideas and techniques introduced in [K3] to the study of a very specific example. I obtain an upper bound for the positive Deissler rank of an injective module over a commutative Noetherian ring in terms of Krull dimension. The problem of finding lower bounds is vastly more difficult and is not addressed here, although I make a few comments and a conjecture at the end.

For notation, terminology and definitions, I refer the reader to [K3]. I also use material on ideals and injective modules from [N] and [Ma]. Deissler's rank was introduced in [D].

For the most part, in this paper all modules are unitary left modules over a commutative Noetherian ring Λ but in §1 I begin with a few useful results on totally transcendental modules and the relation between Deissler's rank rk and rk+.

Recall that if P is a prime ideal of Λ, then an ideal I of Λ is P-primary if I ⊂ P, λ ∈ P implies that λn ∈ I for some n and if λµ ∈ I, λ ∉ P, then µ ∈ I. The intersection of finitely many P-primary ideals is again P-primary, and any P-primary ideal can be written as the intersection of finitely many irreducible P-primary ideals since Λ is Noetherian. Every irreducible ideal is P-primary for some prime ideal P. In addition, it will be important to recall that if P and Q are prime ideals, I is P-primary, J is Q-primary, and J ⊃ I, then Q ⊃ P. (All of these results can be found in [N].)