Let $$T\left(q\right)=\sum _{k=1}^{\infty }d\left(k\right)q^k,\left|q\right|<1,$$ where $d\left(k\right)$ denotes the number of positive divisors of the natural number $k$. We present monotonicity properties of functions defined in terms of $T$. More specifically, we prove that $$H\left(q\right)=T\left(q\right)-\frac{log(1-q)}{log\left(q\right)}$$ is strictly increasing on $(0,1)$, while $$F\left(q\right)=\frac{1-q}{q}H\left(q\right)$$ is strictly decreasing on $(0,1)$. These results are then applied to obtain various inequalities, one of which states that the double inequality $$\alpha \frac{q}{1-q}+\frac{log(1-q)}{log\left(q\right)}<T\left(q\right)<\beta \frac{q}{1-q}+\frac{log(1-q)}{log\left(q\right)},0<q<1,$$ holds with the best possible constant factors $\alpha =\gamma$ and $\beta =1$. Here, $\gamma$ denotes Euler’s constant. This refines a result of Salem, who proved the inequalities...

For positive integers $n$, Euler’s phi function and Dedekind’s psi function are given by $$\phi \left(n\right)=n\prod _{\begin{array}{c}p\mid n\\ p\mathrm{prime}\end{array}}\left(1-\frac{1}{p}\right)\text{and}\psi \left(n\right)=n\prod _{\begin{array}{c}p\mid n\\ p\mathrm{prime}\end{array}}\left(1+\frac{1}{p}\right),$$ respectively. We prove that for all $n\ge 2$ we have $${\left(1-\frac{1}{n}\right)}^{n-1}{\left(1+\frac{1}{n}\right)}^{n+1}\le {\left(\frac{\phi \left(n\right)}{n}\right)}^{\phi \left(n\right)}{\left(\frac{\psi \left(n\right)}{n}\right)}^{\psi \left(n\right)}$$ and $${\left(\frac{\phi \left(n\right)}{n}\right)}^{\psi \left(n\right)}{\left(\frac{\psi \left(n\right)}{n}\right)}^{\phi \left(n\right)}\le {\left(1-\frac{1}{n}\right)}^{n+1}{\left(1+\frac{1}{n}\right)}^{n-1}.$$ The sign of equality holds if and only if $n$ is a prime. The first inequality refines results due to Atanassov (2011) and Kannan & Srikanth (2013).

For any positive integer $n$ let ϕ(n) be the Euler function of n. A positive integer $n$ is called a noncototient if the equation x-ϕ(x)=n has no solution x. In this note, we give a sufficient condition on a positive integer k such that the geometrical progression ${\left(2^{m}k\right)}_{m\ge 1}$ consists entirely of noncototients. We then use computations to detect seven such positive integers k.

In this note, we construct some integer matrices with determinant equal to certain summation form of Liouville's function. Hence, it offers a possible alternative way to explore the Prime Number Theorem by means of inequalities related to matrices, provided a better estimate on the relation between the determinant of a matrix and other information such as its eigenvalues is known. Besides, we also provide some comparisons on the estimate of the lower bound of the smallest singular value. Such discussion...