During his investigation of the possible non-Hopf kernels for finitely generated groups in [1], Dey proves that the minimum number of generators d(Gn) of the n-th direct power Gn of a non-trival finite group G tends to infinity with n. This has prompted me to ask the question: what are the ways in which the sequence {d(Gn)} can tend to infinity? Let us call this the growth sequence for G; it is evidently monotone non-decreasing, and is at least logarithmic (Theorem 2.1). This paper is devoted to a proof that, broadly speaking, there are two different types of behaviour. If G has non-trivial abelian images (the imperfect case, § 3), then the growth sequence of G is eventually an arithmetic progression with common difference d(G/G'). In special cases (Theorem 5.2) the initial behaviour can be quite nasty. Our arguments in § 3 are totally elementary. If G has only trivial abelian images (the perfect case,§ 4), then the growth sequence of G is eventually bounded above by a sequence that grows logarithmically. It is a simple consequence of this fact that there are arbitrarily long blocks of positive integers on which the growth sequence takes constant values. This is a characteristic property of perfect groups, and indeed it was this feature in the growth sequences of large alternating groups (which I found by using ad hoc permutational arguments) that attracted me to the problem in the first place. The discussion of the perfect case rests on the lovely paper of Hall [2], which was brought to my notice by M. D. Atkinson.

Whilst the Mal'cev product of completely regular varieties need not again be a variety, it is shown that in many important instances a variety is in fact obtained. However, unlike the product of group varieties this product is nonassociative.

Two important operators introduced by Reilly are studied in the context of Mal'cev products. These operators are shown to generate from any given variety one of the networks discovered by Pastijn and Trotter, enabling identities to be provided for the varieties in the network. In particular the join O V BG of the varieties of orthogroups and of bands of groups is determined, answering a question of Petrich.

There is a substantial theory (modelled on permutation representations of groups) of representations of an inverse semigroup S in a symmetric inverse monoid Ix, that is, a monoid of partial one-to-one selfmaps of a set X. The present paper describes the structure of a categorical dual Ix* to the symmetric inverse monoid and discusses representations of an inverse semigroup in this dual symmetric inverse monoid. It is shown how a representation of S by (full) selfmaps of a set X leads to dual pairs of representations in Ix and Ix*, and how a number of known representations arise as one or the other of these pairs. Conditions on S are described which ensure that representations of S preserve such infima or suprema as exist in the natural order of S. The categorical treatment allows the construction, from standard functors, of representations of S in certain other inverse algebras (that is, inverse monoids in which all finite infima exist). The paper concludes by distinguishing two subclasses of inverse algebras on the basis of their embedding properties.

A semiring (S, +,·) is a nonempty set S, endowed with associative operations of addition and multiplication, such that the multiplicative semigroup (S, ·) distributes over the addition. That is: x(y +z) = xy + xz and (x + y)z = xz + yz for all x, y and z in S. A topological semiring is a semiring, defined on a Hausdorff space, such that both of the operations are jointly continuous.

Let Mn, be the algebra of all n × n matrices over a field F, where n ≧ 2. Let S be a subset of Mn containing all rank one matrices. We study mappings φ: S → Mn, such that F(φ (A)φ (B)) = F(A B) for various families of functions F including all the unitary similarity invariant functions on real or complex matrices. Very often, these mappings have the form A ↦ μ(A)S(σ (aij))S-1 for all A= (aij) ∈ S for some invertible S ∈ Mn, field monomorphism σ of F, and an F*-valued mapping μ defined on S. For real matrices, σ is often the identity map; for complex matrices, σ is often the identity map or the conjugation map: z ↦ z. A key idea in our study is reducing the problem to the special case when F:Mn → {0, 1} is defined by F(X) = 0, if X = 0, and F(X) = 1 otherwise. In such a case, one needs to characterize φ: S → Mn such that φ(A) φ (B) = 0 if and only if AB = 0. We show that such a map has the standard form described above on rank one matrices in S.

A chordal graph is a graph in which every cycle of length at least 4 has a chord. If G is a random n-vertex labelled chordal graph, the size of the larget clique in about n/2 and deletion of this clique almost surely leaves only isolated vertices. This gives the asymptotic number of chordal graphs and information about a variety of things such as the size of the largest clique and connectivity.

The paper introduces and studies the weighted g-Drazin inverse for bounded linear operators between Banach spaces, extending the concept of the weighted Drazin inverse of Rakočević and Wei (Linear Algebra Appl. 350 (2002), 25–39) and of Cline and Greville (Linear Algebra Appl. 29 (1980), 53–62). We use the Mbekhta decomposition to study the structure of an operator possessing the weighted g-Drazin inverse, give an operator matrix representation for the inverse, and study its continuity. An open problem of Rakočević and Wei is solved.

We prove a new representation of the generator of a subordinate semigroup as limit of bounded operators. Our construction yields, in particular, a characterization of the domain of the generator. The generator of a subordinate semigroup can be viewed as a function of the generator of the original semigroup. For a large class these functions we show that operations at the level of functions has its counterpart at the level of operators.

