It is a classic result in modal logic, often referred to as Jónsson-Tarski duality, that the category of modal algebras is dually equivalent to the category of descriptive frames. The latter are Kripke frames equipped with a Stone topology such that the binary relation is continuous. This duality generalizes the celebrated Stone duality for boolean algebras. Our goal is to generalize descriptive frames so that the topology is an arbitrary compact Hausdorff topology. For this, instead of working with the boolean algebra of clopen subsets of a Stone space, we work with the ring of continuous real-valued functions on a compact Hausdorff space. The main novelty is to define a modal operator on such a ring utilizing a continuous relation on a compact Hausdorff space.

Our starting point is the well-known Gelfand duality between the category ${\sf KHaus}$ of compact Hausdorff spaces and the category $\boldsymbol {\mathit {uba}\ell }$ of uniformly complete bounded archimedean $\ell $-algebras. We endow a bounded archimedean $\ell $-algebra with a modal operator, which results in the category $\boldsymbol {\mathit {mba}\ell }$ of modal bounded archimedean $\ell $-algebras. Our main result establishes a dual adjunction between $\boldsymbol {\mathit {mba}\ell }$ and the category ${\sf KHF}$ of what we call compact Hausdorff frames; that is, Kripke frames equipped with a compact Hausdorff topology such that the binary relation is continuous. This dual adjunction restricts to a dual equivalence between ${\sf KHF}$ and the reflective subcategory $\boldsymbol {\mathit {muba}\ell }$ of $\boldsymbol {\mathit {mba}\ell }$ consisting of uniformly complete objects of $\boldsymbol {\mathit {mba}\ell }$. This generalizes both Gelfand duality and Jónsson-Tarski duality.

We study the bi-embeddability and elementary bi-embeddability relation on graphs under Borel reducibility and investigate the degree spectra realized by these relations. We first give a Borel reduction from embeddability on graphs to elementary embeddability on graphs. As a consequence we obtain that elementary bi-embeddability on graphs is a $\boldsymbol {\Sigma }^1_1$ complete equivalence relation. We then investigate the algorithmic properties of this reduction. We obtain that elementary bi-embeddability on the class of computable graphs is $\Sigma ^1_1$ complete with respect to computable reducibility and show that the elementary bi-embeddability and bi-embeddability spectra realized by graphs are related.

$\eta $-representations are a way of coding sets in computable linear orders that were first introduced by Fellner in his thesis. Limitwise monotonic functions have been used to characterize the sets with $\eta $-representations, and give characterizations for several variations of $\eta $-representations. The one exception is the class of sets with strong $\eta $-representations, the only class where the order type of the representation is unique.

We introduce the notion of a connected approximation of a set, a variation on $\Sigma ^0_2$ approximations. We use connected approximations to give a characterization of the many-one degrees of sets with strong $\eta $-representations as well new characterizations of the variations of $\eta $-representations with known characterizations.

We study from the proof complexity perspective the (informal) proof search problem (cf. [17, Sections 1.5 and 21.5]):

• • Is there an optimal way to search for propositional proofs?

We note that, as a consequence of Levin’s universal search, for any fixed proof system there exists a time-optimal proof search algorithm. Using classical proof complexity results about reflection principles we prove that a time-optimal proof search algorithm exists without restricting proof systems iff a p-optimal proof system exists.

To characterize precisely the time proof search algorithms need for individual formulas we introduce a new proof complexity measure based on algorithmic information concepts. In particular, to a proof system P we attach information-efficiency function $i_P(\tau )$ assigning to a tautology a natural number, and we show that:

• • $i_P(\tau )$ characterizes time any P-proof search algorithm has to use on $\tau $,

• • for a fixed P there is such an information-optimal algorithm (informally: it finds proofs of minimal information content),

• • a proof system is information-efficiency optimal (its information-efficiency function is minimal up to a multiplicative constant) iff it is p-optimal,

• • for non-automatizable systems P there are formulas $\tau $ with short proofs but having large information measure $i_P(\tau )$.

We isolate and motivate the problem to establish unconditional super-logarithmic lower bounds for $i_P(\tau )$ where no super-polynomial size lower bounds are known. We also point out connections of the new measure with some topics in proof complexity other than proof search.

