Our framework is ZFC, and we view cardinals as initial ordinals. Baumgartner ([Bal] and [Ba2]) studied properties of large cardinals by considering these properties as properties of normal ideals and not as properties of cardinals alone. In this paper we study these combinatorial properties by defining operations which take as input one or more ideals and give as output an ideal associated with a large cardinal property. We consider four operations T, P, S and C on ideals of a regular cardinal κ, and study the structure of the collection of subsets they give, and the relationships between them.

The operation T is defined using combinatorial properties based on trees 〈X, <T〉 on subsets X ⊆ κ (where α <T β → α < β). Given an ideal I, consider the property *: “every tree on κ with every branching set in I has a branch of size κ” (where a branching set is a maximal set with the same set of <T-predecessors, and a chain is a maximal <T-linearly ordered set; for definitions see §2). Now consider the collection T(I) of all subsets of κ that do not satisfy * (see Definition 2.2 and the introduction to §5). The operation T provides us with the large cardinal property (whether κ ∈ T(I) or not) and it also provides us with the ideal associated with this large cardinal property (namely T(I)); in general, we obtain different notions depending on the ideal I.

We try to count the number of countable models M of T with a fixed set Q = Φ(M) of realizations of a type Φ. Also, for stable T, we define an ordinal rank measuring multiplicity of types, with additivity properties similar to those of U-rank.

The notion of a ptyx (plural, ptykes) is obtained by generalising the ordinals On and the dilators Dil introduced by Girard [1] into a typed hierarchy. The notion is due to Girard, and a detailed treatment will appear in Girard [2].

In this Introduction we will give a summary of the theory of ptykes. It will be an advantage to be familiar with the theory of dilators as introduced in Girard [1] or as presented in Girard and Normann [3].

The class On of ordinals is organised into a category ON by using strictly increasing maps f: x → y as morphisms. A dilator will be a functor F: ON → ON commuting with pullbacks and direct limits. Associated with each dilator F there is a denotation system DF, obtained as follows: For each x ∈ On and y ∈ F(x), y can be given a unique denotation (c; x0,…, xn−1;x)F, where c∈F(n) (n = {0,…, n − 1}), y = F(ϕ)(c) (where ϕ is defined by ϕ(i) = xi for i < n), and for no m < n and ψ: m → n do we have c ∈ im(ψ).

We let the trace Tr(F) be the set of pairs (c, n) occurring in a denotation.

In 1986, Beigel [Be87] (see also [Od89, III.5.9]) proved the nonspeedup theorem: if A, B ⊆ ω, and as a function of 2n variables can be computed by an algorithm which makes at most n queries to B, then A is recursive (informally, 2n parallel queries to a nonrecursive oracle A cannot be answered by making n sequential (or “adaptive”) queries to an arbitrary oracle B). Here, 2n cannot be replaced by 2n − 1. In subsequent papers of Beigel, Gasarch, Gill, Hay, and Owings the theory of “bounded query classes” has been further developed (see, for example, [BGGOta], [BGH89], and [Ow89]). The topic has also been studied in the context of structural complexity theory (see, for example, [AG88], [Be90], and [JY90]).

If A ⊆ ω and n ≥ 1, let . Beigel [Be87] stated the powerful “cardinality conjecture” (CC): if A, B ⊆ ω, and can be computed by an algorithm which makes at most n queries to B, then A is recursive. Owings [Ow89] verified CC for n = 1, and, for n 1, he proved that A is recursive in the halting problem. We prove that CC is true for all n.

In 1960 G. F. Rose [R] made the following definition: A function f: ω → ω is (m, n)-computable, where 1 ≤ m ≤ n, iff there exists a recursive function R: ωn → ωn such that, for all n-tuples (x1,…, xn) of distinct natural numbers,

J. Myhill (see [McN, p. 393]) asked if f had to be recursive if m was close to n; B. A. Trakhtenbrot [T] responded by showing in 1963 that f is recursive whenever 2m > n. This result is optimal, because, for example, the characteristic function of any semirecursive set is (1,2)-computable. Trakhtenbrot's work was extended by E. B. Kinber [Ki1], using similar techniques. In 1986 R. Beigel [B] made a powerful conjecture, much more general than the above results. Partial verification, falling short of a full proof, appeared in [O]. Using new techniques, M. Kummer has recently established the conjecture, which will henceforth be referred to as the cardinality theorem (CT). It is the goal of this paper to show the connections between these various theorems, to review the methods used by Trakhtenbrot, and to use them to prove a special case of CT strong enough to imply Kinber's theorem (see §3). We thus have a hierarchy of results, with CT at the top. We will also include a discussion of Kummer's methods, but not a proof of CT.

