A functional characterization of measures and the Banach-Ulam problem

For a measurable space (Ω,A), let ?_∞(A) be the closure of span{χA:A∈A} in ?_∞(Ω). In this paper we show that a sufficient and necessary condition for a real-valued finitely additive measure μ on (Ω,A) to be countably additive is that the corresponding functional ?μ defined by (for x∈?_∞(A)) is w^*-sequentially continuous. With help of the Yosida-Hewitt decomposition theorem of finitely additive measures, we show consequently that every continuous functional on ?_∞(A) can be uniquely decomposed into the ?₁-sum of a w^*-continuous functional, a purely w^*-sequentially continuous functional and a purely (strongly) continuous functional. Moreover, several applications of the results to measure extension are given.