Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 November 2011
Whether the -radical of a structural matrix near-ring (B, R) is the sum of two non-trivial ideals, one of which is nilpotent, is an open problem. However, it is known that ((B, R)) contains two ideals and , which are respectively precisely the two ideals, the sum of which is the Jacobson radical, in the case where the underlying near-ring is a ring. We strengthen our conjecture that and are the sought-after ideals by showing that (B, R)/≅(C, R) in the near-ring case, where C is the largest symmetric Boolean matrix such that C≦B, and by showing that is nilpotent.