Bruck and Kleinfeld [3] proved that any alternative ring with characteristic prime to 2 must satisfy the identity

where the associator (x,y,z) is defined by (x, y, z) = (xy)z – x(yz) and . Linearization of the identity (x2, y, z) = 2x · (x, y, z) yields for characteristic prime to 2 an equivalent identity

(1)

Using the right alternative law (x, y, z) = –(y, x, z) and the flexible law (x, y, z) = –(z, y, x) which is satisfied in any alternative ring we obtain

(2)

and

(3)

Every tree T determines a set of distinct maximal proper subtrees Ti = T — vi, which are obtained by the deletion of an endpoint of T. In this paper we prove that a tree is almost always uniquely determined by this set of its subtrees, and point out two interesting consequences of this result.

In [5], Ulam proposed the following conjecture, which we state in a slightly stronger form due to Harary [1].

ULAM'S CONJECTURE. A graph G with at least three points is uniquely determined up to isomorphism by the subgraphs Gi = G — vi.

Kelly [4] proved the conjecture for trees and Harary and Palmer [3] showed that not all of the Gi are needed in that case by proving Corollary 1 below. If we remove from the list of subgraphs Gi of a graph G all but one graph of each isomorphism type, we obtain a set of Gi which are distinct up to isomorphism.

Let R be a commutative ring with unity and let G be a group. The group ring RG is a free R-module having the elements of G as a basis, with multiplication induced by

The first theorem in this paper deals with idempotents in RG and improves a result of Connell. In the second section we consider the Jacobson radical of RG, and we prove a theorem about a class of algebras that includes RG when G is locally finite and R is an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. The last theorem shows that if R is a field and G is a finite nilpotent group, then RG determines RP for every Sylow subgroup P of G, regardless of the characteristic of R.

Often in various mathematical problems one encounters an extension B of the group G by the group π in which one wishes to extract certain information about B from information given in terms of G, π, the action of π on G, and the class of the extension in H2(π, centre G). An example of this type of problem is to determine some intrinsically defined subgroup of B, for instance the centre of B, given knowledge of the corresponding subgroup for G and π, and, of course, the usual information concerning the extension.

In this paper we shall use the fact that any extension is congruent to a crossed product extension [2] to investigate a class of subgroups which naturally generalizes the notion of the centre. The definition of this class appears in § 3.

1. Let

by an extension of G by π.

A balanced incomplete block design (BIBD) B[k, λ; v] is an arrangement of v distinct elements into blocks each containing exactly k distinct elements such that each pair of elements occurs together in exactly λ blocks.

The following is a well-known theorem [5, p. 248].

THEOREM 1. A necessary condition for the existence of a BIBD B[k, λ,v] is that

(1)

It is also well known [5] that condition (1) is not sufficient for the existence of B[k, λ; v].

There is an old conjecture that for any given k and λ condition (1) may be sufficient for the existence of a BIBD B[k, λ; v] if v is sufficiently large. It is attempted here to prove this conjecture in some specific cases.

There is an old conjecture that for any given k and X condition (1) may be sufficient for the existence of a BIBD B[k, λ; v] if v is sufficiently large. It is attempted here to prove this conjecture in some specific cases.

Let Σ4k+1 denote a smooth manifold homeomorphic to the (4k + 1)-sphere, S4k+1k ≧ 1, and T: Σ4k+1 → Σ4k+1 a differentiate free involution. Our aim in this note is to derive a connection between the differentiate structure on Σ4k+1 and the properties of the free involution T.

To be more specific, recall [5] that the h-cobordism classes of smooth manifolds homeomorphic (or, what is the same, homotopy equivalent) to S4k+1, k ≧ 1, form a finite abelian group θ4k+1 with group operation connected sum. The elements are called homotopy spheres. Those homotopy spheres that bound parallelizable manifolds form a subg roup bP4k+2 ⊂ θ4k+1. It is proved in [5, Theorem 8.5] that bP4k+2 is either zero or cyclic of order 2. In the latter case the two distinct homotopy spheres are distinguished by the Arf invariant of the parallelizable manifolds they bound.

