Linear operators that preserve spanning column ranks of nonnegative matrices

If S is a semiring of nonnegative reals, which linear operators T on the space of $m \times n$ matrices over S preserve the column rank of each matrix\ulcorner Evidently if P and Q are invertible matrices whose inverses have entries in S, then $T : X \longrightarrow PXQ$ is a column rank preserving, linear operator. Beasley and Song obtained some characterizations of column rank preserving linear operators on the space of $m \times n$ matrices over $Z_+$, the semiring of nonnegative integers in [1] and over the binary Boolean algebra in [7] and [8]. In [4], Beasley, Gregory and Pullman obtained characterizations of semiring rank-1 matrices and semiring rank preserving operators over certain semirings of the nonnegative reals. We considers over certain semirings of the nonnegative reals. We consider some results in [4] in view of a certain column rank instead of semiring rank.