This thesis consists of four research papers. In the first paper we construct nonmetrizable compact convex sets with pathological sets of simpliciality, show- ing that the properties of the set of simpliciality known in the metrizable case do not hold without the assumption of metrizability. In the second paper we construct an example concerning remotal sets, answering thus a question of Martín and Rao, and present a new proof of the fact that in every infinite- dimensional Banach space there exists a closed convex bounded set which is not remotal. The third paper is a study of the relations between polynomials on Banach spaces and linear identities. We investigate under which conditions a linear identity is satisfied only by polynomials, and describe the space of poly- nomials satisfying such linear identity. In the last paper we study the coarse and uniform embeddability between Orlicz sequence spaces. We show that the embeddability between two Orlicz sequence spaces is in most cases determined only by the values of their upper Matuszewska-Orlicz indices. 1

This thesis consists of five research papers. The first paper: We prove that under certain conditions, the existence of an isomorphism between spaces of continuous affine functions on the compact convex sets imposes home- omorphism between the sets of its extreme points. The second: We investigate a transfer of descriptive properties of elements of biduals of Banach spaces con- strued as functions on dual unit balls. We also prove results on the relation of Baire classes and intrinsic Baire classes of L1-preduals. The third: We identify intrinsic Baire classes of X with the spaces of odd or homogeneous Baire functions on ext BX∗ , provided X is a separable real or complex L1-predual with the set of extreme points of its dual unit ball of type Fσ. We also provide an example of a separable C∗ -algebra such that the second and second intrinsic Baire class of its bidual differ. The fourth: We generalize some of the above mentioned results for real non-separable L1-preduals. The fifth: We compute the distance of a general mapping to the family of mappings of the first resolvable class via the quantity frag and we introduce and investigate a class of mappings of countable oscillation rank.