We consider a linear operator pencil with complex parameter mapping one Hilbert space onto another. It is known that the resolvent is analytic in an open annular region of the complex plane centred at the origin if and only if the coefficients of the Laurent series satisfy a doubly-infinite set of left and right fundamental equations and are suitably bounded. If the resolvent has an isolated singularity at the origin we propose a recursive orthogonal decomposition of the domain and range spaces that enables us to construct the key nonorthogonal projections that separate the singular and regular components of the resolvent and subsequently allows us to find a formula for the basic solution to the fundamental equations. We show that each Laurent series coefficient in the singular part of the resolvent can be approximated by a weakly convergent sequence of finite-dimensional matrix operators and we show how our analysis can be extended to find a global expression for the resolvent of a linear pencil in the case where the resolvent has only a finite number of isolated singularities.

In this paper we extend and generalize, up to a natural bound of the method, our previous work Badziahin and Zorin [‘Thue–Morse constant is not badly approximable’, Int. Math. Res. Not. IMRN 19 (2015), 9618–9637] where we proved, among other things, that the Thue–Morse constant is not badly approximable. Here we consider Laurent series defined with infinite products $f_{d}(x)=\prod _{n=0}^{\infty }(1-x^{-d^{n}})$, $d\in \mathbb{N}$, $d\geq 2$, which generalize the generating function $f_{2}(x)$ of the Thue–Morse number, and study their continued fraction expansion. In particular, we show that the convergents of $x^{-d+1}f_{d}(x)$ have a regular structure. We also address the question of whether the corresponding Mahler numbers $f_{d}(a)\in \mathbb{R}$, $a,d\in \mathbb{N}$, $a,d\geq 2$, are badly approximable.

In this article, we consider a twisted partial action $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}$ of a group $G$ on an associative ring $R$ and its associated partial crossed product $R\ast _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}}^{w}G$. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the commutativity of $R\ast _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}}^{w}G$ when the twisted partial action $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}$ is unital. Moreover, we study necessary and sufficient conditions for the simplicity of $R\ast _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}}^{w}G$ in the following cases: (i) $G$ is abelian; (ii) $R$ is maximal commutative in $R\ast _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}}^{w}G$; (iii) $C_{R\ast _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}}^{w}G}(Z(R))$ is simple; (iv) $G$ is hypercentral. When $R=C_{0}(X)$ is the algebra of continuous functions defined on a locally compact and Hausdorff space $X$, with complex values that vanish at infinity, and $C_{0}(X)\ast _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}}G$ is the associated partial skew group ring of a partial action $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}$ of a topological group $G$ on $C_{0}(X)$, we study the simplicity of $C_{0}(X)\ast _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}}G$ by using topological properties of $X$ and the results about the simplicity of $R\ast _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}}^{w}G$.

By using methods of subordinacy theory, we study packing continuity properties of spectral measures of discrete one-dimensional Schrödinger operators acting on the whole line. Then we apply these methods to Sturmian operators with rotation numbers of quasibounded density to show that they have purely $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}$-packing continuous spectrum. A dimensional stability result is also mentioned.

Given $f\in \mathbb{Z}[t]$ of positive degree, we investigate the existence of auxiliary polynomials $g\in \mathbb{Z}[t]$ for which $f(g(t))$ factors as a product of polynomials of small relative degree. One consequence of this work shows that for any quadratic polynomial $f\in \mathbb{Z}[t]$ and any $\unicode[STIX]{x1D700}>0$, there are infinitely many $n\in \mathbb{N}$ for which the largest prime factor of $f(n)$ is no larger than $n^{\unicode[STIX]{x1D700}}$.

We show that the isomorphism problems for left distributive algebras, racks, quandles and kei are as complex as possible in the sense of Borel reducibility. These algebraic structures are important for their connections with the theory of knots, links and braids. In particular, Joyce showed that a quandle can be associated with any knot, and this serves as a complete invariant for tame knots. However, such a classification of tame knots heuristically seemed to be unsatisfactory, due to the apparent difficulty of the quandle isomorphism problem. Our result confirms this view, showing that, from a set-theoretic perspective, classifying tame knots by quandles replaces one problem with (a special case of) a much harder problem.

For $p\geq 2$, let $E$ be a 2-uniformly smooth and $p$-uniformly convex real Banach space and let $A:E\rightarrow E^{\ast }$ be a Lipschitz and strongly monotone mapping such that $A^{-1}(0)\neq \emptyset$. For given $x_{1}\in E$, let $\{x_{n}\}$ be generated by the algorithm $x_{n+1}=J^{-1}(Jx_{n}-\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}Ax_{n})$, $n\geq 1$, where $J$ is the normalized duality mapping from $E$ into $E^{\ast }$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}$ is a positive real number in $(0,1)$ satisfying suitable conditions. Then it is proved that $\{x_{n}\}$ converges strongly to the unique point $x^{\ast }\in A^{-1}(0)$. Furthermore, our theorems provide an affirmative answer to the Chidume et al. open problem [‘Krasnoselskii-type algorithm for zeros of strongly monotone Lipschitz maps in classical Banach spaces’, SpringerPlus4 (2015), 297]. Finally, applications to convex minimization problems are given.