Necessary and sufficient conditions are found on an ideal a⊲ℤ[x] for the additive group [a]+ of ℤ[x]/a to be finite and cyclic. As a consequence, the abelianizations of certain cyclically-presented groups are computed explicitly.

Symmetric inverse monoids of objects in arbitrary categories are studied. Necessary and sufficient conditions are given for such monoids to be E-unitary or else form (complete) inverse algebras. Particular attention is given to symmetric inverse monoids of objects in free categories.

The Boros–Moll polynomials Pm (a) arise in the evaluation of a quartic integral. It has been conjectured by Boros and Moll that these polynomials are infinitely log-concave. In this paper, we show that Pm (a) is 2-log-concave for any m ≥ 2. Let di (m) be the coefficient of ai in Pm (a). We also show that the sequence is log-concave.

We investigate both left and right cancellation in the Stone–Čech compactification βS of a discrete semigroup S, obtaining several results for arbitrary semigroups S and others for more restricted semigroups. In particular, if S is the semigroup of injective functions from a set to itself we determine precisely which pairs x, y and S have some p∈βS with px = py. We also obtain several new results about right cancellation in (βℕ, +).

Let E be a nuclear space provided with a topology different from the weak topology. Let {Ai: i ∈ I} be a fundamental system of equicontinuous subsets of the topological dual E' of E. If {Fi: i ∈ I} is a family of infinite dimensional Banach spaces with separable predual, there is a fundamental system {Bi: i ∈ I} of weakly closed absolutely convex equicontinuous subsets of E'such that is norm-isomorphic to Fi, for each i ∈ I. Other results related with the one above are also given.

An equation is derived for the strains of an arbitrary elastic field in an infinite matrix perturbed by several inclusions. The equation is solved exactly when the shear moduli of the inclusions and matrix are identical, and also when only a single ellipsoidal inclusion perturbs a field uniform at infinity. Mean-values of the strains are then calculated for non-uniform fields perturbed either by an ellipsoid or by a system of weakly-interacting spheres.

Let F be a field of characteristic two and G a finite abelian 2-group with an involutory automorphism η. If G = H × D with non-trivial subgroups H and D of G such that η inverts the elements of H (H without a direct factor of order 2) and fixes D element-wise, then the linear extension of η to the group algebra FG is called a nice involution. This determines the groups of unitary and symmetric normalized units of FG. We calculate the orders and the invariants of these subgroups.

If H is a monoid and a = u1 ··· uk ∈ H with atoms (irreducible elements) u1, … , uk, then k is a length of a, the set of lengths of a is denoted by Ⅼ(a), and ℒ(H) = {Ⅼ(a) | a ∈ H} is the system of sets of lengths of H. Let R be a hereditary Noetherian prime (HNP) ring. Then every element of the monoid of non-zero-divisors R• can be written as a product of atoms. We show that if R is bounded and every stably free right R-ideal is free, then there exists a transfer homomorphism from R• to the monoid B of zero-sum sequences over a subset Gmax(R) of the ideal class group G(R). This implies that the systems of sets of lengths, together with further arithmetical invariants, of the monoids R• and B coincide. It is well known that commutative Dedekind domains allow transfer homomorphisms to monoids of zero-sum sequences, and the arithmetic of the latter has been the object of much research. Our approach is based on the structure theory of finitely generated projective modules over HNP rings, as established in the recent monograph by Levy and Robson. We complement our results by giving an example of a non-bounded HNP ring in which every stably free right R-ideal is free but which does not allow a transfer homomorphism to a monoid of zero-sum sequences over any subset of its ideal class group.

We consider the boundary-value problem

where H: [0,+∞) → ℝ and f : [0, 1] × ℝ → ℝ are continuous and λ > 0 is a parameter. We show that if H satisfies a boundedness condition on a specified compact set, then this, together with an assumption that H is either affine or superlinear at +∞, implies existence of at least one positive solution to the problem, even in the case where we impose no growth conditions on f. Finally, since it can hold that f(t, y) < 0 for all (t, y) ∈ [0, 1]×ℝ, the semipositone problem is included as a special case of the existence result.

When the function f(u) is of “bistable type’, i.e. has two zeros h̲ and h+ at which f' is negative and (for simplicity) has only one other zero between them, then the constant functions u = h± are L∞-stable solutions of the nonlinear diffusion equation

In addition, there are travelling wave solutions u+(x, t) and u̲(x, t) which, if

connect h+ to h̲ in the sense that

the convergence being uniform on bounded x-intervals. These solutions are of the form

where U(z) is a monotone function (the wave's profile), U(±∞) = h±, and the velocity c is a specific positive number depending on the function f.

