Set-theoretic solutions to the Yang–Baxter equation can be classified by their universal coverings and their fundamental groupoids. Extending previous results, universal coverings of irreducible involutive solutions are classified in the degenerate case. These solutions are described in terms of a group with a distinguished self-map. The classification in the nondegenerate case is simplified and compared with the description in the degenerate case.

An abelian cover is a finite morphism X→Y of varieties which is the quotient map for a generically faithful action of a finite abelian group G. Abelian covers with Y smooth and X normal were studied in [R. Pardini, Abelian covers of algebraic varieties, J. Reine Angew. Math. 417 (1991), 191–213; MR 1103912(92g:14012)]. Here we study the non-normal case, assuming that X and Y are S2 varieties that have at worst normal crossings outside a subset of codimension greater than or equal to two. Special attention is paid to the case of ℤr2-covers of surfaces, which is used in [V. Alexeev and R. Pardini, Explicit compactifications of moduli spaces of Campedelli and Burniat surfaces, Preprint (2009), math.AG/arXiv:0901.4431] to construct explicitly compactifications of some components of the moduli space of surfaces of general type.

It is known that ℚ-derived univariate polynomials (polynomials defined over ℚ, with the property that they and all their derivatives have all their roots in ℚ) can be completely classified subject to two conjectures: that no quartic with four distinct roots is ℚ-derived, and that no quintic with a triple root and two other distinct roots is ℚ-derived. We prove the second of these conjectures.

AMS 2000 Mathematics subject classification: Primary 11G30

Let CKDT be the assertion that for every countably infinite bipartite graph G, there exist a vertex covering C of G and a matching M in G such that C consists of exactly one vertex from each edge in M. (This is a theorem of Podewski and Stefifens [12].) Let ATR0 be the subsystem of second-order arithmetic with arithmetical transfinite recursion and restricted induction. Let RCA0 be the subsystem of second-order arithmetic with recursive comprehension and restricted induction. We show that CKDT is provable in ATR0. Combining this with a result of Aharoni, Magidor, and Shore [2], we see that CKDT is logically equivalent to the axioms of ATR0, the equivalence being provable in RCA0.