Let S be a cancellative semigroup. This paper is motivated by the problem of finding a description of semigroup rings K[S] over a field K that are semiprime or prime. Results of this type are well-known in the case of a group ring K[G], cf. [8]. The description, as well as the proofs, involve the FC-centre of G defined as the subset of all elements with finitely many conjugates in G. In [4], [5] Krempa extended the FC-centre techniques to the case of an arbitrary cancellative semigroup S. He defined a subsemigroup Δ(S) of S which coincides with the FC-centre in the case of groups, and can be used to describe the centre and to study special elements of K[S]. His results were strengthened by the author in [7], where Δ(S) was also applied in the context of prime and semiprime algebras K[S]. However, Δ(S) itself is not sufficient to characterize semigroup rings of this type. We note that in [2], [3] Dauns developed a similar idea for a study of the centre of semigroup rings and certain of their generalizations.

Serre [6] has recently created a theory of some generality in response to a query from Manin about the size of the number N(x) of (indefinite) ternary quadratic forms AX2 + BY2 + CZ2 that represent zero and have coefficients of magnitudes not exceeding x.

For regular semigroups, the appropriate analogue of the concept of a variety seems to be that of an e(xistence)-variety, developed by Hall [6,7,8]. A class V of regular semigroups is an e-variety if it is closed under taking direct products, regular subsemigroups and homomorphic images. For orthodox semigroups, this concept has been introduced under the term “bivariety” by Kaďourek and Szendrei [12]. Hall showed that the collection of all e-varieties of regular semigroups forms a complete lattice under inclusion. Further, he proved a Birkhoff-type theorem: each e-variety is determined by a set of identities. For e-varieties of orthodox semigroups a similar result has been proved by Kaďourek and Szendrei. At variance with the case of varieties, prima facie the free objects in general do not exist for e-varieties. For instance, there is no free regular or free orthodox semigroup. This seems to be true for most of the naturally appearing e-varieties (except for cases of e-varieties which coincide with varieties of unary semigroups such as the classes of all inverse and completely regular semigroups, respectively). This is true if the underlying concept of free objects is denned as usual. Kaďourek and Szendrei adopted the definition of a free object according to e-varieties of orthodox semigroups by taking into account generalized inverses in an appropriate way. They called such semigroups bifree objects. These semigroups satisfy the properties one intuitively expects from the “most general members” of a given class of semigroups. In particular, each semigroup in the given class is a homomorphic image of a bifree object, provided the bifree objects exist on sets of any cardinality. Concerning existence, Kaďourek and Szendrei were able to prove that in any class of orthodox semigroups which is closed under taking direct products and regular subsemigroups, all bifree objects exist and are unique up to isomorphism. Further, similar to the case of varieties, there is an order inverting bijection between the fully invariant congruences on the bifree orthodox semigroup on an infinite set and the e-varieties of orthodox semigroups. Recently, Y. T. Yeh [22] has shown that suitable analogues to free objects exist in an e-variety V of regular semigroups if and only if all members of V are either E-solid or locally inverse.

Let S be an ideal of a semigroup V. In such a case, V is an (ideal) extension of S by T = V/S. The problem considered in [2] is the construction of all congruences on V in terms of congruences on S and T. This did not succeed for all congruences but it did for those congruences whose restriction to S is weakly reductive. If the extension is strict, more precise constructions are also given there. With some relatively weak restrictions on S, we are able to obtain in this way all congruences on V in the form indicated above.

Let s be a natural number, s ≥ 2. We seek a positive number λ(s) with the following property:

Let ε > 0. Let Q1(x1, …, xs), Q2(x1, …, xs) be real quadratic forms, then for N > C1(s, ε) we have

for some integers n1, …, ns,

We are interested in two parameter eigenvalue problems of the form

subject to Dirichlet boundary conditions

The weight function 5 and the potential q will both be assumed to lie in L2[0,1]. The problem (1.1), (1.2) generates eigencurves

in the sense that for any fixed λ, ν(λ) is the nth eigenvalue ν, (according to oscillation indexing) of (1.1), (1.2). These curves are in fact analytic functions of λ and have been the object of considerable study in recent years. The survey paper [1] provides background in this area and itemises properties of eigencurves.

Let k be an algebraically closed field, and A a finite dimensional k-algebra, which we shall assume, without loss of generality, to be basic and connected. By module is meant throughout a finitely generated right A-module. Following Happel and Ringel [10], we shall say that a module Tλ is a tilting (respectively, cotilting) module if it satisfies the following three conditions:

(1)

(2)

(3) the number of non-isomorphic indecomposable summands of T equals the rank of the Grothendieck group K0(A) of A.

