Consider the action of $\operatorname{GL}(n,\mathbb{Q}_{p})$ on the $p$-adic unit sphere ${\mathcal{S}}_{n}$ arising from the linear action on $\mathbb{Q}_{p}^{n}\setminus \{0\}$. We show that for the action of a semigroup $\mathfrak{S}$ of $\operatorname{GL}(n,\mathbb{Q}_{p})$ on ${\mathcal{S}}_{n}$, the following are equivalent: (1) $\mathfrak{S}$ acts distally on ${\mathcal{S}}_{n}$; (2) the closure of the image of $\mathfrak{S}$ in $\operatorname{PGL}(n,\mathbb{Q}_{p})$ is a compact group. On ${\mathcal{S}}_{n}$, we consider the ‘affine’ maps $\overline{T}_{a}$ corresponding to $T$ in $\operatorname{GL}(n,\mathbb{Q}_{p})$ and a nonzero $a$ in $\mathbb{Q}_{p}^{n}$ satisfying $\Vert T^{-1}(a)\Vert _{p}<1$. We show that there exists a compact open subgroup $V$, which depends on $T$, such that $\overline{T}_{a}$ is distal for every nonzero $a\in V$ if and only if $T$ acts distally on ${\mathcal{S}}_{n}$. The dynamics of ‘affine’ maps on $p$-adic unit spheres is quite different from that on the real unit spheres.

Let $p:\mathbb{C}\rightarrow \mathbb{C}$ be a polynomial. The Gauss–Lucas theorem states that its critical points, $p^{\prime }(z)=0$, are contained in the convex hull of its roots. We prove a stability version whose simplest form is as follows: suppose that $p$ has $n+m$ roots, where $n$ are inside the unit disk,

$$\begin{eqnarray}\max _{1\leq i\leq n}|a_{i}|\leq 1~\text{and}~m~\text{are outside}~\min _{n+1\leq i\leq n+m}|a_{i}|\geq d>1+\frac{2m}{n};\end{eqnarray}$$

$p^{\prime }$

$n-1$

$m$

$(dn-m)/(n+m)>1$

$n$

$m$

${\sim}n^{-1}$

We show that a directed graph $E$ is a finite graph with no sinks if and only if, for each commutative unital ring $R$, the Leavitt path algebra $L_{R}(E)$ is isomorphic to an algebraic Cuntz–Krieger algebra if and only if the $C^{\ast }$-algebra $C^{\ast }(E)$ is unital and $\text{rank}(K_{0}(C^{\ast }(E)))=\text{rank}(K_{1}(C^{\ast }(E)))$. Let $k$ be a field and $k^{\times }$ be the group of units of $k$. When $\text{rank}(k^{\times })<\infty$, we show that the Leavitt path algebra $L_{k}(E)$ is isomorphic to an algebraic Cuntz–Krieger algebra if and only if $L_{k}(E)$ is unital and $\text{rank}(K_{1}(L_{k}(E)))=(\text{rank}(k^{\times })+1)\text{rank}(K_{0}(L_{k}(E)))$. We also show that any unital $k$-algebra which is Morita equivalent or stably isomorphic to an algebraic Cuntz–Krieger algebra, is isomorphic to an algebraic Cuntz–Krieger algebra. As a consequence, corners of algebraic Cuntz–Krieger algebras are algebraic Cuntz–Krieger algebras.

We prove that a compact subset of full measure on a generic submanifold of an almost complex manifold is not a pluripolar set. Several related results on boundary behavior of plurisubharmonic functions are established. Our approach is based on gluing a family of complex discs to a generic manifold along a boundary arc and could admit further applications.

We introduce the concept of strong property $(\mathbb{B})$ with a constant for Banach algebras and, by applying a certain analysis on the Fourier algebra of the unit circle, we show that all C*-algebras and group algebras have the strong property $(\mathbb{B})$ with a constant given by $288\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}(1+\sqrt{2})$. We then use this result to find a concrete upper bound for the hyperreflexivity constant of ${\mathcal{Z}}^{n}(A,X)$, the space of bounded $n$-cocycles from $A$ into $X$, where $A$ is a C*-algebra or the group algebra of a group with an open subgroup of polynomial growth and $X$ is a Banach $A$-bimodule for which ${\mathcal{H}}^{n+1}(A,X)$ is a Banach space. As another application, we show that for a locally compact amenable group $G$ and $1<p<\infty$, the space $CV_{P}(G)$ of convolution operators on $L^{p}(G)$ is hyperreflexive with a constant given by $384\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}^{2}(1+\sqrt{2})$. This is the generalization of a well-known result of Christensen [‘Extensions of derivations. II’, Math. Scand. 50(1) (1982), 111–122] for $p=2$.

In this article, we give new proofs of two of Ramanujan’s $1/\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}$ formulae

$$\begin{eqnarray}\frac{1}{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}}=\frac{2\sqrt{2}}{99^{2}}\mathop{\sum }_{m=0}^{\infty }(26390m+1103)\frac{(4m)!}{396^{4m}(m!)^{4}}\end{eqnarray}$$

$$\begin{eqnarray}\frac{1}{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}}=\frac{2}{84^{2}}\mathop{\sum }_{m=0}^{\infty }(21460m+1123)\frac{(-1)^{m}(4m)!}{(84\sqrt{2})^{4m}(m!)^{4}}\end{eqnarray}$$

$1/\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}$