The cardinal invariant $\mathfrak {hm}$ is defined as the minimum size of a family of $\mathsf {c}_{\mathsf {min}}$ -monochromatic sets that cover $2^{\omega }$ (where $\mathsf {c}_{\mathsf {min}}( x,y) $ is the parity of the biggest initial segment both x and y have in common). We prove that $\mathfrak {hm}=\omega _{1}$ holds in Shelah’s model of $\mathfrak {i<u},$ so the inequality $\mathfrak {hm<u}$ is consistent with the axioms of $\mathsf {ZFC}$ . This answers a question of Thilo Weinert. We prove that the diamond principle $\mathfrak {\Diamond }_{\mathfrak {d}}$ also holds in that model.

A union ultrafilter is an ultrafilter over the finite subsets of ω that has a base of sets of the form ${\text{FU}}\left( X \right)$, where X is an infinite pairwise disjoint family and ${\text{FU}}(X) = \left\{ {\bigcup {F|F} \in [X]^{ < \omega } \setminus \{ \emptyset \} } \right\}$. The existence of these ultrafilters is not provable from the $ZFC$ axioms, but is known to follow from the assumption that ${\text{cov}}\left( \mathcal{M} \right) = \mathfrak{c}$. In this article we obtain various models of $ZFC$ that satisfy the existence of union ultrafilters while at the same time ${\text{cov}}\left( \mathcal{M} \right) = \mathfrak{c}$.

The notion of a symmetric extension extends the usual notion of forcing by identifying a particular class of names which forms an intermediate model of $ZF$ between the ground model and the generic extension, and often the axiom of choice fails in these models. Symmetric extensions are generally used to prove choiceless consistency results. We develop a framework for iterating symmetric extensions in order to construct new models of $ZF$. We show how to obtain some well-known and lesser-known results using this framework. Specifically, we discuss Kinna–Wagner principles and obtain some results related to their failure.

We prove that it is consistent that $\aleph _\omega $ is strong limit, $2^{\aleph _\omega } $ is large and the universality number for graphs on $\aleph _{\omega + 1} $ is small. The proof uses Prikry forcing with interleaved collapsing.

The paper is concerned with the existence of a universal graph at the successor of a strong limit singular μ of cofinality ℵ0. Starting from the assumption of the existence of a supercompact cardinal, a model is built in which for some such μ there are μ++ graphs on μ+ that taken jointly are universal for the graphs on μ+, while .

The paper also addresses the general problem of obtaining a framework for consistency results at the successor of a singular strong limit starting from the assumption that a supercompact cardinal κ exists. The result on the existence of universal graphs is obtained as a specific application of a more general method.

A $Q$-set is a set of reals every subset of which is a relative ${{G}_{\delta }}$. We investigate the combinatorics of $Q$-sets and discuss a question of Miller and Zhou on the size $q$ of the smallest set of reals which is not a $Q$-set. We show in particular that various natural lower bounds for $q$ are consistently strictly smaller than $q$.