A Cantor series expansion for a real number x with respect to a basic sequence $Q=(q_1,q_2,\dots )$, where $q_i \geq 2$, is a generalization of the base b expansion to an infinite sequence of bases. Ki and Linton in 1994 showed that for ordinary base b expansions the set of normal numbers is a $\boldsymbol {\Pi }^0_3$-complete set, establishing the exact complexity of this set. In the case of Cantor series there are three natural notions of normality: normality, ratio normality, and distribution normality. These notions are equivalent for base b expansions, but not for more general Cantor series expansions. We show that for any basic sequence the set of distribution normal numbers is $\boldsymbol {\Pi }^0_3$-complete, and if Q is $1$-divergent then the sets of normal and ratio normal numbers are $\boldsymbol {\Pi }^0_3$-complete. We further show that all five non-trivial differences of these sets are $D_2(\boldsymbol {\Pi }^0_3)$-complete if $\lim _i q_i=\infty $ and Q is $1$-divergent. This shows that except for the trivial containment that every normal number is ratio normal, these three notions are as independent as possible.

We prove that many seemingly simple theories have Borel complete reducts. Specifically, if a countable theory has uncountably many complete one-types, then it has a Borel complete reduct. Similarly, if $Th(M)$ is not small, then $M^{eq}$ has a Borel complete reduct, and if a theory T is not $\omega $-stable, then the elementary diagram of some countable model of T has a Borel complete reduct.

By the Galvin–Mycielski–Solovay theorem, a subset X of the line has Borel’s strong measure zero if and only if $M+X\neq \mathbb {R}$ for each meager set M.

A set $X\subseteq \mathbb {R}$ is meager-additive if $M+X$ is meager for each meager set M. Recently a theorem on meager-additive sets that perfectly parallels the Galvin–Mycielski–Solovay theorem was proven: A set $X\subseteq \mathbb {R}$ is meager-additive if and only if it has sharp measure zero, a notion akin to strong measure zero.

We investigate the validity of this result in Polish groups. We prove, e.g., that a set in a locally compact Polish group admitting an invariant metric is meager-additive if and only if it has sharp measure zero. We derive some consequences and calculate some cardinal invariants.

We show that the Lascar group $\operatorname {Gal}_L(T)$ of a first-order theory T is naturally isomorphic to the fundamental group $\pi _1(|\mathrm {Mod}(T)|)$ of the classifying space of the category of models of T and elementary embeddings. We use this identification to compute the Lascar groups of several example theories via homotopy-theoretic methods, and in fact completely characterize the homotopy type of $|\mathrm {Mod}(T)|$ for these theories T. It turns out that in each of these cases, $|\operatorname {Mod}(T)|$ is aspherical, i.e., its higher homotopy groups vanish. This raises the question of which homotopy types are of the form $|\mathrm {Mod}(T)|$ in general. As a preliminary step towards answering this question, we show that every homotopy type is of the form $|\mathcal {C}|$ where $\mathcal {C}$ is an Abstract Elementary Class with amalgamation for $\kappa $-small objects, where $\kappa $ may be taken arbitrarily large. This result is improved in another paper.

We generalise the correspondence between $\aleph _0$-categorical theories and their automorphism groups to arbitrary complete theories in classical logic, and to some theories (including, in particular, all $\aleph _0$-categorical ones) in continuous logic.

For given Boolean algebras $\mathbb {A}$ and $\mathbb {B}$ we endow the space $\mathcal {H}(\mathbb {A},\mathbb {B})$ of all Boolean homomorphisms from $\mathbb {A}$ to $\mathbb {B}$ with various topologies and study convergence properties of sequences in $\mathcal {H}(\mathbb {A},\mathbb {B})$. We are in particular interested in the situation when $\mathbb {B}$ is a measure algebra as in this case we obtain a natural tool for studying topological convergence properties of sequences of ultrafilters on $\mathbb {A}$ in random extensions of the set-theoretical universe. This appears to have strong connections with Dow and Fremlin’s result stating that there are Efimov spaces in the random model. We also investigate relations between topologies on $\mathcal {H}(\mathbb {A},\mathbb {B})$ for a Boolean algebra $\mathbb {B}$ carrying a strictly positive measure and convergence properties of sequences of measures on $\mathbb {A}$.

It is shown that the determinacy of $G_{\delta \sigma }$ games of length $\omega ^2$ is equivalent to the existence of a transitive model of ${\mathsf {KP}} + {\mathsf {AD}} + \Pi _1\textrm {-MI}_{\mathbb {R}}$ containing $\mathbb {R}$. Here, $\Pi _1\textrm {-MI}_{\mathbb {R}}$ is the axiom asserting that every monotone $\Pi _1$ operator on the real numbers has an inductive fixpoint.

