A complete characterization of valuation rings closed for a holomorphic derivation is given, following an idea of Seidenberg, in dimension $2$.

Let $R$ be a commutative ring with identity, and let $M$ be a unitary module over $R$. We call $M$ H-smaller (HS for short) if and only if $M$ is infinite and $|M/N|<|M|$ for every nonzero submodule $N$ of $M$. After a brief introduction, we show that there exist nontrivial examples of HS modules of arbitrarily large cardinality over Noetherian and non-Noetherian domains. We then prove the following result: suppose $M$ is faithful over $R$, $R$ is a domain (we will show that we can restrict to this case without loss of generality), and $K$ is the quotient field of $R$. If $M$ is HS over $R$, then $R$ is HS as a module over itself, $R\subseteq M\subseteq K$, and there exists a generating set $S$ for $M$ over $R$ with $|S|<|R|$. We use this result to generalize a problem posed by Kaplansky and conclude the paper by answering an open question on Jónsson modules.

Klep and Velu\v{s}\v{c}ek generalized the Krull--Baer theorem for higher level preorderings to the non-commutative setting. A $n$-real valuation $v$ on a skew field $D$ induces a group homomorphism $\overline{v}$. A section of $\overline{v}$ is a crucial ingredient of the construction of a complete preordering on the base field $D$ such that its projection on the residue skew field $k_v$ equals the given level $1$ ordering on $k_v$. In the article we give a proof of the existence of the section of $\overline{v}$, which was left as an open problem by Klep and Velu\v{s}\v{c}ek, and thus complete the generalization of the Krull--Baer theorem for preorderings.

We study natural $*$-valuations, $*$-places and graded $*$-rings associated with $*$-ordered rings. We prove that the natural $*$-valuation is always quasi-Ore and is even quasi-commutative (\emph{i.e.,} the corresponding graded $*$-ring is commutative), provided the ring contains an imaginary unit. Furthermore, it is proved that the graded $*$-ring is isomorphic to a twisted semigroup algebra. Our results are applied to answer a question of Cimpri\v c regarding $*$-orderability of quantum groups.