For an element a of a unital Banach algebra A with dual space A′, we define the numerical range V(a) = {f(a):f ∊ A′, ∥f∥ = f(1) = 1}, and the numerical radius v(a) = sup{⃒z⃒:z ∊ V(a)}. An element a is said to be Hermitian if V(a) ⊆ ℝ ,equivalently ∥exp (ita)∥ = 1(t ∊ ℝ). Under the condition V(h) ⊆ [-1, 1], any polynomial in h attains its greatest norm in the algebra Ea[-1,1], generated by an element h with V(h) = [-1, 1].

Let be a positive definite binary quadratic form with real coefficients and discriminant b2 − 4ac = −1.

Among such forms, let . The Epstein zeta function of f is denned to be

Rankin [7], Cassels [1], Ennola [5], and Diananda [4] between them proved that for every real s > 0,

We prove a corresponding result for theta functions. For real α > 0, let

This function satisfies the functional equation

(This may be proved by using the formula (4) below, and then twice applying the identity (8).)

S(X) is the semigroup of all continuous self maps of the topological space X and for any semigroup S, Cong(S) will denote the complete lattice of congruences on S. Cong(S) has a zero Z and a unit U. Specifically, Z = {(a, a):a ∈ S} and U = S × S. Evidently, Z and U are distinct if S has at least two elements. By a proper congruence on S we mean any congruence which differs from each of these. Since S(X) has more than one element when X is nondegenerate, we will assume without further mention that the spaces we discuss in this paper have more than one point. We observed in [4] that there are a number of topological spaces X such that S(X) has a largest proper congruence, that is, Cong(S(X)) has a unique dual atom which is greater than every other proper congruence on S(X). On the other hand, we also found out in [5] that it is also common for S(X) to fail to have a largest proper congruence. We will see that the situation is quite different at the other end of the spectrum in that it is rather rare for S(X) not to have a smallest proper congruence. In other words, for most spaces X, Cong(S(X)) has a unique atom which is smaller than every other proper congruence.

Let Gbe a finite group, and P:G → GL(n, ) be such that for all x, y ∈ G

(i) P(x)P(y) = α(x, y)P(xy), and

(ii)P(l) = In,

where α(x, y) ∈ *; then P is a projective representation of G with cocycle α and degree n. For other basic definitions concerning projective representations see [4].

Let μ be the Gaussian measure in ℂn given by dμ(z)=(2π)−n exp(−|z|2/2)dV, where dV is the ordinary Lebesgue measure in ℂn. The Segal-Bargmann space H2(μ) is the space of all entire functions on ℂn that belong to L2(μ)-the usual space of Gaussian square-integrable functions. Let P be the orthogonal projection from L2(μ) onto H2(μ). For a measurable function ϕ on ℂn, the multiplication operator Mϕ on L2(μ) is defined by Mϕh =ϕh. The Toeplitz operator Tϕ is defined on H2(μ)by

If X is a Klein surface (KS) with boundary, of algebraic genus p, and Φ is an automorphism of order N, May [8] proved that N ≤ 2p + 2 when X is orientable and p is even, and N ≤ 2p otherwise.

He proved also that the unique topological type of an orientable KS having an orientation-preserving automorphism of maximum order is a surface with one boundary component when p is even, with two boundary components when p is odd.

In his paper [11], Peter Neumann considered in detail the cycle structures of elements of Aut(ℚ), the group of all homeomorphisms of the “rational world” ℚ onto itself, and further analyses of Aut(ℚ) and its subgroups have been given by Mekler [9], Bruyns [1], and Truss [13]. My interest in Aut(ℚ) stems from its utility in proving an at first sight rather startling (to a general topologist) result concerning β ℚ, the so-called Stone-Čech compactification of ℚ, namely that βℚ\ℚ is separable, and in fact contains a homogeneous countable dense subspace. (A space X is “homogeneous” provided whenever x, y ∈ X, there is some g ∈ Aut(X) with g(x) = y.) This is in sharp contrast to the spaces βℕ\ℕ and βℝ\ℝ, which are both inseparable.

The study of special radicals was begun by Andrunakievič [1]. A class of prime rings is called special if it is hereditary and closed under prime extensions. The upper radicals determined by special classes are called special. In later works Andrunakievič and Rjabuhin [2] and [3] defined the concept of a special class of modules.

The aim of the present note is to describe the possible products when taking all the nonzero elements of a finite ring in some sequence. Compared with the analogous situation for finite groups, where the set of products of all elements has been shown in [2] to be a whole coset of the derived group, for rings the set of the above mentioned products will be proved either to be as large as possible or to consist of one or two elements only.

