A ring extension $R\subseteq S$ is said to be FO if it has only finitely many intermediate rings. $R\subseteq S$ is said to be FC if each chain of distinct intermediate rings in this extension is finite. We establish several necessary and sufficient conditions for the ring extension $R\subseteq S$ to be FO or FC together with several other finiteness conditions on the set of intermediate rings. As a corollary we show that each integrally closed ring extension with finite length chains of intermediate rings is necessarily a normal pair with only finitely many intermediate rings. We also obtain as a corollary several new and old characterizations of Prüfer and integral domains satisfying the corresponding finiteness conditions.
Using the concept of the λ-lattice introduced recently by V. Snášel we define λ-lattices with antitone involutions. For them we establish a correspondence to ring-like structures similarly as it was done for ortholattices and pseudorings, for Boolean algebras and Boolean rings or for lattices with an antitone involution and the so-called Boolean quasirings.
We show that the rings of constants of generic four-variable Lotka-Volterra derivations are finitely generated polynomial rings. We explicitly determine these rings, and we give a description of all polynomial first integrals of their corresponding systems of differential equations. Besides, we characterize cofactors of Darboux polynomials of arbitrary four-variable Lotka-Volterra systems. These cofactors are linear forms with coefficients in the set of nonnegative integers. Lotka-Volterra systems have various applications in such branches of science as population biology and plasma physics, among many others.
The ring $B(R)$ of all real-valued measurable functions, carrying the pointwise convergence, is a sequential ring completion of the subring $C(R)$ of all continuous functions and, similarly, the ring $\mathbb{B}$ of all Borel measurable subsets of $R$ is a sequential ring completion of the subring $\mathbb{B}_0$ of all finite unions of half-open intervals; the two completions are not categorical. We study $\mathcal L_0^*$-rings of maps and develop a completion theory covering the two examples. In particular, the $\sigma $-fields of sets form an epireflective subcategory of the category of fields of sets and, for each field of sets $\mathbb{A}$, the generated $\sigma $-field $\sigma (\mathbb{A})$ yields its epireflection. Via zero-rings the theory can be applied to completions of special commutative $\mathcal L_0^*$-groups.