We prove two general results about the preservation of extendible and $C^{(n)}$-extendible cardinals under a wide class of forcing iterations (Theorems 5.4 and 7.5). As applications we give new proofs of the preservation of Vopěnka’s Principle and $C^{(n)}$-extendible cardinals under Jensen’s iteration for forcing the GCH [17], previously obtained in [8, 27], respectively. We prove that $C^{(n)}$-extendible cardinals are preserved by forcing with standard Easton-support iterations for any possible $\Delta _2$-definable behaviour of the power-set function on regular cardinals. We show that one can force proper class-many disagreements between the universe and HOD with respect to the calculation of successors of regular cardinals, while preserving $C^{(n)}$-extendible cardinals. We also show, assuming the GCH, that the class forcing iteration of Cummings–Foreman–Magidor for forcing $\diamondsuit _{\kappa ^+}^+$ at every $\kappa $ [10] preserves $C^{(n)}$-extendible cardinals. We give an optimal result on the consistency of weak square principles and $C^{(n)}$-extendible cardinals. In the last section prove another preservation result for $C^{(n)}$-extendible cardinals under very general (not necessarily definable or weakly homogeneous) class forcing iterations. As applications we prove the consistency of $C^{(n)}$-extendible cardinals with $\mathrm {{V}}=\mathrm {{HOD}}$, and also with $\mathrm {GA}$ (the Ground Axiom) plus $\mathrm {V}\neq \mathrm {HOD}$, the latter being a strengthening of a result from [14].

Let $\mathcal {I}$ be an ideal on $\omega $. For $f,\,g\in \omega ^{\omega }$ we write $f \leq _{\mathcal {I}} g$ if $f(n) \leq g(n)$ for all $n\in \omega \setminus A$ with some $A\in \mathcal {I}$. Moreover, we denote $\mathcal {D}_{\mathcal {I}}=\{f\in \omega ^{\omega }: f^{-1}[\{n\}]\in \mathcal {I} \text { for every } n\in \omega \}$ (in particular, $\mathcal {D}_{\mathrm {Fin}}$ denotes the family of all finite-to-one functions).

We examine cardinal numbers $\mathfrak {b}(\geq _{\mathcal {I}}\cap (\mathcal {D}_{\mathcal {I}} \times \mathcal {D}_{\mathcal {I}}))$ and $\mathfrak {b}(\geq _{\mathcal {I}}\cap (\mathcal {D}_{\mathrm {Fin}}\times \mathcal {D}_{\mathrm {Fin}}))$ describing the smallest sizes of unbounded from below with respect to the order $\leq _{\mathcal {I}}$ sets in $\mathcal {D}_{\mathrm {Fin}}$ and $\mathcal {D}_{\mathcal {I}}$, respectively. For a maximal ideal $\mathcal {I}$, these cardinals were investigated by M. Canjar in connection with coinitial and cofinal subsets of the ultrapowers.

We show that $\mathfrak {b}(\geq _{\mathcal {I}}\cap (\mathcal {D}_{\mathrm {Fin}} \times \mathcal {D}_{\mathrm {Fin}})) =\mathfrak {b}$ for all ideals $\mathcal {I}$ with the Baire property and that $\aleph _1 \leq \mathfrak {b}(\geq _{\mathcal {I}}\cap (\mathcal {D}_{\mathcal {I}} \times \mathcal {D}_{\mathcal {I}})) \leq \mathfrak {b}$ for all coanalytic weak P-ideals (this class contains all $\bf {\Pi ^0_4}$ ideals). What is more, we give examples of Borel (even $\bf {\Sigma ^0_2}$) ideals $\mathcal {I}$ with $\mathfrak {b}(\geq _{\mathcal {I}}\cap (\mathcal {D}_{\mathcal {I}} \times \mathcal {D}_{\mathcal {I}}))=\mathfrak {b}$ as well as with $\mathfrak {b}(\geq _{\mathcal {I}}\cap (\mathcal {D}_{\mathcal {I}} \times \mathcal {D}_{\mathcal {I}})) =\aleph _1$.

