Besides the simple ones, there are several other kinds of C*-algebras which it has proved interesting to try to classify. For instance, a large body of results relates to the extensions of one given C*-algebra, possibly simple, by another. Extrapolating in this direction, we have considered the class of C*-algebras which can be decomposed in the strongest possible nontrivial sense in terms of their simple subquotients, and such that these simple subquotients in turn are as uncomplicated as possible.

We have found that the classification of these C*-algebras, namely, the lexicographic direct sums of elementary C*-algebras, is to a large degree tractable, and yet involves an interesting new invariant in the antiliminary case, which is the case of no minimal ideals. Even the postliminary case, which is the case that the ordered set of simple subquotients satisfies the decreasing chain condition, is not without interest as an extension of the case of finitely many simple subquotients, analysed in the earlier papers [1] and [2].

The class of univalent close-to-convex functions, K, was introduced by Kaplan [4] and first studied by him. The first important extension to the class of multivalent close-to-convex functions, K(p) where p is a positive integer, was considered by Livingston [7]. Somewhat later, Styer [15] introduced the more general class, Kw(p), of weakly close-to-convex functions by simply taking the closure of Livingston's class K(p) in the topology of locally uniform convergence in B = {z: |z| ≤ 1}.

In 1936 Biernacki [2] introduced his class of linearly accessible functions. A function f is linearly accessible if f is univalent in B, f(0) = 0, and C – f(B) where C is the complex plane, is a union of closed (Euclidean) rays with disjoint interiors. In an interesting result, Lewandowski [6] showed that the classes of univalent close-to-convex functions and linearly accessible functions are equal.

This note is about the interplay between two classes of radical Banach algebras, and we begin by describing the algebras in question.

A weight sequence is a positive sequence w = (wn) defined on Z+ (the non-negative integers) and satisfying w0 = 1 and wm+n ≦ wmwn for all m and n in Z+. For such a sequence w, the Banach space

is a Banach algebra with respect to the convolution product, defined by

The purpose of this paper is to continue the investigation into the relationships amongst Massey products, lower central series of free groups and the free differential calculus (see [4], [9], [12]). In particular we set forth the notion of a universal Massey product ≪α1, …, αk≫, where the αi are one dimensional cohomology classes. This product is defined with zero indeterminacy, natural and multilinear in its variables.

In order to state the results we need some notation. Throughout F will denote the free group on fixed generators x1, …, xn and

will denote the lower central series of F. If I = (i1, …, ik) is a sequence such that 1 ≦ i1, …, ik ≦ n then ∂1 is the iterated Fox derivative and , where is the augmentation. By convention we set ∂1 = identity if I is empty.

In a paper with the above title H. Heilbronn [4] proved that, given any real θ, there exist infinitely many positive integers n such that the distance ║θn2║ from θn2 to its nearest integral neighbour satisfies the bound

He actually proved a somewhat stronger statement which shows that the integers n occur with some regularity and he suggested that perhaps the exponent may be replaced by . This theorem has attracted considerable attention and spawned a number of generalizations (see [1], [7] and the references therein), yet no essential improvement has been given for the original problem (but see [6], [8]).

For surgery on codimension 1 submanifolds with non-trivial normal bundle the theory of Wall [13, Section 12C] has obstruction groups LN∗(π′ → π), with π a group and π′ a subgroup of index 2, such that there is defined an exact sequence involving the ordinary L-groups of rings with involution

with the superscript w signifying a different involution on Z[π]. Geometry was used in [13] to identify

with (α, u) an antistructure on Z[π′] in the sense of Wall [14]. The main result of this paper is a purely algebraic version of this identification, for any twisted quadratic extension of a ring with antistructure.

In recent years, there has been a rapid growth of the K-theory of C*-algebras. From a certain point of view, C*-algebras can be treated as “non-commutative topological spaces”, while finitely generated projective modules over them can be thought of as “non-commutative vector bundles”. The K-theory of C*-algebras [30] then generalizes the classical K-theory of topological spaces [1]. In particular, the K0-group of a unital C*-algebra A is the group “generated” by (or more precisely, the Grothendieck group of) the commutative semigroup of stable isomorphism classes of finitely generated projective modules over A with direct summation as the binary operation. The semigroup gives an order structure on K0(A) and is usually called the positive cone in K0(A).

Around 1980, the work of Pimsner and Voiculescu [18] and of A. Connes [4] provided effective ways to compute the K-groups of C*-algebras. Then the classification of finitely generated projective modules over certain unital C*-algebras up to stable isomorphism could be done by computing their K0-groups as ordered groups. Later on, inspired by A. Connes's development of non-commutative differential geometry on finitely generated projective modules [2], the deeper question of classifying such modules up to isomorphism and hence the so-called cancellation question were raised (cf. [21] ).

This paper is a direct continuation of the article “Proximal analysis and boundaries of closed sets in Banach space, Part I: Theory”, by the same authors. It is devoted to a detailed analysis of applications of the theory presented in the first part and of its limitations.

Theorem 2.1 has important consequences for geometry of Banach spaces. We start the presentation with a discussion of density and existence of R-proper points (Definition 1.3) for closed sets in Banach spaces. Our considerations will be based on the “lim inf” inclusions proven in the first part of our paper.

The recent paper of Berlanga and Epstein [5] demonstrated the significant role played by the “ends” of a noncompact manifold M in answering questions relating homeomorphisms of M to measures on M. In this paper we show that an analysis of the end behaviour of measure preserving homeomorphisms of a manifold also leads to an understanding of some of their ergodic properties, and allows results previously obtained for compact manifolds to be extended (with qualifications) to the noncompact case. We will show that ergodicity is typical (dense Gδ) with respect to various compact-open topology closed subsets of the space consisting of all homeomorphisms of a manifold M which preserve a measure μ. It may be interesting for topologists to note that we prove when M is a σ-compact connected n-manifold, n≧ 2, then M is the countable union of an increasing family of compact connected manifolds. If M is a PL or smooth manifold, this is well known and easy. If M is just, however, a topological n-manifold then we apply the recent results [9] and [12] to prove the result. The Borel measure μ, is taken to be nonatomic, locally finite, positive on open sets, and zero for the manifold boundary of M.

A shift on a unital C*-algebras is a *-endomorphism α of which fixes the identity and has the property that the intersection of the ranges of αn for n = 1, 2, 3, … consists only of multiples of the identity. In [4] R. T. Powers introduced the notion of a shift on a C*-algebra and considered both discrete and continuous one-parameter semi-groups of shifts. In this paper we focus on discrete shifts. We use a construction of Powers to obtain shifts on certain unital AF C*-algebras. These are defined by constructing a set {ui:i = 1, 2, …} of self-adjoint unitary operators which pairwise either commute or anticommute. Setting α(ui) = ui + 1, determines an endomorphism on the group algebra generated by the ui's. This algebra is called a binary shift algebra. By passing to the (unique) C*-algebra completion we obtain an AF-algebra on which a defines a shift.