Nagy - Böcker

The annual Operator Theory conferences in Timigoara are conceived as a means to promote cooperation and exchange of in­ formation between specialists in all areas of Operator Theory. The present volume consist of papers contributed by the partici­ pants of the 1981 Conference. Since many of these papers contain results on the invariant subspace problem or are related to the role of invariant subspaces in the study of operators or operator systems, we thought it appropiate to mention this in the title of the volume, though the "other topics" have a wide range. As in past years, special sessions concerning other fields of Functio­ nal Analysis were organized at the 1981 Conference, but contri­ butions to these sessions are not included in the present volume. The research contracts of the Department of Mathematics of INCREST with the National Council for Sciences and Technology of Romaliia provided the means for developping the research activity in Functional Analysis; these contracts constitute the generous framework for these meetings. We want also to acknowledge the support of INCREST and the excelent organizing job done by our host - University of Timigoa­ ra-. Professor Dumitru Gagpar and Professor Mircea Reghig are among those people in Timigoara who contributed in an essential way to the success of the meeting.

These proceedings contain the lectures presented at the Conference on Linear Operators and Approximation held at the Oberwolfach Mathematical Research In­ stitute, August 14-22, 1971. There were thirty-eight such lectures while four addi­ tional papers, subsequently submitted in writing, are also included in this volume. Two of the three lectures presented by Russian mathematicians are rendered in English, the third in Russian. Furthermore, there is areport on new and unsolved problems based upon special problem sessions, with later communications from the participants. In fact, two of the papers inc1uded are devoted to solutions of some of the problems posed. The papers have been classified according to subject matter into five chapters, but it needs little emphasis that such thematic groupings are necessarily somewhat arbitrary. Thus Chapter I on Operator Theory is concerned with linear and non­ linear semi-groups, structure of single operators, unitary operators, spectral and ergodic theory. Chapter Il on Topics in Functional Analysis inc1udes papers on Riesz spaces, boundedness theorems, generalized limits, and distributions. Chapter III, entitled "Approximation in Abstract Spaces", ranges from characterizations of c1asses of functions in approximation theory to approximation-theoretical topics connected with extensions to Banach (or more general) spaces. Chapter IV contains papers on harmonic analysis in connection with approximation and, finally, Chapter V is devoted to approximation by splines, algebraic polynomials, rational functions, and to Pade approximation. A large part of the general editorial work connected with these proceedings was competently handled by Miss F. Feber, while G.