We show that a compact operator A is a multiple of a positive semi-definite operator if and only if (A B) W (A) W (B), for all (rank one) operators B. An example of a normal operator is given to show that the equivalence conditions may fail in general. We then obtain conditions to identify other classes of operators A so that equivalence conditions hold.

Let A be an operator ideal on LCSs. A continuous seminorm p of a LCS X is said to be Acontinuous if Qp Ainj (X, Xp), where Xp is the completion of the normed space Xp= X/p 1 (0) and Qp is the canonical map. p is said to be a Groth (A)seminorm if there is a continuous seminorm q of X such that p q and the canonical map Qpq: Xq Xp belongs to A (Xq, Xp). It is well-known that when A is the ideal of absolutely summing (resp. precompact, weakly compact) operators, a LCS X is a nuclear (resp. Schwartz, infraSchwartz) space if and only if every continuous seminorm p of X is Acontinuous if and only if every continuous seminorm p of X is a Groth (A)seminorm. In this paper, we extend this equivalence to arbitrary operator ideals A and discuss several aspects of these constructions which are initiated by A. Grothendieck and D. Randkte, respectively. A bornological version of the theory is obtained, too.

For a linear isometry T: C 0 (X) C 0 (Y) of finite corank, there is a cofinite subset Y 1 of Y such that Tf| Y 1= h f is a weighted composition operator and X is homeomorphic to a quotient space of Y 1 modulo a finite subset. When X= Y, such a T is called an isometric quasi-n-shift on C 0 (X). In this case, the action of T can be implemented as a shift on a tree-like structure, called a T-tree, in M (X) with exactly n joints. The T-tree is total in M (X) when T is a shift. With these tools, we can analyze the structure of T.

We study the control systems governed by abstract Volterra equations without uniqueness in a Banach space. By using the technique of the theory of condensing maps and multivalued analysis tools, we obtain the existence result, investigate the topological structure of the solution set, and prove the invariance of a reachability set of the control system under nonlinear perturbations. Examples concerning fractional order differential equations and first order evolution equations with multiple delays are proposed to demonstrate the applications to approximate controllability results.

Let X be a compact Hausdorff space and C(X) the space of continuous functions defined on X. There are three versions of the Banach-Stone theorem. They assert that the Banach space geometry, the ring structure, and the lattice structure of C(X) determine the topological structure of X, respectively. In particular, the lattice version states that every disjointness preserving linear bijection T from C(X) onto C(Y) is a weighted composition operator Tf = h . f which provides a homeomorphism from Y onto X. In this note, we manage to use basically algebraic arguments to give this lattice version a short new proof. In this way, all three versions of the Banach-Stone theorem are unified in an algebraic framework such that different isomorphisms preserve different ideal structures of C(X).