If A, B are ideals of a commutative ring R, such that B ⊆ A, and, for some positive integer r, Ar = BAr−1 then B is said to be a reduction of A. (This concept was defined and developed by Northcott and Rees in (1).) In this paper, I shall consider commutative Noetherian rings with the property that no non-zero principal ideal is a reduction of an ideal properly containing it.

In this article, the word ‘ring’ will mean ‘commutative, Noetherian ring with non-zero multiplicative identity’, and it is to be understood that ring homomorphisms respect identity elements.

In this paper we obtain various sufficient conditions for the solubility of a finite group. In particular, we show that if G is a finite group and p≥5 is a prime such that all p′-subgroups of G are nilpotent, then G is soluble. We show also that if G is a finite group which has a cyclic Sylow p-subgroup Pand such that for all p′-subgroups H of G, H is nilpotent and H′ is cyclic, then, if p≠3, either P◃G or G has a normal p-complement.

The concept of a local system of a set W is defined in ((8), p. 166) and ((12), p. 126). Recall that a set ℒ of subsets of W is a local system if Uℒ = W and ℒ is directed in the following sense: for every finite set H1, …, Hn of elements of ℒ, there is an M∈ℒ such that Hi⊂M for 1≤i≤n. If Σ is a class of groups, L(Σ) is the class of all groups G that possess a local system of Σ subgroups. Σ satisfies the local theorem, or is L-closed, if L(Σ)⊂Σ. Many classes of groups which satisfy the local theorem are discussed in ((12), pp. 126–144).

The incitement, or provocation, to assemble the following pages was the recognition in a recent paper (5) of a geometrical property characterizing those pairs, in a pencil of quadric surfaces, such that the quadrics of a pair are both outpolar and inpolar to each other: symmetrically apolar let it be said. That there are three such pairs was known (8), but their identification by means of the principal chords of their common curve had apparently not been remarked upon. The question naturally arose as to the number and identification of such pairs of quadrics of a pencil in n-dimensional projective space [n]; it is easy to show that the number is ½n(n–1), but geometrical identification seems quite another matter and no success whatever has yet been achieved even when n is 4.

In this note we give a new, easy proof of the results on invertible powers of ideals that we established in (3). The deduction of the Dade–Taussky–Zassenhaus theorems (1) may be carried out as we did before in (3).

Let CPn denote the complex projective space of complex dimension n. If k < n, CPk−1 is embedded as the (2k –1)-skeleton of CPn and we denote by , the stunted projective space, the quotient of CPn. by CPk−1.

In (1) A. H. Boers has studied the properties of n-PA rings, i.e. rings where any n-product (any product of n factors) is independent of its bracketing; a private communication is quoted in that paper to the effect that the n-PA rings were defined by Y. Ilamed starting from problems in mathematical physics.

In (13) Wall classified up to diffeomorphism, PL-homeomorphism, topological homeomorphism, and homotopy equivalence all closed, oriented, 1-connected smooth (or PL) 6-manifolds with torsion-free homology and vanishing second Stiefel-Whitney class. This paper extends these classifications to all closed, oriented, 1-connected topological 6-manifolds with torsion-free homology. The method differs from that of (13) but uses two special cases of Wall's classification.

A number of results are known which relate the characteristic numbers on a differentiable manifold X to the differentiable actions of the circle group S1on X. Many of these results are consequences of the Atiyah–Singer index theorem (2). In particular, an idea due to Hirzebruch sometimes permits one to deduce that certain characters which occur in the index theorem are in fact constant. Examples of this procedure can be found on page 594 of(2), on page 46 of(4), and on pages 21–22 of(1). Our aim in this paper is to make a systematic investigation of such results, and it is this aim which led us naturally to the concept of a modest vector bundle.

The aim of the paper is to exhibit the structure of products of flows that are suspensions of diffeomorphisms and show their relationship with suspensions of product diffeomorphisms.

The problem is important for applications of the following type. Suppose we have two dynamical systems each with a stable attractor. If the systems are brought into contact, as, for example, in the way a forced oscillation is imposed upon a natural oscillation in synchronization theory, then this is represented by taking the product flow to find the resulting behaviour of the joint system. However, the product of two stable attractors is no longer stable in general, and therefore it is important to analyse why, in order to understand what new stable attractors can arise from perturbations.

Posner (1) proved the following result:

Theorem. Let R be a prime ring and d a derivation of R such that, for all a∈R, ad(a)–d(a) a∈Z (centre of R). Then, if d is not a zero derivation, R is commutative.