We prove the existence of a bound to the number of components of an ∀-definable set in the reals, using Pfaffian functions, and give some applications.

It was a fundamental insight of Shelah that the equivalence classes of a definable equivalence relation on a structure M often behave like (and indeed must be treated like) the elements of the structure itself, and that these so-called imaginary elements are both necessary and sufficient for developing many aspects of stability theory. The expanded structure Meq was introduced to make this insight explicit and manageable. In Meq we have “names” for all things (subsets, relations, functions, etc.) “definable” inside M. Recent results of Bruno Poizat allow a particularly simple and more or less algebraic modification of Meq in the case that M is a module. It is the purpose of this paper to describe this nearly algebraic structure in such a way as to make the usual algebraic tools of the model theory of modules readily available in this more general context. It should be pointed out that some of our discussion has been part of the “folklore” of the subject for some time; it is certainly time to make this “folklore” precise, correct, and readily available.

Modules have proved to be good examples of stable structures. Not, we mean, in the sense that they are well-behaved (which, in the main, they are), but in the sense that they are straightforward enough to provide comprehensible illustrations of concepts while, at the same time, they have turned out to be far less atypical than one might have supposed. Indeed, a major feature of recent stability theory has been the ubiquitous appearance of modules or more general “abelian structures” in abstract stable structures.

In [H1] Hrushovski introduced a number of ideas concerning the relations between types which have proved to be of importance in stability theory. These relations allow the geometries associated to various types to be connected. In this paper we consider the meaning of these concepts in modules (and more generally in abelian structures). In particular, we provide algebraic characterisations of notions such as hereditary orthogonality, “p -internal” and “p-simple”. These characterisations are in the same spirit as the algebraic characterisations of such concepts as orthogonality and regularity, that have already proved so useful. Of the concepts that we consider, p-simplicity is dealt with in [H3] and the other three concepts in [H2].

The descriptions arose out of our desire to develop some intuition for these ideas. We think that our characterisations may well be useful in the same way to others, particularly since our examples are algebraically uncomplicated and so understanding them does not require expertise in the model theory of modules. Furthermore, in view of the increasing importance of these notions, the results themselves are likely to be directly useful in the model-theoretic study of modules and, via abelian structures, in more general stability-theoretic contexts. Finally, some of our characterisations suggest that these ideas may be relevant to the algebraic problem of understanding the structure of indecomposable injective modules.

In the thirty years since its invention by Abraham Robinson, nonstandard analysis has become a useful tool for research in many areas of mathematics. It seems fair to say, however, that the search for practically satisfactory foundations for the subject is not yet completed. New proposals, intended to remedy various shortcomings of older approaches, continue to be put forward. The objective of this paper is to show that nonstandard concepts have a natural place in the usual (more or less “standard”) set theory, and to argue that this approach improves upon various aspects of hitherto considered systems, while retaining most of their attractive features. We do this by working in Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with non-well-founded sets. It has always been clear that the axiom of regularity may fail for external sets. The previous approaches either avoid non-well-foundedness by considering only that fragment of nonstandard set theory that is well-founded (over individuals; enlargements of Robinson and Zakon [17]) or reluctantly live with it (various axiomatic nonstandard set theories). Ballard and Davidon [2] were the first to propose constructive use for non-well-foundedness in the foundations of nonstandard analysis. In the present paper we adopt a very strong anti-foundation axiom. In the resulting more or less “usual” set theory, the (to the “standard” mathematician) unfamiliar concepts of standard, external and internal sets can be defined and their requisite properties proved (rather than postulated, as is the case in axiomatic nonstandard set theories).