During the last twenty-five years, the development of the theory of Banach lattices has stimulated new directions of research in the theory of positive operators and the theory of semigroups of positive operators. In particular, the recent investigations in the structure of the lattice ordered (Banach) algebra of the order bounded operators of a Banach lattice have led to many important results in the spectral theory of positive operators. The contributions contained in this volume were presented as lectures at a conference organized by the Caribbean Mathematics Foundation, and provide an overview of the present state of development of various areas of the theory of positive operators and their spectral properties. This book will be of interest to analysts whose work involves positive matrices and positive operators.

This volume is dedicated to A.C. Zaanen, one of the pioneers of functional analysis, and eminent expert in modern integration theory and the theory of vector lattices, on the occasion of his 80th birthday. The book opens with biographical notes, including Zaanen's curriculum vitae and list of publications. It contains a selection of original research papers which cover a broad spectrum of topics about operators and semigroups of operators on Banach lattices, analysis in function spaces and integration theory. Special attention is paid to the spectral theory of operators on Banach lattices; in particular, to the one of positive operators. Classes of integral operators arising in systems theory, optimization and best approximation problems, and evolution equations are also discussed. The book will appeal to a wide range of readers engaged in pure and applied mathematics.

During the last twenty-five years, the development of the theory of Banach lattices has stimulated new directions of research in the theory of positive operators and the theory of semigroups of positive operators. In particular, the recent investigations in the structure of the lattice ordered (Banach) algebra of the order bounded operators of a Banach lattice have led to many important results in the spectral theory of positive operators. The contributions contained in this volume were presented as lectures at a conference organized by the Caribbean Mathematics Foundation, and provide an overview of the present state of development of various areas of the theory of positive operators and their spectral properties. This book will be of interest to analysts whose work involves positive matrices and positive operators.