We investigate inverse limits in the category $ \mathcal{CHU} $ of compact Hausdorff spaces with upper semicontinuous functions. We introduce the notion of weak inverse limits in this category and show that the inverse limits with upper semicontinuous set-valued bonding functions (as they were defined by Ingram and Mahavier [‘Inverse limits of upper semi-continuous set valued functions’, Houston J. Math.  32 (2006), 119–130]) together with the projections are not necessarily inverse limits in $ \mathcal{CHU} $ but they are always weak inverse limits in this category. This is a realisation of our categorical approach to solving a problem stated by Ingram [An Introduction to Inverse Limits with Set-Valued Functions (Springer, New York, 2012)].

We define the class of weakly approximately divisible unital ${C}^{\ast } $-algebras and show that this class is closed under direct sums, direct limits, any tensor product with any ${C}^{\ast } $-algebra, and quotients. A nuclear ${C}^{\ast } $-algebra is weakly approximately divisible if and only if it has no finite-dimensional representations. We also show that Pisier’s similarity degree of a weakly approximately divisible ${C}^{\ast } $-algebra is at most five.

Let $\Omega $ be a bounded open interval, and let $p\gt 1$ and $q\in (0, p- 1)$. Let $m\in {L}^{{p}^{\prime } } (\Omega )$ and $0\leq c\in {L}^{\infty } (\Omega )$. We study the existence of strictly positive solutions for elliptic problems of the form $- (\vert {u}^{\prime } \mathop{\vert }\nolimits ^{p- 2} {u}^{\prime } ){\text{} }^{\prime } + c(x){u}^{p- 1} = m(x){u}^{q} $ in $\Omega $, $u= 0$ on $\partial \Omega $. We mention that our results are new even in the case $c\equiv 0$.

An $r$-ary necklace (bracelet) of length $n$ is an equivalence class of $r$-colourings of vertices of a regular $n$-gon, taking all rotations (rotations and reflections) as equivalent. A necklace (bracelet) is symmetric if a corresponding colouring is invariant under some reflection. We show that the number of symmetric $r$-ary necklaces (bracelets) of length $n$ is $\frac{1}{2} (r+ 1){r}^{n/ 2} $ if $n$ is even, and ${r}^{(n+ 1)/ 2} $ if $n$ is odd.

Let $A, B$ be two square complex matrices of the same dimension $n\leq 3$. We show that the following conditions are equivalent. (i) There exists a finite subset $U\subset { \mathbb{N} }_{\geq 2} $ such that for every $t\in \mathbb{N} \setminus U$, $\exp (tA+ B)= \exp (tA)\exp (B)= \exp (B)\exp (tA)$. (ii) The pair $(A, B)$ has property L of Motzkin and Taussky and $\exp (A+ B)= \exp (A)\exp (B)= \exp (B)\exp (A)$. We also characterise the pairs of real matrices $(A, B)$ of dimension three, that satisfy the previous conditions.

Let $\sigma (n)= {\mathop{\sum }\nolimits}_{d\mid n} d$ be the usual sum-of-divisors function. In 1933, Davenport showed that $n/ \sigma (n)$ possesses a continuous distribution function. In other words, the limit $D(u): = \lim _{x\rightarrow \infty }(1/ x){\mathop{\sum }\nolimits}_{n\leq x, n/ \sigma (n)\leq u} 1$ exists for all $u\in [0, 1] $ and varies continuously with $u$. We study the behaviour of the sums ${\mathop{\sum }\nolimits}_{n\leq x, n/ \sigma (n)\leq u} f(n)$ for certain complex-valued multiplicative functions $f$. Our results cover many of the more frequently encountered functions, including $\varphi (n)$, $\tau (n)$ and $\mu (n)$. They also apply to the representation function for sums of two squares, yielding the following analogue of Davenport’s result: for all $u\in [0, 1] $, the limit

$$\begin{eqnarray*}\tilde {D} (u): = \lim _{R\rightarrow \infty }\frac{1}{\pi R} \# \biggl\{ (x, y)\in { \mathbb{Z} }^{2} : 0\lt {x}^{2} + {y}^{2} \leq R\text{ and } \frac{{x}^{2} + {y}^{2} }{\sigma ({x}^{2} + {y}^{2} )} \leq u\biggr\}\end{eqnarray*}$$

$\tilde {D} (u)$

$[0, 1] $

Let $G$ be a finite group. We show that the order of the subgroup generated by coprime ${\gamma }_{k} $-commutators (respectively, ${\delta }_{k} $-commutators) is bounded in terms of the size of the set of coprime ${\gamma }_{k} $-commutators (respectively, ${\delta }_{k} $-commutators). This is in parallel with the classical theorem due to Turner-Smith that the words ${\gamma }_{k} $ and ${\delta }_{k} $ are concise.

We consider the incidence semirings of graphs and prove that every incidence semiring has convenient visible bases for its right ideals and for its left ideals, and that these visible bases can be used to determine the weights of all right ideals that have maximum weight and all left ideals that have maximum weight.

We show that the direct sum $\mathop{({X}_{1} \oplus \cdots \oplus {X}_{r} )}\nolimits_{\psi } $ with a strictly monotone norm has the weak fixed point property for nonexpansive mappings whenever $M({X}_{i} )\gt 1$ for each $i= 1, \ldots , r$. In particular, $\mathop{({X}_{1} \oplus \cdots \oplus {X}_{r} )}\nolimits_{\psi } $ enjoys the fixed point property if Banach spaces ${X}_{i} $ are uniformly nonsquare. This combined with the earlier results gives a definitive answer for $r= 2$: a direct sum ${X}_{1} {\mathop{\oplus }\nolimits}_{\psi } {X}_{2} $ of uniformly nonsquare spaces with any monotone norm has the fixed point property. Our results are extended to asymptotically nonexpansive mappings in the intermediate sense.

