It is well known that a commutative ring R is complemented (that is, given a ∈ R there exists b ∈ R such that ab = 0 and a + b is a regular element) if and only if the total ring of quotients of R is von Neumann regular. We consider generalizations of the notion of a complemented ring and their implications for the total ring of quotients. We then look at the specific case when the ring is a ring of continuous real-valued functions on a topological space.
Knox et al. (Sun,) studied this question.