Given a topological space X, we can consider the group G(X) of all autohomeomorphisms of X. Much is known about the relationship between X and G(X) for certain restricted classes of the space X; Whittaker [7] has shown that the existence of an isomorphism between any two sufficiently large subgroups of G(X) and G(Y) implies that X and Y are actually homeomorphic, whenever these are both compact, locally Euclidean manifolds, with or without boundary; Fine and Schweigert [1] give a detailed analysis of G(ℝ); recently, Neumann [4], Mekler [3] and Truss [6] have considered in depth the group G(ℚ).

A universal algebra A is said to have the basis property (BP) if any two minimal generating sets (bases) for a subalgebra of A have the same cardinality. This property was studied by the author for inverse semigroups in [5, 6]. For instance free inverse semigroups have BP. When treated as universal algebras, a classical theorem of linear algebra states that vector spaces have BP. In this paper we study BP for semigroups.

The Bass–Serre theorem supplies generators and relations for a group of automorphisms of a tree. Recently K. S. Brown [2] has extended the result to produce a presentation for a group of automorphisms of a simply connected complex, the extra ingredient being relations which come from the 2-cells of the complex. Suppose G is the group, K the complex and L the 1-skeleton of K. Then an extension of π1(L) by G acts on the universal covering space of L (which is of course a tree) and Brown's technique is to apply the work of Bass and Serre to this action. Our aim is to give a direct elementary proof of Brown's theorem which makes no use of covering spaces, deals with the Bass–Serre theorem as a special case and clarifies the roles played by the various generators and relations.

Given a ring R and an injective ring endomorphism α: R → R, not necessarily surjective, it is possible to define a minimal overring A(R, α) of R to which extends as an automorphism. The ring A(R, α) was first studied by D. A. Jordan in his paper [5], where he also introduces the central objects of this paper—the closed left ideals of R. As can be seen from Theorem 4.7 of [5], the left ideal structure of A(R, α) depends very strongly on the closed left ideals of R, and our aim here is to show that each maximal left ideal of a left Artinian ring is closed.

The purpose of this note is to generalize to fields of characteristic two the results obtained in [4]. We obtain necessary and sufficient conditions involving quadratic forms for certain tensor products of quaternion algebras to be division algebras.

The collection of all self-maps on a non-empty set X under composition is known in algebraic semigroup theory as the full transformation semigroup on X and is written x. Its importance lies in the fact that any semigroup S can be embedded in the full transformation semigroup (where S1 is the semigroup S with identity 1 adjoined, if S does not already possess one). The proof is similar to Cayley's Theorem that a group G can be embedded in SG, the group of all bijections of G to itself. In this paper X will be a finite set of order n, which we take to be and so we shall write Tn for X.

The joint spectrum for a commuting n-tuple in functional analysis has its origin in functional calculus which appeared in J. L. Taylor's epoch-making paper [19] in 1970. Since then, many papers have been published on commuting n-tuples of operators on Hilbert spaces (for example, [3], [4], [5], [8], [9], [10], [21], [22]).

Small [11] gave the first example of a right hereditary PI ring which is not left hereditary. Robson and Small [9] proved that a prime PI right hereditary ring is a classical order over a Dedekind domain, and hence is Noetherian (and therefore left hereditary). The authors have shown [4] that a right hereditary semiprime PI ring which is finitely generated over its center is left hereditary. In this paper we consider right hereditary PI rings T which are affine (i.e. finitely generated as an algebra over a central subfield k).

Let ξ be a stably fibre homotopic trivial vector bundle. A classical result of Thorn states that the Stiefel-Whitney classes of ξ vanish, and one way to prove this is as follows. Let u be the Thorn class of ξ in mod 2 cohomology. Then u is stably spherical by [2] and therefore all stable cohomology operations vanish on u, showing that wi(ξ)u = Sqiu = 0. In this note we shall apply this same method using complex cobordism and Landweber-Novikov operations to study relations among Chern classes of a stably fibre homotopic trivial complex vector bundle. We will thus obtain in a unified way certain strong mod p conditions for every prime p.

In [2], R. Loewy and H. Schneider studied positive linear operators on circular cones. They characterised the extremal positive operators on these cones and noticed that such operators preserve the set of extreme rays of the cone in this case. They then conjectured that this property of extremal positive operators is true in general.

In this note we describe a class of functors on the category of associative rings with unity (hereafter “rings”) and of ring homomorphisms which, loosely speaking, ‘preserve the properties’ of two-sided ideals, but can be chosen to be arbitrarily ‘bad’ for one-sided properties of rings.