In this paper, we first give a sufficient condition on the coefficients of a class of infinite time interval backward stochastic differential equations (BSDEs) under which the infinite time interval BSDEs have a unique solution for any given square integrable terminal value, and then, using the infinite time interval BSDEs, we study the convergence of g-martingales introduced by Peng via a kind of BSDEs. Finally, we study the applications of g-expectations and g-martingales in both finance and economics.

Ramanujan conjectured that if n is of a specific form then p(n), the number of unrestricted partitions of n, is divisible by a high power of 7. A modified version of Ramanujan's conjecture was proved by G. N. Watson.

In this paper we establish appropriate generating formulae, from which Watson's results follow easily.

Our proofs are more straightforward than those of Watson. They are elementary, depending only on classical identities of Euler and Jacobi. Watson's proofs rely on the modular equation of seventh order. We also need the modular equation but we derive it using the elementary techniques of O. Kolberg.

This paper considers a generalisation of the queueing system M/G/I, where customers arriving at empty and non-empty queues have different service time distributions. The characteristic function (c.f.) of the stationary waiting time distribution and the probability generating function (p.g.f.) of the queue size are obtained. The busy period distribution is found; the results are generalised to an Erlangian inter-arrival distribution; the time-dependent problem is considered, and finally a special case of server absenteeism is discussed.

The coproduct of a family of Kleene algebras is determined firstly by describing the maximal homomorphic image of a De Morgan algebra in the subvariety of Kleene algebras and, secondly, by characterizing the categorical product in the dual category of Kleene spaces.

Suppose that (pn) is an infinitely divisible distribution on the non-negative integers having Lévy measure (vn). In this paper we derive a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of the limit limn→∞ pn/vn. We also derive some other results on the asymptotic behaviour of the sequence (Pn) and apply some of our results to the theory of fluctuations of random walks. We obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for the first positive ladder epoch to belong to the domain of attraction of a spectrally positive stable law with index α, α ∈ (1,2).

It is well known that a real symmetric matrix can be diagonalised by an orthogonal transformation. This statement is not true, in general, for a symmetric matrix of complex elements. Such complex symmetric matrices arise naturally in the study of damped vibrations of linear systems. It is shown in this paper that a complex symmetric matrix can be diagonalised by a (complex) orthogonal transformation, when and only when each eigenspace of the matrix has an orthonormal basis; this implies that no eigenvectors of zero Euclidean length need be included in the basis. If the matrix cannot be diagonalised, then it has at least one invariant subspace which consists entirely of vectors of zero Euclidean length.

It is shown that non-trivial relations between certain values of the dilogarithm function can be obtained through the asymptotic comparison of coefficients of the expressions which appear in the Rogers-Ramanujan and Andrews-Gordon identities.

We study the equation dY(t)/dt = f(Y(t), Eh(Y(t))) for random initial conditions, where E denotes the expected value. It turns out that in contrast to the deterministic case local Lipschitz continuity of f and h are not sufficient to ensure uniqueness of the solutions. Finally we also state some sufficient conditions for uniqueness.

We construct a functional calculus, g → g(A), for functions, g, that are the sum of a Stieltjes function and a nonnegative operator monotone function, and unbounded linear operators, A, whose resolvent set contains (−∞, 0), with {‖r(r + A)−1‖ ¦ r > 0} bounded. For such functions g, we show that –g(A) generates a bounded holomorphic strongly continuous semigroup of angle θ, whenever –A does.

We show that, for any Bernstein function f, − f(A) generates a bounded holomorphic strongly continuous semigroup of angle π/2, whenever − A does.

We also prove some new results about the Bochner-Phillips functional calculus. We discuss the relationship between fractional powers and our construction.

In this paper an ill-posed problem for the heat equation is investigated. Solutions u to the equation ut – uxx = 0, which are approximately known on the positive half-axis t = 0 and on some vertical lines x = x1,…, x = xn, are considered and stability estimates of these solutions are presented. We assume an a priori bound, governing the heat flow across the boundary x = 0.

We prove a priori estimates for the gradient and curvature of spacelike hypersurfaces moving by mean curvature in a Lorentzian manifold. These estimates are obtained under much weaker conditions than have been previously assumed. We also use mean curvature flow in the construction of maximal slices in asymptotically flat spacetimes. An essential tool is a maximum principle for sub-solutions of a parabolic operator on complete Riemannian manifolds with time-dependent metric.

We consider in this paper only commutative rings with identity. When R is considered as a subring of S it will always be assumed that R and S have the same identity. If R is a subring of S an element s of S said to be integral over R if s is the root of a monic polynomial with coefficients in R. Following Krull [8], p. 102, we say s is almost integral over R provided all powers of s belong to a finite R-submodule of S. If R1 is the set of elements of S almost integral over R we say R1 is the complete integral closure of R in S.