A subset of a Polish space X is called universally small if it belongs to each ccc σ-ideal with Borel base on X. Under CH in each uncountable Abelian Polish group G we construct a universally small subset A₀ ⊂ G such that |A₀ ∩ gA₀| = for each g ∈ G. For each cardinal number κ ∈ [5,⁺] the set A₀ contains a universally small subset A of G with sharp packing index $pack♯\left(A_{\kappa }\right)=sup\left|\right|⁺:\subset {gA}_{g\in G}isdisjoint$ equal to κ.

We show that all sufficiently nice λ-sets are countable dense homogeneous (𝖢𝖣𝖧). From this fact we conclude that for every uncountable cardinal κ ≤ 𝔟 there is a countable dense homogeneous metric space of size κ. Moreover, the existence of a meager in itself countable dense homogeneous metric space of size κ is equivalent to the existence of a λ-set of size κ. On the other hand, it is consistent with the continuum arbitrarily large that every 𝖢𝖣𝖧 metric space has size either ω₁ or 𝔠. An...

We develop the theory of topological Hurewicz test pairs: a concept which allows us to distinguish the classes of the Borel hierarchy by Baire category in a suitable topology. As an application we show that for every ${\Pi }_{\xi }^0$ and not ${\Sigma }_{\xi }^0$ subset $P$ of a Polish space $X$ there is a $\sigma$-ideal $ℐ\subseteq 2^X$ such that $P\notin ℐ$ but for every ${\Sigma }_{\xi }^0$ set $B\subseteq P$ there is a ${\Pi }_{\xi }^0$ set $B^{\text{'}}\subseteq P$ satisfying $B\subseteq B^{\text{'}}\in ℐ$. We also discuss several other results and problems related to ideal generation and Hurewicz test pairs.