A new decomposition, the \emph{mutually aposyndetic decomposition} of homogeneous continua into closed, homogeneous sets is introduced. This decomposition is respected by homeomorphisms and topologically unique. Its quotient is a mutually aposyndetic homogeneous continuum, and in all known examples, as well as in some general cases, the members of the decomposition are semi-indecomposable continua. As applications, we show that hereditarily decomposable homogeneous continua and path connected homogeneous continua are mutually aposyndetic. A class of new examples of homogeneous continua is defined. The mutually aposyndetic decomposition of each of these continua is non-trivial and different from Jones' aposyndetic decomposition.

Let $\mathcal H$ be a complex separable Hilbert space and ${\mathcal L}({\mathcal H})$ denote the collection of bounded linear operators on ${\mathcal H}$. In this paper, we show that for any operator $A\in{\mathcal L}({\mathcal H})$, there exists a stably finitely (SI) decomposable operator $A_\epsilon$, such that $\|A-A_{\epsilon}\|<\epsilon$ and ${\mathcal{\mathcal A}'(A_{\epsilon})}/\operatorname{rad} {{\mathcal A}'(A_{\epsilon})}$ is commutative, where $\operatorname{rad}{{\mathcal A}'(A_{\epsilon})}$ is the Jacobson radical of ${{\mathcal A}'(A_{\epsilon})}$. Moreover, we give a similarity classification of the stably finitely decomposable operators that generalizes the result on similarity classification of Cowen-Douglas operators given by C. L. Jiang.

Selick and Wu gave a functorial decomposition of $\Omega\Sigma X$ for path-connected, $p$-local \linebreak$\CW$\nbd-com\-plexes $X$ which obtained the smallest nontrivial functorial retract $A^{\min}(X)$ of $\Omega\Sigma X$. This paper uses methods developed by the second author in order to extend such functorial decompositions to the loops on coassociative co-$H$ spaces.

In this paper, we consider the set $\mathcal{S} = a(e^X K e^Y)$ where $a(g)$ is the abelian part in the Cartan decomposition of $g$. This is exactly the support of the measure intervening in the product formula for the spherical functions on symmetric spaces of noncompact type. We give a simple description of that support in the case of $\SL(3,\mathbf{F})$ where $\mathbf{F} = \mathbf{R}$, $\mathbf{C}$ or $\mathbf{H}$. In particular, we show that $\mathcal{S}$ is convex. We also give an application of our result to the description of singular values of a product of two arbitrary matrices with prescribed singular values.

Our objective in this sequel to \cite{MSp96a} is to develop extensions, to representations of tensor algebras over $C^{*}$-correspondences, of two fundamental facts about isometries on Hilbert space: The Wold decomposition theorem and Beurling's theorem, and to apply these to the analysis of the invariant subspace structure of certain subalgebras of Cuntz-Krieger algebras.

We study the coordinate rings~$k[\Cmubar\cap\hbox{\Frakvii t}]$ of scheme-theoretic intersections of nilpotent orbit closures with the diagonal matrices. Here $\mu'$ gives the Jordan block structure of the nilpotent matrix. de Concini and Procesi~\cite{deConcini&Procesi} proved a conjecture of Kraft~\cite{Kraft} that these rings are isomorphic to the cohomology rings of the varieties constructed by Springer~\cite{Springer76,Springer78}. The famous $q$-Kostka polynomial~$\Klmt(q)$ is the Hilbert series for the multiplicity of the irreducible symmetric group representation indexed by~$\lambda$ in the ring $k[\Cmubar\cap\hbox{\Frakvii t}]$. \LS~\cite{L&S:Plaxique,Lascoux} gave combinatorially a decomposition of~$\Klmt(q)$ as a sum of ``atomic'' polynomials with non-negative integer coefficients, and Lascoux proposed a corresponding decomposition in the cohomology model. Our work provides a geometric interpretation of the atomic decomposition. The Frobenius-splitting results of Mehta and van der Kallen~\cite{Mehta&vanderKallen} imply a direct-sum decomposition of the ideals of nilpotent orbit closures, arising from the inclusions of the corresponding sets. We carry out the restriction to the diagonal using a recent theorem of Broer~\cite{Broer}. This gives a direct-sum decomposition of the ideals yielding the $k[\Cmubar\cap \hbox{\Frakvii t}]$, and a new proof of the atomic decomposition of the $q$-Kostka polynomials.