Abstract
Many analytical problems can be reduced to determining the number of roots of a polynomial in a given disc. In turn, the latter problem admits further reduction to the generalized Rauss-Hurwitz problem of determining the number of roots of a polynomial in a semiplane. However, this procedure requires complicated coefficient transformations. In the present paper we suggest a direct method to evaluate the number of roots of a polynomial with complex coefficients in a disc, based on studying a certain equation in the algebra of polynomials. An application for computing the rotation of plane polynomial vector fields is also given.