In [9] J. L. Krivine and B. Maurey introduced the class of stable Banach spaces: a separable Banach space is called stable if for every pair of bounded sequences (xn)n, (yn)n and for every pair of ultrafilters on the natural numbers we have

The asymptotic behaviour has been determined for several natural geometric or topological quantities related to (degrees of) compactness of bounded linear operators on Banach spaces; see for instance [24], [25] and [17]. This paper complements these results by studying the spectral properties of some quantities related to weak compactness.

For any group G, denote by φf(G respectively L(G)) the intersection of all maximal subgroups of finite index (respectively finite nonprime index) in G, with the usual provision that the subgroup concerned equals Gif no such maximals exist. The subgroup φf(G) was discussed in [1] in connection with a property v possessed by certain groups: a group G has v if and only if every nonnilpotent, normal subgroup of G has a finite, nonnilpotent G-image. It was shown there, for instance, that G/φf(G) has v for all groups G. The subgroup L(G), in the case where G is finite, was investigated at some length in [3], one of the main results being that L(G) is supersoluble. (A published proof of this result appears as Theorem 3 of [4]). The present paper is concerned with the role of L(G) in groups G having property v or a related property a, the definition of which is obtained by replacing “nonnilpotent” by “nonsupersoluble” in the definition of v. We also present a result (namely Theorem 4) which displays a close relationship between the subgroups L(G) and φf(G) in an arbitrary group G. Some of the results for finite groups in [3] are found to hold with rather weaker hypotheses and, in fact, remain true for groups with v or a. We recall that if a group has a it also has v ([2]Theorem 2) but not conversely. For example, G = (x, y: y-1xy = x2)has v but not a. It is a well-known result of Gaschütz ([8], 5.2.15) that, in a finite group G, if His a normal subgroup containing φ(G) such that H/φ(G) is nilpotent than His nilpotent. This remains true in the case where G is any group with v [1, Proposition 1]. Our first result is in a similar vein and is a generalization of Theorem 9 of [7] and Theorem 1.2.9 of [3], the latter of which states that, for a finite group G, if G/L(G) is supersoluble, then so is G.

If A and B are torsion-free groups, and W is a cyclically reduced word of even length in A*B, it is generally conjectured that a Freiheitssatz holds, namely that each of A and B are embedded via the natural map into the one-relator product group G = (A*B)/N(W), where N denotes normal closure. If W has length 2, then G is a free product of A and B with infinite cyclic amalgamation, and the result is obvious. The purpose of this note is to prove the Freiheitssatz in some special cases.

We establish a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a positive solution of the integrodifferential equation

where nis an increasing real-valued function on the interval [0, α); that is, if and only if the characteristic equation

admits a positive root.

Consider the difference equation , where is a sequence of non-negative numbers. We prove this has positive solution if and only if the characteristic equation admits a root in (0, 1). For general results on integrodifferential equations we refer to the book by Burton [1] and the survey article by Corduneanu and Lakshmikantham [2]. Existence of a positive solution and oscillations in integrodifferential equations or in systems of integrodifferential equations recently have been investigated by Ladas, Philos and Sficas [5], Györi and Ladas [4], Philos and Sficas [12], Philos [9], [10], [11].

Recently, there has been some interest in the existence or the non-existence of positive solutions or the oscillation behavior of some difference equations. See Ladas, Philos and Sficas [6], [7].

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the positive solutions of integrodifferential equations (Section 1) and difference equations (Section 2) with unbounded delay. We obtain also some results for integrodifferential and difference inequalities.

Normal-convex embeddings are introduced for inverse semigroups, generalizing the group-theoretic concept, due to Papakyriakopoulos [4]. It is shown that every E-unitary inverse semigroup admits a normal-convex embedding into a semidirect product of a semilattice by a group, a stronger version of a result by O'Carroll [3]. A general embedding result for inverse semigroups is also obtained.

The notion of a group G having periodic cohomology after k steps was introduced by Talelli in [10], and is equivalent to having the functors Hm(G, —) and Hm+q(G, —) naturally isomorphic for some q ≥ 1 and all m ≥k + 1. It extends to infinite groups the long-understood phenomenon of cohomological periodicity for finite groups (for which k = 0).

Let R be a commutative Noetherian ring and G a group of elements acting on R as automorphisms. In this note, we are concerned with the structure of the lattice of invariant ideals of R. In particular we shall compute the Krull dimension of this lattice. Our group is an arbitrary group. There are none of the usual assumptions of some sort of algebraic action.