We provide a generalised Laplace expansion for the permanent function and, as a consequence, we re-prove a multinomial Vandermonde convolution. Some combinatorial identities are derived by applying special matrices to the expansion.

We determine the metric dimension of the annihilating-ideal graph of a local finite commutative principal ring and a finite commutative principal ring with two maximal ideals. We also find bounds for the metric dimension of the annihilating-ideal graph of an arbitrary finite commutative principal ring.

Let I be a zero-dimensional ideal in the polynomial ring $K[x_1,\ldots ,x_n]$ over a field K. We give a bound for the number of roots of I in $K^n$ counted with combinatorial multiplicity. As a consequence, we give a proof of Alon’s combinatorial Nullstellensatz.

Let p be a prime and let x be a p-adic integer. We prove two supercongruences for truncated series of the form

$$\begin{align*}\sum_{k=1}^{p-1} \frac{(x)_k}{(1)_k}\cdot \frac{1}{k}\sum_{1\le j_1\le\cdots\le j_r\le k}\frac{1}{j_1^{}\cdots j_r^{}}\quad\mbox{and}\quad \sum_{k=1}^{p-1} \frac{(x)_k(1-x)_k}{(1)_k^2}\cdot \frac{1}{k}\sum_{1\le j_1\le\cdots\le j_r\le k}\frac{1}{j_1^{2}\cdots j_r^{2}}\end{align*}$$

A (positive definite and integral) quadratic form is said to be prime-universal if it represents all primes. Recently, Doyle and Williams [‘Prime-universal quadratic forms $ax^2+by^2+cz^2$ and $ax^2+by^2+cz^2+dw^2$ ’, Bull. Aust. Math. Soc.101 (2020), 1–12] classified all prime-universal diagonal ternary quadratic forms and all prime-universal diagonal quaternary quadratic forms under two conjectures. We classify all prime-universal diagonal quadratic forms regardless of rank, and prove the so-called 67-theorem for a diagonal quadratic form to be prime-universal.

We find and prove a class of congruences modulo 4 for eta-products associated with certain ternary quadratic forms. This study was inspired by similar conjectured congruences modulo 4 for certain mock theta functions.

We provide a direct proof of a Bogomolov-type statement for affine varieties V defined over function fields K of finite transcendence degree over an arbitrary field k, generalising a previous result (obtained through a different approach) of the first author in the special case when K is a function field of transcendence degree $1$ . Furthermore, we obtain sharp lower bounds for the Weil height of the points in $V(\overline {K})$ , which are not contained in the largest subvariety $W\subseteq V$ defined over the constant field $\overline {k}$ .

We investigate unramified extensions of number fields with prescribed solvable Galois group G and certain extra conditions. In particular, we are interested in the minimal degree of a number field K, Galois over $\mathbb {Q}$ , such that K possesses an unramified G-extension. We improve the best known bounds for the degree of such number fields K for certain classes of solvable groups, in particular for nilpotent groups.

We compactify and regularise the space of initial values of a planar map with a quartic invariant and use this construction to prove its integrability in the sense of algebraic entropy. The system has certain unusual properties, including a sequence of points of indeterminacy in $\mathbb {P}^{1}\!\times \mathbb {P}^{1}$ . These indeterminacy points lie on a singular fibre of the mapping to a corresponding QRT system and provide the existence of a one-parameter family of special solutions.

Ryabukhin showed that there is a correspondence between elementary radical classes of rings and certain filters of ideals of the free ring on one generator, analogous to the Gabriel correspondence between torsion classes of left unital modules and certain filters of left ideals of the coefficient ring. This correspondence is further explored here. All possibilities for the intersection of the ideals in a filter are catalogued, and the connections between filters and other ways of describing elementary radical classes are investigated. Some generalisations to nonassociative rings and groups are also presented.

Linckelmann and Murphy have classified the Morita equivalence classes of p-blocks of finite groups whose basic algebra has dimension at most $12$ . We extend their classification to dimension $13$ and $14$ . As predicted by Donovan’s conjecture, we obtain only finitely many such Morita equivalence classes.

A finite group whose irreducible complex characters are rational-valued is called a rational group. The aim of this paper is to determine the rational almost simple and rational quasi-simple groups.

The standard version of Cauchy’s argument principle, applied to a holomorphic function f, requires that f has no zeros on the curve of integration. In this note, we give a generalisation of such a principle which covers the case when f has zeros on the curve, as well as an application.

We investigate the boundedness, compactness, invertibility and Fredholmness of weighted composition operators between Lorentz spaces. It is also shown that the classes of Fredholm and invertible weighted composition maps between Lorentz spaces coincide when the underlying measure space is nonatomic.