The problem of de Groot concerned compactifications of spaces by means of an adjunction of a set of minimal dimension. This minimal dimension was called the compactness deficiency of a space. Early success in 1942 lead de Groot to invent a generalization of the dimension function, called the compactness degree of a space, with the hope that this function would internally characterize the compactness deficiency which is a topological invariant of a space that is externally defined by means of compact extensions of a space. From this, the two extension problems were spawned.

With the classical dimension theory as a model, the inductive, covering and basic aspects of the dimension functions are investigated in this volume, resulting in extensions of the sum, subspace and decomposition theorems and theorems about mappings into spheres. Presented are examples, counterexamples, open problems and solutions of the original and modified compactification problems.  less