Let u be a solution of a parabolic equation ut = F(u, Du, D2u). Under convenient hypotheses it is proved that the angle between a given direction and the normal to the level surfaces of u(·,t) satisfies a maximum principle.

A Σ-group is an abelian group on which is given a family of infinite sums having properties suggested by, but weaker than, those which hold for absolutely convergent series of real or complex numbers. Two closely related questions are considered. The first concerns the construction of a Σ-group from an arbitrary abelian group on which certain series are given to be summable, certain of these series being required to sum to zero. This leads to a Σ-theoretic construction of R from Q and in general of the completion of an arbitrary metrizable abelian group (with the associated unconditional sums) from that group. The second question is whether, in a given Σ-group, the values of the infinite sums may be determined solely from a knowledge of which series are summable. Such a Σ-group is said to be relatively free and it is shown that all metrizable abelian groups are relatively free.

In order to classify solvable groups Philip Hall introduced in 1939 the concept of isoclinism. Subsequently he defined a more general notion called isologism. This is so to speak isoclinism with respect to a certain variety of groups. The equivalence relation isologism partitions the class of all groups into families. The present paper is concerned with the internal structure of these families.

In this paper we prove theorems on the existence of integrable and monotonic solutions of Hammserstein and Urysohn integral equations. The basic tool used in the proof is the fixed point principle for contractions with respect to the so-called measure of weak noncompactness.

We consider continuous Gaussian stochastic process indexed by a compact subset of a vector space over a local field. Under suitable conditions we obtain an asymptotic expression for the probability that such a process will exceed a high level. An important component in the proof of these results is a theorem of independent interest concerning the amount of ‘time’ which the process spends at high levels.

Probabilistic quasi-metric spaces are introduced and used to define ordered probabilistic metric spaces. The latter spaces arise naturally in the study of probability and statistics; they closely resemble the uniform ordered spaces of L. Nachbin. A procedure is described for constructing ordered probabilistic metric spaces from quasi-simple spaces, and a completions theory is developed simultaneously for probabilistic quasi-metric spaces and ordered probabilistic metric spaces.

Let X0, X1…Xn,… be a stationary Gaussian process. We give sufficient conditions for the expected number of real zeros of the polynomial Qn (z) = Σnj =o X jzj to be (2/ π)log n as n tends to infinity.

Let R be a not necessarily commutative local ring, M a free R-module, and π ∈ GL(M) such that B(π) = im(π –1)is a subspace of M. Then π = σ1…σtρ, where σi are simple mappings of given types, ρ is a simple mapping, B(sgr;i) and B(ρ) are subspaces and t ≤ dim B(π).

Certain central products of the binary polyhedral groups with finite cyclic groups are here shown to have presentations with two generators and two defining relations; this disproves a conjecture of the second author, stated in J. Austral. Math. Soc. Ser. A 38 (1985), 230–240.

In this paper a proper class of barrelled spaces which strictly contains the suprabarrelled spaces is considered. A closed graph theorem and some permanence properties are given. This allows us to prove the necessity of a condition of a theorem of S. A. Saxon and P. P. Narayanaswami by constructing an example of a non-suprabarrelled Baire-like space which is a dense subspace of a Fréchet space and is not an (LF)-space under any strong locally convex topology.

Individuals in a population which grows according to the rules defining the Markov branching process can mutate into novel allelic forms. We obtain some results about the time of the last mutation and the limiting frequency spectrum. In the present context these results refine certain results obtained in the discrete time case and they answer some conjectures still unresolved for the discrete time case.