In this paper we prove that the order of the collineation group of the Veblen-Wedderburn plane of order nine is 311,040. This result was stated by Hall [3] in 1943 and proved by Pierce [9] in 1964. Hall assumed that there were 10 · 8 · 6 · 4 · 2 = 3840 collineations which permute points on the ideal line L and 81 collineations which leave L pointwise fixed. In 1955 André [1] verified this assumption. When it was realized that a harmonic homology with axis L had been overlooked, the number of central collineations with axis L doubled and hence the order of the collineation group became 3840 · 162 = 622,080. This latter figure has been assumed to be correct as recently as 1965 ([6]).

Here it is proved that there are 1920 collineations which move points on L and 162 collineations which leave L pointwise fixed, thus giving the figure 311,040. Pierce's proof of this fact is established from a different viewpoint.

Local growth and decay estimates near the stationary point at the origin are derived in § 3 for solutions of the vector system,

(1)

where A(x) and B(y) are homogeneous of degree m > 1 in the components of x and y, respectively, and f* and g* are of order greater than m in ‖(x, y)‖ near the origin. It is assumed that x = 0 is asymptotically stable and y = 0 is asymptotically unstable for the homogeneous systems of first approximation,

(2)

In order to derive the estimates in § 3, various results are needed concerning solutions of a homogeneous system such as (2) (a). These are derived in § 2 and are based on work of Hahn [4; 5], Lefschetz [8], and Zubov [12].

In this paper we investigate the properties of the product (or complete direct sum) of torsion Abelian groups. The chief results concern products of Abelian primary groups (p-groups). Given a set of p-groups, [Gλ], over an index set Λ, the product of these groups is written λλ∈ΔGλ, the torsion subgroup of the product of these p-groups is written T[λGλ], and the discrete direct sum of the p-groups is written Σ Gλ.

Definition. Σ Gλ is said to be an essentially bounded decomposition if and only if there exists an integer M > 0 such that MGλ = 0 for all but a finite number of Gλs; otherwise the decomposition is essentially unbounded.

An action is a continuous function α: T × X → X, where T is a semigroup, X is a Hausdorff space, and α(t1, α(t2, x)) = α(t1,t2x) for all t1, t2 ∈ T and x ∈ X . If, for an action α, Q(α) = {x ∈ X| α(T × {x}) = X} is non-empty, then α is called a point-transitive action. Our aim in this note is to classify the point-transitive actions of the unit interval with the usual, nil, or min multiplications.

The reader is referred to [5; 7; 9] for information concerning the general theory of semigroups. All semigroups which are considered here are compact and Abelian and all spaces are compact Hausdorff. Actions by semigroups have been studied in [1; 3; 8].

1. In 1948 Heilbronn [4] proved the following theorem.

THEOREM H. For every real θ and every positive integer N, there is an integer n satisfying

(1.1)

whereis an arbitrarily small number,depends only on, and ‖t‖ means the distance from t to the nearest integer.

The interest of the result (1.1) is that the inequality is uniform in θ, and is therefore analogous to the classical inequality of Dirichlet for the fractional part of θn. In this paper we shall prove the following theorem.

THEOREM. For every real θ and every positive integer N, there is an integer n satisfying

(1.2)

where A is an absolute constant and.

One possible first step in considering the structure of a class of semigroups is to study the ideal extensions (here simply called “extensions“) of simple or 0-simple semigroups in by another if the latter are of known structure. Extensions of a semigroup by another were first studied by Clifford (see [1, 4.4 and 4.5]). In his constructions, an extension of a semigroup S by a semigroup T with zero is given by a function (satisfying certain conditions) from T* = T\0 into the translational hull of S.

We use certain results (refining those of Clifford) established in [2] and a description of the translational hull of a Brandt semigroup given in [9] (see also [8]), to construct all extensions V of a Brandt semigroup S having a finite number of idempotents by any Brandt semigroup T (cf. [10]).

In [1] the category of relations in an abelian category was studied. A relation from A to B appeared as an equivalence class of pairs of -morphisms (ϕ, ψ),

Moreover, this equivalence class may be written as the composite , where is canonically embedded in and is the image of Γ in the canonical involution on . Every equivalence class has an essentially unique minimal representative (ϕ0,ψ0), characterized by the property that

where

and if and only if the square

is exact.

In the study of compact semigroups the constructive method rather than the representational method is usually the better plan of attack. As it was pointed out by Hofmann and Mostert in the introduction to their book [10] this method is more productive than searching for a representation theory. Hofmann and Mostert described a constructive method called the Hormos and showed that any irreducible compact semigroup is obtained by the Hormos construction. Many of the important examples of irreducible semigroups which motivated their work were obtained by Hunter [11; 12; 13; 14].

