Positive definiteness is determined for a wide class of functions relevant in the study of operator means and their norm comparisons. Then, this information is used to obtain an abundance of new sharp (unitarily) norm inequalities comparing various operator means and sometimes other related operators.

Just as groups can have representations on vector spaces, 2-groups have representations on 2-vector spaces, but Lie 2-groups typically have few representations on the finite-dimensional 2-vector spaces introduced by Kapranov and Voevodsky. Therefore, Crane, Sheppeard, and Yetter introduced certain infinite-dimensional 2-vector spaces, called measurable categories, to study infinite-dimensional representations of certain Lie 2-groups, and German and North American mathematicians continue that work here. After introductory matters, they cover representations of 2-groups, and measurable categories, representations on measurable categories. There is no index. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

In an earlier paper, Aaron D. Lauda constructed a categorification of the Beilinson-Lusztig-MacPherson form of the quantum sl(2); here he, Khovanov, Marco Mackaay, and Marko Stosic enhance the graphical calculus he introduced to include two-morphisms between divided powers one-morphisms and their compositions. They obtain explicit diagrammatical formulas for the decomposition of products of divided powers one-morphisms as direct sums of indecomposable one-morphisms, which are in a bijection with the Lusztig canonical basis elements. Their results show that one of Lauda's main results holds when the 2-category is defined over the ring of integers rather than over a field. The study is not indexed. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Heintze and Gross discuss isomorphisms between smooth loop algebras and of smooth affine Kac-Moody algebras in particular, and automorphisms of the first and second kinds of finite order. Then they consider involutions of the first and second kind, and make the algebraic case. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

In this paper, valuation theory is used to analyse infinitesimal behaviour of solutions of linear differential equations. For any Picard-Vessiot extension $(F / K, \partial)$ with differential Galois group $G$, the author looks at the valuations of $F$ which are left invariant by $G$. The main reason for this is the following: If a given invariant valuation $\nu$ measures infinitesimal behaviour of functions belonging to $F$, then two conjugate elements of $F$ will share the same infinitesimal behaviour with respect to $\nu$. This memoir is divided into seven sections.

In this paper, the author studies all the elliptic integrable systems, in the sense of C, that is to say, the family of all the $m$-th elliptic integrable systems associated to a $k^\prime$-symmetric space $N=G/G_0$. The author describes the geometry behind this family of integrable systems for which we know how to construct (at least locally) all the solutions. The introduction gives an overview of all the main results, as well as some related subjects and works, and some additional motivations.