The function ring functors of pointfree topology revisited

This paper establishes two new connections between the familiar function ring functor ${mathfrak R}$ on the category ${bf CRFrm}$ of completely regular frames and the category {bf CR}${mathbf sigma}${bf Frm} of completely regular $sigma$-frames as well as their counterparts for the analogous functor ${mathfrak Z}$ on the category {bf ODFrm} of 0-dimensional frames, given by the integer-valued functions, and for the related functors ${mathfrak R}^*$ and ${mathfrak Z}^*$ corresponding to the bounded functions.  Further it is shown that some familiar facts concerning these functors are simple consequences of the present results.