Transversals for strongly almost disjoint families

For a family of sets , and a set , is said to be a transversal of if and for each . is said to be a Bernstein set for if for each . Erdos and Hajnal first studied when an almost disjoint family admits a set such as a transversal or Bernstein set. In this note we introduce the following notion: a family of sets is said to admit a -transversal if can be written as such that each admits a transversal. We study the question of when an almost disjoint family admits a -transversal and related questions.

     

A model with no strongly separable almost disjoint families

We answer a question of Shelah and Steprāns [6] by producing a model of ZFC where there are no strongly separable almost disjoint families. The notion of a strongly separable almost disjoint family is a natural variation on the well known notion of a completely separable almost disjoint family, and is closely related to the metrization problem for countable Fréchet groups.     

Conflict free colorings of nonuniform systems of infinite sets

If \(\mathcal{H}\) is a system of infinite sets, |A∩B|<r for \({A\ne B\in\mathcal{H}}\) (r<ω) then \(\mathcal{H}\) has a conflict free coloring with ω colors, i.e., a function \(F\colon {\bigcup\mathcal{H}\to\omega}\) so that each \(A\in\mathcal{H}\) has a color i<ω with |F ^?1(i)∩A|=1.     

Strongly almost disjoint functions

Two total functionsf, g fromω ₁ toω are called strongly almost disjoint if {α<ω ₁:f(α)=g(α)} is finite. We show that it is consistent with ZFC to have families of pairwise strongly almost disjoint functions of arbitrary prescribed size.     

Soft almost disjoint families

An almost disjoint family is said to be soft if there is an infinite set that meets each in a nonempty but finite set. We consider the associated cardinal invariant defined to be the minimal cardinality of an almost disjoint family that is not soft. We show that this cardinal coincides with J. Brendle's cardinal .

     

(a)-spaces and selectively (a)-spaces from almost disjoint families

We investigate a selective version of property (a) and prove a number of results showing that, under certain set theoretical conditions, (a) spaces and selectively (a) spaces behave in a very similar way, at least for separable spaces. Several results regarding the presence of the referred selective version in spaces from almost disjoint families are established; in particular, we give a combinatorial characterization of such presence. Consistent set theoretical hypotheses implying equivalence between being (a) and being selectively (a) within the referred class are presented, as well as hypotheses implying non-equivalence. We also show that the Continuum Hypothesis is independent of the statement asserting the above mentioned equivalence. The paper finishes by presenting some notes and questions on the role of set theoretical assumptions in the subject.     

Strongly almost disjoint sets and weakly uniform bases

A combinatorial principle CECA is formulated and its equivalence with GCH + certain weakenings of for singular is proved. CECA is used to show that certain ``almost point-' families can be refined to point- families by removing a small set from each member of the family. This theorem in turn is used to show the consistency of ``every first countable -space with a weakly uniform base has a point-countable base.'

     

Separability properties of almost — disjoint families of sets

We solve here some problems arising from a work by Hechler [3]. We eliminate extra set-theoretic axioms (MA, in fact) from existence theorems and deal with the existence of disjoint sets.     

Homogeneous almost primitive elements of free non-associative (anti-) commutative algebras

Criteria for homogeneous elements to be almost primitive are obtained in the paper for free non-associative commutative and anti-commutative algebras of any rank.     

On strongly almost trivial embeddings of graphs

We present four new classes of graphs, two of which every member has a strongly almost trivial embedding, and the other two of which every member has no strongly almost trivial embeddings. We show that the property that a graph has a strongly almost trivial embedding and the property that a graph has no strongly almost trivial embeddings are not inherited by minors. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory     

Mrówka maximal almost disjoint families for uncountable cardinals

We consider generalizations of a well-known class of spaces, called by S. Mrówka, N∪R, where R is an infinite maximal almost disjoint family (MADF) of countable subsets of the natural numbers N. We denote these generalizations by ψ=ψ(κ,R) for κ?ω. Mrówka proved the interesting theorem that there exists an R such that |βψ(ω,R)?ψ(ω,R)|=1. In other words there is a unique free z-ultrafilter p₀ on the space ψ. We extend this result of Mrówka to uncountable cardinals. We show that for κ?c, Mrówka's MADF R can be used to produce a MADF M⊂ω[κ] such that |βψ(κ,M)?ψ(κ,M)|=1. For κ>c, and every M⊂ω[κ], it is always the case that |βψ(κ,M)?ψ(κ,M)|≠1, yet there exists a special free z-ultrafilter p on ψ(κ,M) retaining some of the properties of p₀. In particular both p and p₀ have a clopen local base in βψ (although βψ(κ,M) need not be zero-dimensional). A result for κ>c, that does not apply to p₀, is that for certain κ>c, p is a P-point in βψ.     

On the difference spaces of almost convergent and strongly almost convergent double sequences

In this paper, we study the difference spaces \({\mathcal {F}}(\varDelta )\), \({\mathcal {F}}_0(\varDelta )\), \({\mathcal {[F]}}(\varDelta )\) and \({\mathcal {[F]}}_0(\varDelta )\) of double sequences obtained as the domain of four-dimensional backward difference matrix \(\varDelta \) in the spaces \({\mathcal {F}}\), \({\mathcal {F}}_{0}\), \({\mathcal {[F]}}\) and \({\mathcal {[F]}}_{0}\) of almost convergent, almost null, strongly almost convergent and strongly almost null double sequences; respectively. We examine general topological properties of those spaces and give some inclusion theorems. Furthermore, we deal with their dual spaces.

     

Planar graphs producing no strongly almost trivial embedding

We present here infinitely many planar graphs which have no strongly almost trivial embeddings. Then we conclude that “strongly almost trivial” is more strict concept than “almost trivial.”. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 43: 319–326, 2003