We investigate the partial orderings of the form P(X),⊂〉, where X is a relational structure and P(X) the set of the domains of its isomorphic substructures. A rough classification of countable binary structures corresponding to the forcing-related properties of the posets of their copies is obtained.

We give a unified treatment of several fixed-point type theorems by using the concept of dismantlability, extended from ordered sets to arbitrary graphs. For a graph G and a vertex x of G we let NG(X) denote the set of neighbours of x in G. We say that x is a subdominant vertex of G if there is a vertex y of G, distinct from x, such that NG(x)∪{x} ⊆ NG(y)∪{y}. If G has n vertices we say that G is dismantlable if the vertices of G can be listed as x1, x2, ..., xi,..., xn such that, for all i = 1,2,..., n— 1, xi is a subdominant vertex of the graph Gi = G — {xj : j < i}

Let be a finite set of finite tournaments. We will give a necessary and sufficient condition for the -free homogeneous directed graph to be divisible. That is, that there is a partition of into two classes such that neither of them contains an isomorphic copy of .

We consider the directed graph representing the obstruction relation between objects moving along the streamlines of a two-dimensional velocity field. A collection of objects is sequentially separable if and only if the corresponding graph has no directed cycles. A sufficient condition for this is the permeability of closed Jordan curves.

This paper is devoted to settling the following problem on (infinite, partially) ordered sets: Is there always a partition (2-coloring) of an ordered set X so that all nontrivial maximal chains of X meet both classes (receive both colors)? We show this is true for all countable ordered sets and provide counterexamples of cardinality N3. Variants of the problem are also considered and open problems specified.

A partially ordered set P is said to have the n-cutset property if for every element x of P, there is a subset S of P all of whose elements are noncomparable to x, with |S| ≤ n, and such that every maximal chain in P meets {x} ∪ S. It is known that if P has the n-cutset property then P has at most 2n maximal elements. Here we are concerned with the extremal case. We let Max P denote the set of maximal elements of P. We establish the following result. THEOREM: Let n be a positive integer. Suppose P has the n-cutset property and that |Max P| = 2n. Then P contains a complete binary tree T of height n with Max T = Max P and such that C ∩ T is a maximal chain in T for every maximal chain C of P. Two examples are given to show that this result does not extend to the case when n is infinite. However the following is shown. THEOREM: Suppose that P has the ω-cutset property and that |Max P| = 2ω. If P — Max P is countable then P contains a complete binary tree of height ω

Let X be a harmonic space in the sense of C. Constantinescu and A. Cornea. We show that, for any subset E of X, a positive superharmonic function u on X has a representation u = p + h, where p is the greatest specific minorant of u satisfying . This result is a generalization of a theorem of M. Brelot. We also state some characterizations of extremal superharmonic functions.

In this paper we introduce several properties closely related to the fixed point property of a partially ordered set P: the comparability property, the fixed point property for cones, and the fixed point extension property. We apply these properties to the sets of common bounds of the minimal (maximal) elements of the partially ordered set P in order to derive fixed point theorems for P.

Let P be a partially ordered set. For an element x ∊ P, a subset C of P is called a cutset for x in P if every element of C is noncomparable to x and every maximal chain in P meets {x} ∪ C. The following result is established: if every element of P has a cutset having n or fewer elements, then P has at most 2n maximal elements. It follows that, if some element of P covers k elements of P then there is an element x ∊ P such that every cutset for x in P has at least log2k elements.