The theory of rings of quotients has its origin in the work of (j). Ore and K. Asano on the construction of the total ring of fractions, in the 1930's and 40's. But the subject did not really develop until the end of the 1950's, when a number of important papers appeared (by R. E. Johnson, Y. Utumi, A. W. Goldie, P. Gabriel, J. Lambek, and others). Since then the progress has been rapid, and the subject has by now attained a stage of maturity, where it is possible to make a systematic account of it (which is the purpose of this book). The most immediate example of a ring of quotients is the field of fractions Q of a commutative integral domain A. It may be characterized by the two properties: (i) For every qEQ there exists a non-zero SEA such that qSEA. (ii) Q is the maximal over-ring of A satisfying condition (i). The well-known construction of Q can be immediately extended to the case when A is an arbitrary commutative ring and S is a multiplicatively closed set of non-zero-divisors of A. In that case one defines the ring of fractions Q = A [S-l] as consisting of pairs (a, s) with aEA and SES, with the declaration that (a, s)=(b, t) if there exists UES such that uta = usb. The resulting ring Q satisfies (i), with the extra requirement that SES, and (ii).

Designed as a text as well as a treatise, the first systematic account of the theory of rings of continuous functions remains the basic graduate-level book in this area. 1960 edition.

Ideal for graduate students and researchers, this book presents a unified treatment of the central notions of integral closure.

This book contains papers on algebra, functional analysis, and general topology, with a strong interaction with set theoretic axioms and involvement with category theory, presented in the special session on Rings of Continuous Functions held in 1982 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Each undergraduate course of algebra begins with basic notions and results concerning groups, rings, modules and linear algebra. That is, it begins with simple notions and simple results. Our intention was to provide a collection of exercises which cover only the easy part of ring theory, what we have named the "Basics of Ring Theory". This seems to be the part each student or beginner in ring theory (or even algebra) should know - but surely trying to solve as many of these exercises as possible independently. As difficult (or impossible) as this may seem, we have made every effort to avoid modules, lattices and field extensions in this collection and to remain in the ring area as much as possible. A brief look at the bibliography obviously shows that we don't claim much originality (one could name this the folklore of ring theory) for the statements of the exercises we have chosen (but this was a difficult task: indeed, the 28 titles contain approximatively 15.000 problems and our collection contains only 346). The real value of our book is the part which contains all the solutions of these exercises. We have tried to draw up these solutions as detailed as possible, so that each beginner can progress without skilled help. The book is divided in two parts each consisting of seventeen chapters, the first part containing the exercises and the second part the solutions.

This new book can be read independently from the first volume and may be used for lecturing, seminar- and self-study, or for general reference. It focuses more on specific topics in order to introduce readers to a wealth of basic and useful ideas without the hindrance of heavy machinery or undue abstractions. User-friendly with its abundance of examples illustrating the theory at virtually every step, the volume contains a large number of carefully chosen exercises to provide newcomers with practice, while offering a rich additional source of information to experts. A direct approach is used in order to present the material in an efficient and economic way, thereby introducing readers to a considerable amount of interesting ring theory without being dragged through endless preparatory material.

Based in large part on the comprehensive "First Course in Ring Theory" by the same author, this book provides a comprehensive set of problems and solutions in ring theory that will serve not only as a teaching aid to instructors using that book, but also for students, who will see how ring theory theorems are applied to solving ring-theoretic problems and how good proofs are written. The author demonstrates that problem-solving is a lively process: in "Comments" following many solutions he discusses what happens if a hypothesis is removed, whether the exercise can be further generalized, what would be a concrete example for the exercise, and so forth. The book is thus much more than a solution manual.