In this paper we determine the Hausdorff measure of noncompactness on the sequence space $n(\phi)$ of W. L. C. Sargent. Further we apply the technique of measures of noncompactness to the theory of infinite systems of differential equations in the Banach sequence spaces $n(\phi)$ and $m(\phi)$. Our aim is to present some existence results for infinite systems of differential equations formulated with the help of measures of noncompactness.

The notion of a maximally conditional sequence is introduced for sequences in a Banach space. It is then proved using Ramsey theory that every basic sequence in a Banach space has a subsequence which is either an unconditional basic sequence or a maximally conditional sequence. An apparently novel, purely combinatorial lemma in the spirit of Galvin's theorem is used in the proof. An alternative proof of the dichotomy result for sequences in Banach spaces is also sketched, using the Galvin-Prikry theorem.

Let $B_Y$ denote the unit ball of a normed linear space $Y$. A symmetric, bounded, closed, convex set $A$ in a finite dimensional normed linear space $X$ is called a sufficient enlargement for $X$ if, for an arbitrary isometric embedding of $X$ into a Banach space $Y$, there exists a linear projection $P\colon Y\to X$ such that $P(B_Y)\subset A$. Each finite dimensional normed space has a minimal-volume sufficient enlargement that is a parallelepiped; some spaces have ``exotic'' minimal-volume sufficient enlargements. The main result of the paper is a characterization of spaces having ``exotic'' minimal-volume sufficient enlargements in terms of Auerbach bases.

Classical results of Kalton and techniques of Feder are used to study the complementation of the space $W(X, Y)$ of weakly compact operators and the space $K(X,Y)$ of compact operators in the space $L(X,Y)$ of all bounded linear maps from X to Y.

We consider some geometric properties of eigenvectors of linear operators on infinite dimensional Hilbert space. It is proved that the property of a family of vectors $(x_n)$ to be eigenvectors $Tx_n= \lambda_n x_n$ ($\lambda_n \noteq \lambda_k$ for $n\noteq k$) of a bounded operator $T$ (admissibility property) is very instable with respect to additive and linear perturbations. For instance, (1)~for the sequence $(x_n+\epsilon_n v_n)_{n\geq k(\epsilon)}$ to be admissible for every admissible $(x_n)$ and for a suitable choice of small numbers $\epsilon_n\noteq 0$ it is necessary and sufficient that the perturbation sequence be eventually scalar: there exist $\gamma_n\in \C$ such that $v_n= \gamma_n v_{k}$ for $n\geq k$ (Theorem~2); (2)~for a bounded operator $A$ to transform admissible families $(x_n)$ into admissible families $(Ax_n)$ it is necessary and sufficient that $A$ be left invertible (Theorem~4).