The main object of this note is to show that a proof given by A. J. Macintyre [2] of a result on the overconvergence of partial sums of power series works more easily in the context of Dirichlet series. Applying this observation to the particular Dirichlet series Σane−ns, we can remove certain restrictions which Macintyre finds necessary in the direct treatment of power series.

In this paper two integrals involving E-functions are evaluated in terms of E-functions. The formulae to be established are:

where n is a positive integer,

and

where n is a positive integer,

and

the prime and the asterisk denoting that the factor sin {(s–s)π/2n} and the parameter βq+s–βq+s + 1 are omitted. The definitions and properties of MacRobert's E-function can be found in [1, pp. 348–352] and [3, pp. 203–206].

The set Dn of all n × n doubly-stochastic matrices is a semigroup with respect to ordinary matrix multiplication. This note is concerned with the determination of the maximal subgroups of Dn. It is shown that the number of subgroups is finite, that each subgroup is finite and is in fact isomorphic to a direct product of symmetric groups. These results are applied in § 3 to yield information about the least number of permutation matrices whose convex hull contains a given doubly-stochastic matrix.

In a semigroup S the set E of idempotents is partially ordered by the rule that e≦ƒ if and only if eƒ=e=ƒe. We say that S is an ω-semigroup if E={ei: i=0, 1, 2, …}, where

Bisimple ω-semigroups have been classified in [10]. From a group G and an endomorphism α of G a bisimple ω-semigroup S(G, α) can be constructed by a process described below in § 1: moreover, any bisimple ω-semigroup is isomorphic to one of this type.

Let R be a commutative ring, with an identity element. It is the purpose of this note to establish conditions for an arbitrary but fixed ideal a of R to satisfy the distributive law

for all ideals b and c of R. In particular, in the Noetherian case, this will be related to the decomposition of a into prime ideals. We start with

Proposition 1. For a fixed ideal a in a commutative ring R with an identity element, the following conditions are equivalent.

The definition of a power-free group will be found in [1]. It is a partial algebraic system which, roughly speaking, may be thought of as a group in which (with the exception of the identity) squares and higher powers of an element are not defined.

It has been shown [1, Theorem 3.3] that the usual cancellation laws need not hold in a power-free group. When these laws do hold, the power-free group is called cancellative. In this paper we shall be solely concerned with cancellative power-free groups and the term ‘power-free group’ is to be understood to mean ‘cancellative power-free group’.

A. Geddes [1, Theorem 3.3] has shown that the partial algebraic system which he has called a power-free group need not be cancellative. In other words, there exist power-free groups containing at least one element a with the property that ab can equal ac when b ≠ c. In the present paper we propose to study the structure of such non-cancellative power-free groups, and we shall in fact obtain a complete solution to this problem.