When Etherington (2) introduced linear commutative non-associative algebras in connection with problems in theoretical genetics, he pointed out that various sequences of elements in these algebras represented different mating systems. In all such systems it was however assumed that the generations did not overlap, and this restriction has been kept in later work in this field. In this paper we treat sequences which make it possible to find the probability distribution in successive generations in a discrete time model where the generations may be overlapping. We also consider idempotents in genetic algebras and outline how the method used on the overlapping generation sequence may be applied to other sequences.

Consider the initial boundary value problem

In the context of the heat conduction problem, this models the case where the heat flux across the ends at the rod is a function of the temperature. If the heat exchange between the rod and its surroundings is purely by convection, then one commonly assumes that f is a linear function of the difference in temperatures between the ends of the rod and that of the surroundings, (Newton's law of cooling). For the case of purely radiative transfer of energy a fourth power law for the function f is usual, (Stefan's law).

In answer to Jarchow’s 1981 text, we recently characterized when $C_{\textrm{c}}(X)$ is a $df$-space, finding along the way attractive analytic characterizations of when the Tychonov space $X$ is pseudocompact. Analogues now reveal how exquisitely Warner boundedness lies between these two notions. To illustrate, $X$ is pseudocompact, $X$ is Warner bounded or $C_{\textrm{c}}(X)$ is a $df$-space if and only if for each sequence $(\mu_{n})_{n}\subset C_{\textrm{c}}(X)'$ there exists a sequence $(\varepsilon_{n})_{n}\subset(0,1]$ such that $(\varepsilon_{n}\mu_{n})_{n}$ is weakly bounded, is strongly bounded or is equicontinuous, respectively. Our characterizations and proofs add to and simplify Warner’s.

AMS 2000 Mathematics subject classification: Primary 46A08; 46A30; 54C35

Throughout this paper we shall work in the class of associative rings. In (4) it was shown that a class of rings is a semisimple class if and only if it is closed under extensions and ideals and is coinductive. This establishes a duality between radical classes and semisimple classes. This result has been proved also for classes of alternative rings in (2). In the original work by Kuros (1) on this subject two conditions were used for semisimple classes, one of which was weaker than the assumption that the class is closed under ideals. This condition is that every non-zero ideal of a ring in the class should have a non-zero homomorphic image in the class. It is natural to ask whether in the above set of conditions the condition of being closed under ideals can be replaced by this weaker condition. This question is raised in (3) and in (5) but it is suggested there that, in order to compensate, the coinductive condition be replaced by the stronger condition that the class is closed under subdirect sums. In fact we shall show that the weaker condition may be used without needing to replace the coinductive condition. We also give examples to show independence relations among these conditions.

Let $\mathcal{A}$ be a proper independence algebra of finite rank, let $G$ be the group of automorphisms of $\mathcal{A}$, let $a$ be a singular endomorphism and let $a^G$ be the semigroup generated by all the elements $g^{-1}ag$, where $g\in G$. The aim of this paper is to prove that $a^G$ is a semigroup generated by its own idempotents.

AMS 2000 Mathematics subject classification: Primary 20M20; 20M10; 08A35

Let p be a prime number. For a positive integer n and a p-adic number ξ, let λn(ξ) denote the supremum of the real numbers λ such that there are arbitrarily large positive integers q such that ‖qξ‖p,‖qξ2‖p,…,‖qξn‖p are all less than q−λ−1. Here, ‖x‖p denotes the infimum of |x−n|p as n runs through the integers. We study the set of values taken by the function λn.

Recently Collins (2) has studied triple series equations involving series of Legendre polynomials. These equations arise in the study of mixed boundary value problems and can be regarded as extensions of the dual series equations considered by Collins in (1).

Let M be a maximal subalgebra of the Lie algebra L. A subalgebra C of L is said to be a completion for M if C is not contained in M but every proper subalgebra of C that is an ideal of L is contained in M. The set I(M) of all completions of M is called the index complex of M in L. We use this concept to investigate the influence of the maximal subalgebras on the structure of a Lie algebra, in particular, finding new characterizations of solvable and supersolvable Lie algebras.

Arithmetic subgroups of reductive algebraic groups over number fields are finitely presentable, but over global function fields this is not always true. All known exceptions are “small” groups, which means that either the rank of the algebraic group or the set S of the underlying S-arithmetic ring has to be small. There exists now a complete list of all such groups which are not finitely generated, whereas we onlyhave a conjecture which groups are finitely generated but not finitely presented.

Recently Widder (3) has obtained inversion integrals for a convolution transform whose kernel is a Laguerre polynomial. Buschman (1) has considered convolution equations withgeneralised Laguerre polynomial kernel. His result includes that of Widder. However no attempt has so far been made towards the study of singular integral equations involving Laguerre polynomials as kernel. Here the author obtains an inversion integral for such an equation.