For Immediate Release

Contact: Carolyn Vivaldi
Phone Number:  (215) 596-8855
Date: 11/30/05

USP Professor’s Work Rated Among TOP25 Hottest Articles

Lia Vas article ranked 16th most downloaded for Journal of Algebra on ScienceDirect

The ScienceDirect TOP25 Hottest Articles for the Journal of Algebra included an article by Lia Vas, PhD, assistant professor of mathematics at University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (USP). The quarterly list of the 25 most downloaded articles, with a link to the article abstract, is posted on ScienceDirect’s website at
http://top25.sciencedirect.com/?journal_id=00218693. Vas’s article, “Dimension and torsion theories for a class of Baer *-rings,” was published in the Journal of Algebra’s July 2005 issue.

Dr. Vas, who has been at USP for three years, says that the article generalizes the notion of dimension of a finite von Neumann algebra to a larger class of purely algebraic objects. Von Neumann algebras are used in functional analysis, geometry and topology as well as in theoretical physics. The result of the paper is interesting since the dimension of a von Neumann algebra is defined using its geometric and topological structure that the purely algebraic objects are lacking. The research of Dr. Vas shows that the dimension can be defined for this class of algebraic objects as well.

Science Direct is the fruition of a project taken on by Elsevier, the publisher of more than 2,000 scientific and health care journals, and eight universities to create a digital library. The website’s database contains the full text of more than 25 percent of the world’s scientific, technological, and medical literature in an easy-to-access format. Subscribers receive access to material even before it appears in the print journal.

University of the Sciences in Philadelphia is a private, coeducational institution founded in 1821 as Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, the first college of pharmacy in North America. Comprising four colleges across a broad range of majors, USP specializes in educating students for rewarding careers through its undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degree programs in the health and related sciences.

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