All rings considered in this paper are assumed to be commutative with identities. A ring $R$ is a $Q$-ring if every ideal of $R$ is a finite product of primary ideals. An almost $Q$-ring is a ring whose localization at every prime ideal is a $Q$-ring. In this paper, we first prove that the statements, $R$ is an almost $ZPI$-ring and $R\left[x\right]$ is an almost $Q$-ring are equivalent for any ring $R$. Then we prove that under the condition that every prime ideal of $R\left(x\right)$ is an extension of a prime ideal of $R$, the ring $R$...

Let $R$ be a prime ring, $I$ a nonzero ideal of $R$, $d$ a derivation of $R$ and $m,n$ fixed positive integers. (i) If ${\left(d[x,y]\right)}^m={[x,y]}_n$ for all $x,y\in I$, then $R$ is commutative. (ii) If $\mathrm{Char}R\ne 2$ and ${[d\left(x\right),d\left(y\right)]}_m={[x,y]}^n$ for all $x,y\in I$, then $R$ is commutative. Moreover, we also examine the case when $R$ is a semiprime ring.

Let $R$ be a prime ring of char $R\ne 2$ with a nonzero derivation $d$ and let $U$ be its noncentral Lie ideal. If for some fixed integers $n_1\ge 0,n_2\ge 0,n_3\ge 0$, ${\left(u^{n_1}[d\left(u\right),u]u^{n_2}\right)}^{n_3}\in Z\left(R\right)$ for all $u\in U$, then $R$ satisfies $S_4$, the standard identity in four variables.