In this paper, we apply the constructive method of ideal extensions [5] in algebraic semigroups to topological semigroups which are not necessarily compact. Many of Hunter's examples and examples of the Hormos technique can also be obtained by our method of topological ideal extensions. The topological ideal extension method, however, is, in general, a different type of construction technique.

In [7] a Perron-like integral was denned in an arbitrary topological space and many of its basic properties were established. In this paper we shall show (the theorem in § 2) that in a suitable setting the integral from [7] includes a class of so-called singular integrals, i.e., generalized forms of the Cauchy principal value of an integral. Thus, the powerful machinery of Perron integration, e.g., the monotone and dominant convergence theorems, can be automatically applied to these singular integrals.

The concept of extending to a topological space X a continuous pseudometric defined on a subspace S of X has been shown to be very useful. This problem was first studied by Hausdorff for the metric case in 1930 [9]. Hausdorff showed that a continuous metric on a closed subset of a metric space can be extended to a continuous metric on the whole space. Bing [4] and Arens [3] rediscovered this result independently. Recently, Shapiro [15] and Alo and Shapiro [1] studied various embeddings. It has been shown that extending pseudometrics can be characterized in terms of extending refinements of various types of open covers. In this paper we continue our study of extending pseudometrics. First we show that extending pseudometrics can be characterized in terms of σ-locally finite and σ-discrete covers. We then investigate when can certain types of covers be extended.

Let Tt, t > 0, be a strongly continuous semigroup of positive linear contractions on the L1-space of a σ-finite measure space . We denote the integral ∫0tTsƒ ds, ƒ ∈ L1, by S0tƒ, which is denned as the limit of Riemann sums, in the norm topology of L1. It is easy to see that, given ƒ ∈ L1+, there exists a function F on the product space X× (0, ∞), measurable with respect to the usual product σ-field, such that for every t ≧ 0, ∫0tF(·, s) ds gives a representation of S0tƒ. We write S0tƒ(x) for ∫0tF(x, S) ds, with a fixed choice of F.

All groups considered in this paper are abelian. A subgroup N of a group G is said to be a quasi-essential subgroup of G if G = 〈H, K〉 whenever H is an N-high subgroup of G and K is a pure subgroup of G containing N. We started the study of such subgroups in [5]; in particular, we characterized subsocles of a primary group which were both quasi-essential and centres of purity. In this paper we show that quasi-essential subsocles of a primary group are necessarily centres of purity answering thus in the affirmative a question raised in [5].

We obtain the following theorem: A subsocle S of a p-group G is quasi-essential if and only if either S ⊂ G1or (pnG)[p] ⊃ S ⊃ (pn+1G)[p] for some non-negative integer n. The notation is that of [1]. If G is a group, then

where p is a prime integer.

The kth rank number, rankkB, of a differentiable arc B in real projective n-space is the least upper bound of the number of osculating k-spaces of B which meet an (n – k – l)-flat, k = 0, 1, …, n – 1. The number rank0B is called the order of B; cf. 1.1-1.3. It has been conjectured by Peter Scherk that

(0.1)

equality holding if and only if B has the order n; cf. [2, p. 396]. In this paper we prove the following results.

THEOREM 1. If B is a differentiable elementary arc, then (0.1) holds for k = 0, 1, …, n – 1.

THEOREM 2. If B is a differentiable elementary arc and order B > n, then rankkB > (k + 1) (n – k) for k = 1, …, n – 2.

By a theorem of Park [3, p. 38], every differentiable arc contains a subarc of order n. This eliminates the assumption that B is elementary from Theorem 1. We do not know whether it can be dropped from Theorem 2.

Our aim in this paper is to give a characterization of the order types of the countable initial segments of many-one degrees (m-degrees). The basic definitions and background information can be found in [2] from where we draw most of our notation and terminology. We expand the usual notion of m-reducibility by adopting the convention that R ≦m ∅ and R ≦mN for every recursive set R. This has the effect of giving all recursive sets the same m-degree; that m-degree will be denoted by 0. We shall denote by ≦ the partial ordering of m-degrees induced by ≦m, and shall denote by a ∪ b the least upper bound of the m-degrees a, b. We call a ∪ b the union of a and b.