During the last twenty-five years, the development of the theory of Banach lattices has stimulated new directions of research in the theory of positive operators and the theory of semigroups of positive operators. In particular, the recent investigations in the structure of the lattice ordered (Banach) algebra of the order bounded operators of a Banach lattice have led to many important results in the spectral theory of positive operators. The contributions contained in this volume were presented as lectures at a conference organized by the Caribbean Mathematics Foundation, and provide an overview of the present state of development of various areas of the theory of positive operators and their spectral properties. This book will be of interest to analysts whose work involves positive matrices and positive operators.

This volume contains 22 articles on topics of current interest in functional analysis, operator theory and related areas. Some of the papers have connections with complex function theory in one and several variables, probability theory and mathematical physics.Surveys of some areas of recent progress in functional analysis are given and related new results are presented. The topics covered in this volume supplement the discussion of modern functional analysis in the previous Proceedings volumes. Together with the previous volumes, the reader obtains a good impression of many aspects of present-day functional analysis and its applications. Parts of this volume can be used profitably in advanced seminars and courses in functional analysis.

This book deals with the analysis of linear operators from a quasi-Banach function space into a Banach space. The central theme is to extend the operator to as large a (function) space as possible, its optimal domain, and to take advantage of this in analyzing the original operator. Most of the material appears in print for the first time. The book has an interdisciplinary character and is aimed at graduates, postgraduates, and researchers in modern operator theory.