We show that for $\mathrm {C}^*$-algebras with the global Glimm property, the rank of every operator can be realized as the rank of a soft operator, that is, an element whose hereditary sub-$\mathrm {C}^*$-algebra has no nonzero, unital quotients. This implies that the radius of comparison of such a $\mathrm {C}^*$-algebra is determined by the soft part of its Cuntz semigroup.

Under a mild additional assumption, we show that every Cuntz class dominates a (unique) largest soft Cuntz class. This defines a retract from the Cuntz semigroup onto its soft part, and it follows that the covering dimensions of these semigroups differ by at most $1$.

We establish the first global results for groups definable in tame expansions of o-minimal structures. Let ${\mathcal{N}}$ be an expansion of an o-minimal structure ${\mathcal{M}}$ that admits a good dimension theory. The setting includes dense pairs of o-minimal structures, expansions of ${\mathcal{M}}$ by a Mann group, or by a subgroup of an elliptic curve, or a dense independent set. We prove: (1) a Weil’s group chunk theorem that guarantees a definable group with an o-minimal group chunk is o-minimal, (2) a full characterization of those definable groups that are o-minimal as those groups that have maximal dimension; namely, their dimension equals the dimension of their topological closure, (3) as an application, if ${\mathcal{N}}$ expands ${\mathcal{M}}$ by a dense independent set, then every definable group is o-minimal.

In this paper, the dimension function of a self-affine generalized scaling set associated with an $n\,\times \,n$ integral expansive dilation $A$ is studied. More specifically, we consider the dimension function of an $A$-dilation generalized scaling set $K$ assuming that $K$ is a self-affine tile satisfying $BK\,=\,\left( K\,+\,{{d}_{1}} \right)\,\cup \,\left( K\,+\,{{d}_{2}} \right)$, where $B\,=\,{{A}^{t}},\,A$ is an $n\,\times \,n$ integral expansive matrix with $\left| \det \,A \right|\,=\,2$, and ${{d}_{1}},\,{{d}_{2}}\,\in \,{{\mathbb{R}}^{n}}$. We show that the dimension function of $K$ must be constant if either $n\,=1$ or 2 or one of the digits is 0, and that it is bounded by $2\left| K \right|$ for any $n$.

We introduce the fundamental group $\mathcal{F}\left( A \right)$ of a simple $\sigma $-unital ${{C}^{*}}$–algebra $A$ with unique (up to scalar multiple) densely defined lower semicontinuous trace. This is a generalization of Fundamental Group of Simple${{C}^{*}}$-algebras with Unique Trace I and II by Nawata and Watatani. Our definition in this paper makes sense for stably projectionless ${{C}^{*}}$-algebras. We show that there exist separable stably projectionless ${{C}^{*}}$-algebras such that their fundamental groups are equal to $\mathbb{R}_{+}^{\times }$ by using the classification theorem of Razak and Tsang. This is a contrast to the unital case in Nawata and Watatani. This study is motivated by the work of Kishimoto and Kumjian.