For a finite abelian group G and a splitting field K of G, let (G,K) denote the largest integer l ∈ ℕ for which there is a sequence $S=g₁·...·g_l$ over G such that $(X^{g₁}-a₁)·...·(X^{g_l}-a_l)\ne 0\in K\left[G\right]$ for all $a₁,...,a_l\in K^{\times }$. If (G) denotes the Davenport constant of G, then there is the straightforward inequality (G) - 1 ≤ (G,K). Equality holds for a variety of groups, and a conjecture of W. Gao et al. states that equality holds for all groups. We offer further groups for which equality holds, but we also give the first examples of groups G for which (G) -...

A subset $S$ of a finite abelian group, written additively, is called zero-sumfree if the sum of the elements of each non-empty subset of $S$ is non-zero. We investigate the maximal cardinality of zero-sumfree sets, i.e., the (small) Olson constant. We determine the maximal cardinality of such sets for several new types of groups; in particular, $p$-groups with large rank relative to the exponent, including all groups with exponent at most five. These results are derived as consequences of more general...

The continuity of densities given by the weight functions $n^{\alpha }$, $\alpha \in [-1,\infty [$, with respect to the parameter $\alpha$ is investigated.