Paracompact subspaces in the box product topology

In 1975 E. K. van Douwen showed that if is a family of Hausdorff spaces such that all finite subproducts are paracompact, then for each element of the box product the -product is paracompact. He asked whether this result remains true if one considers uncountable families of spaces. In this paper we prove in particular the following result: Let be an infinite cardinal number, and let be a family of compact Hausdorff spaces. Let be a fixed point. Given a family of open subsets of which covers , there exists an open locally finite in refinement of which covers .

We also prove a slightly weaker version of this theorem for Hausdorff spaces with ``all finite subproducts are paracompact" property. As a corollary we get an affirmative answer to van Douwen's question.