We also study cardinals $\mathfrak {b}(\geq _{\mathcal {I}}\cap (\mathcal {D}_{\mathcal {J}} \times \mathcal {D}_{\mathcal {K}}))$ describing the smallest sizes of sets in $\mathcal {D}_{\mathcal {K}}$ not bounded from below with respect to the preorder $\leq _{\mathcal {I}}$ by any member of $\mathcal {D}_{\mathcal {J}}\!$. Our research is partially motivated by the study of ideal-QN-spaces: those cardinals describe the smallest size of a space which is not ideal-QN.

A logic is said to admit an equational completeness theorem when it can be interpreted into the equational consequence relative to some class of algebras. We characterize logics admitting an equational completeness theorem that are either locally tabular or have some tautology. In particular, it is shown that a protoalgebraic logic admits an equational completeness theorem precisely when it has two distinct logically equivalent formulas. While the problem of determining whether a logic admits an equational completeness theorem is shown to be decidable both for logics presented by a finite set of finite matrices and for locally tabular logics presented by a finite Hilbert calculus, it becomes undecidable for arbitrary logics presented by finite Hilbert calculi.

Fisher [10] and Baur [6] showed independently in the seventies that if T is a complete first-order theory extending the theory of modules, then the class of models of T with pure embeddings is stable. In [25, 2.12], it is asked if the same is true for any abstract elementary class $(K, \leq _p)$ such that K is a class of modules and $\leq _p$ is the pure submodule relation. In this paper we give some instances where this is true:Theorem.

Assume R is an associative ring with unity. Let $(K, \leq _p)$ be an AEC such that $K \subseteq R\text {-Mod}$

and K is closed under finite direct sums, then:

• • If K is closed under pure-injective envelopes, then $\mathbf {K}$ is $\lambda $-stable for every $\lambda \geq \operatorname {LS}(\mathbf {K})$ such that $\lambda ^{|R| + \aleph _0}= \lambda $.

• • If K is closed under pure submodules and pure epimorphic images, then $\mathbf {K}$ is $\lambda $-stable for every $\lambda $ such that $\lambda ^{|R| + \aleph _0}= \lambda $.

• • Assume R is Von Neumann regular. If $\mathbf {K}$ is closed under submodules and has arbitrarily large models, then $\mathbf {K}$ is $\lambda $-stable for every $\lambda $ such that $\lambda ^{|R| + \aleph _0}= \lambda $.

As an application of these results we give new characterizations of noetherian rings, pure-semisimple rings, Dedekind domains, and fields via superstability. Moreover, we show how these results can be used to show a link between being good in the stability hierarchy and being good in the axiomatizability hierarchy.

Another application is the existence of universal models with respect to pure embeddings in several classes of modules. Among them, the class of flat modules and the class of $\mathfrak {s}$-torsion modules.

We solve a longstanding question of Soare by showing that if ${\mathbf d}$ is a non-low$_2$ computably enumerable degree then ${\mathbf d}$ contains a c.e. set with no r-maximal c.e. superset.

The general theory developed by Ben Yaacov for metric structures provides Fraïssé limits which are approximately ultrahomogeneous. We show here that this result can be strengthened in the case of relational metric structures. We give an extra condition that guarantees exact ultrahomogenous limits. The condition is quite general. We apply it to stochastic processes, the class of diversities, and its subclass of $L_1$ diversities.

We analyze the hereditarily ordinal definable sets $\operatorname {HOD} $ in $M_n(x)[g]$ for a Turing cone of reals x, where $M_n(x)$ is the canonical inner model with n Woodin cardinals build over x and g is generic over $M_n(x)$ for the Lévy collapse up to its bottom inaccessible cardinal. We prove that assuming $\boldsymbol \Pi ^1_{n+2}$-determinacy, for a Turing cone of reals x, $\operatorname {HOD} ^{M_n(x)[g]} = M_n(\mathcal {M}_{\infty } | \kappa _{\infty }, \Lambda ),$ where $\mathcal {M}_{\infty }$ is a direct limit of iterates of $M_{n+1}$, $\delta _{\infty }$ is the least Woodin cardinal in $\mathcal {M}_{\infty }$, $\kappa _{\infty }$ is the least inaccessible cardinal in $\mathcal {M}_{\infty }$ above $\delta _{\infty }$, and $\Lambda $ is a partial iteration strategy for $\mathcal {M}_{\infty }$. It will also be shown that under the same hypothesis $\operatorname {HOD}^{M_n(x)[g]} $ satisfies $\operatorname {GCH} $.