Let U, V be two symmetric convex bodies in ${ℝ}^n$ and |U|, |V| their n-dimensional volumes. It is proved that there exist vectors $u_1,...,u_n\in U$ such that, for each choice of signs ${\epsilon }_1,...,{\epsilon }_n=\pm 1$, one has ${\epsilon }_1{u}_1+...+{\epsilon }_n{u}_n\notin rV$ where $r={\left(2\pi e^2\right)}^{-1/2}{n}^{1/2}\left(\right|U|/{\left|V\right|)}^{1/n}$. Hence it is deduced that if a metrizable locally convex space is not nuclear, then it contains a null sequence $\left(u_n\right)$ such that the series ${\sum }_{n=1}^{\infty }{\epsilon }_n{u}_{\pi \left(n\right)}$ is divergent for any choice of signs ${\epsilon }_n=\pm 1$ and any permutation π of indices.

Let F be a complemented subspace of a nuclear Fréchet space E. If E and F both have (absolute) bases $\left(e_n\right)$ resp. $\left(f_n\right)$, then Bessaga conjectured (see [2] and for a more general form, also [8]) that there exists an isomorphism of F into E mapping $f_n$ to $t_n{e}_{\pi \left(k_n\right)}$ where $\left(t_n\right)$ is a scalar sequence, π is a permutation of ℕ and $\left(k_n\right)$ is a subsequence of ℕ. We prove that the conjecture holds if E is unstable, i.e. for some base of decreasing zero-neighborhoods $\left(U_n\right)$ consisting of absolutely convex sets one has ∃s ∀p ∃q ∀r $li{m}_n\left(d_{n+1}(U_q,U_p)\right)/\left(d_n(U_r,U_s)\right)=0$ where...

We characterize Köthe echelon spaces (and, more generally, those Fréchet spaces with an unconditional basis) which are Schwartz, in terms of the convergence of the Cesàro means of power bounded operators defined on them. This complements similar known characterizations of reflexive and of Fréchet-Montel spaces with a basis. Every strongly convergent sequence of continuous linear operators on a Fréchet-Schwartz space does so in a special way. We single out this type of "rapid convergence" for a sequence...

This paper is an extended version of an invited talk presented during the Orlicz Centenary Conference (Poznań, 2003). It contains a brief survey of applications to classical problems of analysis of the theory of the so-called PLS-spaces (in particular, spaces of distributions and real analytic functions). Sequential representations of the spaces and the theory of the functor Proj¹ are applied to questions like solvability of linear partial differential equations, existence of a solution depending...