In (8) Stonehewer referred to the following open question due to Amitsur: If G is a torsion-free group and F any field, is the group algebra, FG, of G over F semi-simple? Stonehewer showed the answer was in the affirmative if G is a soluble group. In this paper we show the answer is again in the affirmative if G belongs to a class of generalised soluble groups

Let X be a normed linear space. We regard X as a subspace of its bidual X**. Polars will always be evaluated in the pair (X**, X*). We denote the closed unit ball in X by U, so that U0, U00 are the closed unit balls in X*, X** respectively. The weak topology induced by X on X* (the “weak-star” topology) will be denoted by σ(X), and cl() will denote σ(X)-closure.

Let pn>0 be such that pn diverges, and the radius of convergence of the power series

is 1. Given any series σan with partial sums sn, we shall use the notation

and

When Etherington (2) introduced linear commutative non-associative algebras in connection with problems in theoretical genetics, he pointed out that various sequences of elements in these algebras represented different mating systems. In all such systems it was however assumed that the generations did not overlap, and this restriction has been kept in later work in this field. In this paper we treat sequences which make it possible to find the probability distribution in successive generations in a discrete time model where the generations may be overlapping. We also consider idempotents in genetic algebras and outline how the method used on the overlapping generation sequence may be applied to other sequences.

In various problems in harmonic analysis (4, 5, 6), I have required an estimate for the integral for the hypergeometric function

in the case where a>c−b>0, b>0, and 0 ≦ x < 1 (the integral is then unbounded as x→l−). Although there are innumerable identities for hypergeometric functions, few inequalities for these functions seem to be known, and in estimating the integral (1) I employed ad hoc arguments that made no use of the theory of hypergeometric functions. The estimates obtained were adequate for my purposes, but were far from sharp, and the object of this note is to show that, by assembling a few known facts concerning hypergeometric functions, we can obtain sharp inequalities for the integral (1). We also give (in §4) several related inequalities that can be obtained by transforming the integral.

The notion of a well-bounded operator was introduced by Smart (9). The properties of well-bounded operators were further investigated by Ringrose (6, 7), Sills (8) and Berkson and Dowson (2). Berkson and Dowson have developed a more complete theory for the type (A) and type (B) well-bounded operators than is possible for the general well-bounded operator. Their work relies heavily on Sills' treatment of the Banach algebra structure of the second dual of the Banach algebra of absolutely continuous functions on a compact interval.

Varieties of topological groups have been investigated in several papers ((2) and (10)-(13)). In this note we investigate the varieties generated by classical Lie groups. In particular we show results of which the following is indicative: The variety generated by the unitary group U(n) contains U(m) if and only if m ≦ n. En route we introduce the notion of a variety of topological Lie algebras which provides a convenient setting in which to answer our questions.

Some axially symmetric boundary value problems of potential theory are formulated as integral equations of the first kind. In each case the kernel admits an expansion, for small values of a parameter of the problem, that leads to an approximate integral equation whose solution provides a direct asymptotic estimate for the physical quantity of primary interest. A manipulation of the original and modified integral equations provides an efficient formula for calculating higher order terms in the asymptotic expansion.

A corollary of the main theorem presented in this note is a generalisation of the well-known result that a self-adjoint square root of a positive self-adjoint compact linear map in a Hilbert space is itself a compact linear map. The method used here exploits the techniques developed recently in the study of k-set contractions ((1), (2)).

In this paper it is shown that divisibility of a complete lattice ordered (abelian) group is closely related to the existence of a sufficient number of small elements in the positive cone.

We shall denote the set of all real numbers by R which symbol will be reserved for this purpose. All terms used are as defined in Birkhoff(1). For the reader's convenience we now define the two terms most used in the sequel.