It is known that $\zeta (1+ it)\ll \mathop{(\log t)}\nolimits ^{2/ 3} $ when $t\gg 1$. This paper provides a new explicit estimate $\vert \zeta (1+ it)\vert \leq \frac{3}{4} \log t$, for $t\geq 3$. This gives the best upper bound on $\vert \zeta (1+ it)\vert $ for $t\leq 1{0}^{2\cdot 1{0}^{5} } $.

In this paper, explicit auxiliary functions are used to get upper and lower bounds for the Mahler measure of monic irreducible totally positive polynomials with integer coefficients. These bounds involve the length and the trace of the polynomial.

We show that a finite loop, whose inner mapping group is the direct product of a dihedral $2$-group and a nonabelian group of order $pq$ ($p$ and $q$ are distinct odd prime numbers), is solvable.

For $n\in \mathbb{Z} $ and $A\subseteq \mathbb{Z} $, let ${r}_{A} (n)= \# \{ ({a}_{1} , {a}_{2} )\in {A}^{2} : n= {a}_{1} + {a}_{2} , {a}_{1} \leq {a}_{2} \} $ and ${\delta }_{A} (n)= \# \{ ({a}_{1} , {a}_{2} )\in {A}^{2} : n= {a}_{1} - {a}_{2} \} $. We call $A$ a unique representation bi-basis if ${r}_{A} (n)= 1$ for all $n\in \mathbb{Z} $ and ${\delta }_{A} (n)= 1$ for all $n\in \mathbb{Z} \setminus \{ 0\} $. In this paper, we construct a unique representation bi-basis of $ \mathbb{Z} $ whose growth is logarithmic.

In 1977 Hartwig and Luh asked whether an element $a$ in a Dedekind-finite ring $R$ satisfying $aR= {a}^{2} R$ also satisfies $Ra= R{a}^{2} $. In this paper, we answer this question in the negative. We also prove that if $a$ is an element of a Dedekind-finite exchange ring $R$ and $aR= {a}^{2} R$, then $Ra= R{a}^{2} $. This gives an easier proof of Dischinger’s theorem that left strongly $\pi $-regular rings are right strongly $\pi $-regular, when it is already known that $R$ is an exchange ring.

For a given integer $n$ and a set $ \mathcal{S} \subseteq \mathbb{N} $, denote by ${ R}_{h, \mathcal{S} }^{(1)} (n)$ the number of solutions of the equation $n= {s}_{{i}_{1} } + \cdots + {s}_{{i}_{h} } $, ${s}_{{i}_{j} } \in \mathcal{S} $, $j= 1, \ldots , h$. In this paper we determine all pairs $( \mathcal{A} , \mathcal{B} )$, $ \mathcal{A} , \mathcal{B} \subseteq \mathbb{N} $, for which ${ R}_{3, \mathcal{A} }^{(1)} (n)= { R}_{3, \mathcal{B} }^{(1)} (n)$ from a certain point on. We discuss some related problems.

Connections between annihilators and ideals in Frobenius and symmetric algebras are used to provide a new proof of a result of Nakayama on quotient algebras, and an application is given to central symmetric algebras.

Let ${ \mathbb{F} }_{q} $ be the finite field of characteristic $p$ containing $q= {p}^{r} $ elements and $f(x)= a{x}^{n} + {x}^{m} $, a binomial with coefficients in this field. If some conditions on the greatest common divisor of $n- m$ and $q- 1$ are satisfied then this polynomial does not permute the elements of the field. We prove in particular that if $f(x)= a{x}^{n} + {x}^{m} $ permutes ${ \mathbb{F} }_{p} $, where $n\gt m\gt 0$ and $a\in { \mathbb{F} }_{p}^{\ast } $, then $p- 1\leq (d- 1)d$, where $d= \gcd (n- m, p- 1)$, and that this bound of $p$, in terms of $d$ only, is sharp. We show as well how to obtain in certain cases a permutation binomial over a subfield of ${ \mathbb{F} }_{q} $ from a permutation binomial over ${ \mathbb{F} }_{q} $.

Blecher [‘Geometry for totally symmetric plane partitions (TSPPs) with self-conjugate main diagonal’, Util. Math. 88 (2012), 223–235] defined the combinatorial objects known as 1-shell totally symmetric plane partitions of weight $n$. He also proved that the generating function for $f(n), $ the number of 1-shell totally symmetric plane partitions of weight $n$, is given by

$$\begin{eqnarray*}\displaystyle \sum _{n\geq 0}f(n){q}^{n} = 1+ \sum _{n\geq 1}{q}^{3n- 2} \prod _{i= 0}^{n- 2} (1+ {q}^{6i+ 3} ).\end{eqnarray*}$$

$f(n)$

For a semigroup $S$, let ${S}^{1} $ be the semigroup obtained from $S$ by adding a new symbol 1 as its identity if $S$ has no identity; otherwise let ${S}^{1} = S$. Mitsch defined the natural partial order $\leqslant $ on a semigroup $S$ as follows: for $a, b\in S$, $a\leqslant b$ if and only if $a= xb= by$ and $a= ay$ for some $x, y\in {S}^{1} $. In this paper, we characterise the natural partial order on some transformation semigroups. In these partially ordered sets, we determine the compatibility of their elements, and find all minimal and maximal elements.

The objective of this paper is to find some sufficient conditions to ensure the conjugacy of supplements of a normal subgroup of a soluble group.