The purpose of this note is to give a short proof of this theorem. We state the following known result ((1), Lemma 1).

In this note the concept of modest vector bundle, defined in (5), is used to define an invariant for certain free S1-actions. This invariant is a rational function and classifies the equivalence classes of free S1-actions on homotopy seven spheres. In a similar way an invariant for free involutions is defined, which is a generalization of the Spin invariant defined in (4). Using this invariant and Hirzebruch's α-invariant it is possible to state conditions for a free involution of a homotopy seven sphere to be embedded in a free S1-action.

Let k be a field of characteristic other than 2 and let g(k) denote the multiplicative group k* of the field k modulo squares, i.e. g(k) = k*/k*2. This is an abelian group of exponent 2 and its order, if finite, is a power of 2. We denote by G(k) the Grothendieck group of quadratic forms over k.

Measures, μ which can be realized as an infinite convolution

where each measure μn is a discrete measure, arise naturally in many parts of analysis and number theory (see (15)). The basic property of these measures is ‘purity’; i.e. such a measure μ 1must be absolutely continuous, continuous and singular, or discrete.

Clifford's well-known chain of theorems concerning circles in a plane may be stated as follows (the first two links being trivial):

(C2) Given any point A, and through it two circles C1 and C2, these meet again in a point A12, say.

(C3) Given three circles C1, C2, C3 through A, the three points A23, A13, An lie on a circle C123, say.

(C4) Given four circles C1,…,C4 through A, the four circles C234,…,C123 meet in a point A1234 (Wallace(1)).

(C5) Given five circles C1,…,C5 through A, the five points A2345,…,A1234 lie on a circle C12345 (Miquel (2)).

And so on (Clifford(3)).

Grace (4) showed that in three dimensions [3], there is no direct analogue to Clifford's chain, but in [4] he noted the following:

(G4) Given any point A in [4], and through it four hyperspheres S1,…, S4, these meet again in a point A1234, say.

(G5) Given five hyperspheres Sl,…,S5 through a point A, the five points A2345, A1234 lie on a hypersphere S12345, say.

(G6) Given six hyperspheres Sl,…, S7 through A, the six hyperspheres S23456,…, A12345 have in common a point A123456.

This leads naturally to the conjecture

(G7) Given seven hyperspheres Sl,…, S7 through A, the seven points A234567,…, A123456 lie on a hypersphere S1234567.

The product of two distributions f and g on the open interval (a, b), where −∞ ≤ a < b ≤ ∞, was defined(1) as the limit of the sequence {fngn}, provided this sequence is regular on (a, b), where

for n = 1, 2, … and ρ is a fixed infinitely differentiable function having the following properties:

(1) ρ(x) = 0 for |x| ≥ 1,

(2) ρ(x) ≥ 0,

(3) ρ(x) = ρ(−x),

Textbook proofs of the Riesz theorem on the representation of linear functionals on C(X) by measures tend to be self-contained, but consequently are rather long, and use ad hoc methods (see, for example (2, 4, 5)). The purpose of this note is to give a short proof by appealing to standard methods of modern analysis.

It is known that a real-valued function f of two real variables which is continuous in each variable separately need not be continuous in (x, y), but must be in the first Baire class (1). Moreover if f is continuous in x for each y and merely measurable in y for each x then it must be Lebesgue-measurable (7), and this result can be extended to more general product spaces (2). However, the continuum hypothesis implies that this result fails if continuity is replaced by approximate continuity, as can be seen from the proof of Theorem 2 of (2). This makes Mišik's question (5) very natural: is a function which is separately approximately continuous in both variables necessarily Lebesgue-measurable? Our main aim is to establish an affirmative answer. It will be shown that such a function must in fact be in the second Baire class, although not necessarily in the first Baire class (unlike approximately continuous functions of one variable (3)). Finally, we show that the existence of a measurable cardinal would imply that a separately continuous real function on a product of two topological finite complete measure spaces need not be product-measurable.

Let ΦSr(X) be the stable homotopy group

where SnX means the n-fold suspension of X. For example, the groups ΦSr(S0) are the stable homotopy groups of spheres. Let

be the ‘infinite-dimensional’ orthogonal group. Then topologists are familiar with the ‘stable J-homomorphism’

G. W. Whitehead observed that J factors through an ‘even more stable’ J-homomorphism

he conjectured that J′ is epi (for r > 0).