Various techniques are presented for constructing $\Lambda$ (p) sets which are not $\Lambda (p+ϵ)$ for all $ϵ\>0$. The main result is that there is a $\Lambda$ (4) set in the dual of any compact abelian group which is not $\Lambda (4+ϵ)$ for all $ϵ\>0$. Along the way to proving this, new constructions are given in dual groups in which constructions were already known of $\Lambda$ (p) not $\Lambda (p+ϵ)$ sets, for certain values of $p$. The main new constructions in specific dual groups are: – there is a $\Lambda$ (2k) set which is not $\Lambda (2k+ϵ)$ in $\mathbf{Z}\left(2\right)\oplus \mathbf{Z}\left(2\right)\oplus \cdots$ for all $2\le k$, $k\in \mathbf{N}$ and...

Let $Q={\left(Q_k\right)}_{k\ge 0},Q_0=1,Q_{k+1}=q_k{Q}_k,q_k\ge 2$, be a Cantor scale, ${𝐙}_Q$ the compact projective limit group of the groups $𝐙/Q_k𝐙$, identified to ${\prod }_{0\le j\le k-1}𝐙/q_j𝐙$, and let $\mu$ be its normalized Haar measure. To an element $x=\{a_0,a_1,a_2,\cdots \},0\le a_k\le q_{k+1}-1$, of ${𝐙}_Q$ we associate the sequence of integral valued random variables $x_k={\sum }_{0\le j\le k}{a}_j{Q}_j$. The main result of this article is that, given a complex $𝐐$-multiplicative function $g$ of modulus $1$, we have $$\underset{x_k\to x}{lim}(\frac{1}{x_k}\sum _{n\le x_k-1}g\left(n\right)-\prod _{0\le j\le k}\frac{1}{q_j}\sum _{0\le a\le q_j}g\left(a{Q}_j\right))=0\mu \text{-a.e}.$$

Let $\left(z_{\nu }\right)$ be a sequence in the upper half plane. If $1\<p\le \infty$ and if $$y_{\nu }^{1/p}f(z_{\nu })=a_{\nu },\nu =1,2,...(*)$$ has solution $f\left(z\right)$ in the class of Poisson integrals of $L^p$ functions for any sequence $(a_{\nu })\in {\ell }^p$, then we show that $\left(z_{\nu }\right)$ is an interpolating sequence for $H^{\infty }$. If $f(z_{\nu })=a_{\nu }$, $\nu =1,2,...$ has solution in the class of Poisson integrals of BMO functions whenever $(a_{\nu })\in {\ell }^{\infty }$, then $\left(z_{\nu }\right)$ is again an interpolating sequence for $H^{\infty }$. A somewhat more general theorem is also proved and a counterexample for the case $p\le 1$ is described.

Let $M$ be a free module over a noetherian ring. For ${\omega }_1,...,{\omega }_k\in M$, let $𝒜$ be the ideal generated by coefficients of ${\omega }_1\wedge ...\wedge {\omega }_k$. For an element $\omega \in {\bigwedge }^{p}M$ with $p\<\mathrm{prof}.𝒜$, if $\omega \wedge {\omega }_1\wedge ...\wedge {\omega }_k=0$, there exists ${\eta }_1,...,{\eta }_k\in {\bigwedge }^{p-1}M$ such that $\omega ={\sum }_{i=1}^k{\eta }_i\wedge {\omega }_i$. This is a generalization of a lemma on the division of forms due to de Rham (Comment. Math. Helv., 28 (1954)) and has some applications to the study of singularities.

Consider the difference equation $$\Delta x\left(n\right)+\sum _{i=1}^m{p}_i\left(n\right)x\left({\tau }_i\left(n\right)\right)=0,n\ge 0\left[\nabla x\left(n\right)-\sum _{i=1}^m{p}_i\left(n\right)x\left({\sigma }_i\left(n\right)\right)=0,n\ge 1\right],$$ where $\left(p_i\left(n\right)\right)$, $1\le i\le m$ are sequences of nonnegative real numbers, ${\tau }_i\left(n\right)$ [${\sigma }_i\left(n\right)$], $1\le i\le m$ are general retarded (advanced) arguments and $\Delta$ [$\nabla$] denotes the forward (backward) difference operator $\Delta x\left(n\right)=x(n+1)-x\left(n\right)$ [$\nabla x\left(n\right)=x\left(n\right)-x(n-1)$]. New oscillation criteria are established when the well-known oscillation conditions $$\underset{n\to \infty }{lim\; sup}\sum _{i=1}^m\sum _{j=\tau \left(n\right)}^n{p}_i\left(j\right)>1\left[\underset{n\to \infty }{lim\; sup}\sum _{i=1}^m\sum _{j=n}^{\sigma \left(n\right)}{p}_i\left(j\right)>1\right]$$ and $$\underset{n\to \infty }{lim\; inf}\sum _{i=1}^m\sum _{j={\tau }_i\left(n\right)}^{n-1}{p}_i\left(j\right)>\frac{1}{\mathrm{e}}\left[\underset{n\to \infty }{lim\; inf}\sum _{i=1}^m\sum _{j=n+1}^{{\sigma }_i\left(n\right)}{p}_i\left(j\right)>\frac{1}{\mathrm{e}}\right]$$ are not satisfied. Here $\tau \left(n\right)={max}_{1\le i\le m}{\tau }_i\left(n\right)$ $[\sigma \left(n\right)={min}_{1\le i\le m}{\sigma }_i\left(n\right)]$. The results obtained essentially improve known results in the literature. Examples illustrating the results are also given.