Abstract
The notion of a U-module was introduced and thoroughly investigated in [
11
] as a strict and simultaneous generalization of quasi-continuous, square-free and automorphism-invariant modules. In this paper a right R-module M is called a U*-module if every submodule of M is a U-module, and a ring R is called a right U*-ring if R
R
is a U*-module. We show that M is a U*-module iff whenever A and B are submodules of M with A≅B and A∩B = 0, A⊕B is a semisimple summand of M; equivalently M = X⊕Y, where X is semisimple, Y is square-free, and X & Y are orthogonal. In particular, a ring R is a right U*-ring iff R is a direct product of a square-full semisimple artinian ring and a right square-free ring. Moreover, right U*-rings are shown to be directly-finite, and if the ring is also an exchange ring then it satisfies the substitution property, has stable-range 1, and hence is stably-finite. These results are non-trivial extensions of similar ones on rings all of whose right ideals are either quasi-continuous or auto-invariant.