The set C(G) of conjugacy classes of subgroups of a group G has a natural partial order. We study p-groups G for which C(G) has antichains of prescribed lengths.

We study the residual finiteness of free products with amalgamations and HNN-extensions of finitely generated nilpotent groups. We give a characterization in terms of certain conditions satisfied by the associated subgroups. In particular the residual finiteness of these groups implies the possibility of extending the isomorphism of the associated subgroups to an isomorphism of their isolated closures in suitable overgroups of the factors (or the base group in case of HNN-extensions).

We answer some questions which arise from a recent paper of Campbell, Heggie, Robertson and Thomas on one-relator free products of two cyclic groups. In the process we show how publicly accessible computer programs can be used to help answer questions about finite group presentations.

This paper is concerned with a new notion of coherency for monoids. A monoid S is right coherent if the first order theory of right S-sets is coherent; this is equivalent to the property that every finitely generated S-subset of every finitely presented right S-set is finitely presented. If every finitely generated right ideal of S is finitely presented we say that S is weakly right coherent. As for the corresponding situation for modules over a ring, we show that our notion of coherency is related to products of flat left S-sets, although there are some marked differences in behaviour from the case for rings. Further, we relate our work to ultraproducts of flat left S-sets and so to the question of axiomatisability of certain classes of left S-sets.

We show that a monoid S is weakly right coherent if and only if the right annihilator congruence of every element is finitely generated and the intersection of any two finitely generated right ideals is finitely generated. A similar result describes right coherent monoids. We use these descriptions to recognise several classes of (weakly) right coherent monoids. In particular we show that any free monoid is weakly right (and left) coherent and any free commutative monoid is right (and left) coherent.

In this paper we study groups with Černikov conjugacy classes which are nilpotent-by-Černikov groups, giving full characterizations of them and applying the results obtained to some related areas.

Groups in which every infinite set of subgroups contains a pair that permute were studied by M. Curzio, J. Lennox, A. Rhemtulla and J. Wiegold. The question whether periodic groups in this class were locally finite was left open. Here we show that if the generators of such a group G are periodic then G is locally finite. This enables us to get the following characterisation. A finitely generated group G is centre-by-finite if and only if every infinite set of subgroups of G contains a pair that permute.

In Theorem 7.13 of [1], Proposition 3.1 of [5], and Theorem 1 of [10], minimal group actions on R-trees are considered. If a group G acts on a tree T, then a Lyndon length function lu is associated with each point u∈T. Abstract minimal length functions are defined in Section 2 of this paper by a simple reduction process, where lengths of elements are reduced by a fixed amount (except that any length must remain non-negative). It is shown in Theorem 2.3 that minimal length functions correspond to minimal actions by following Chiswell's construction of actions on trees from length functions, given in [4]. A parallel result to Theorem 1 of [10] is given for minimal length functions in Theorem 2.2. One outcome of these results is that to determine which length functions can arise from an action of a group on the same tree, it suffices to consider only minimal length functions. Section 1 is concerned with some preparatory properties on lengths of products of elements. These lead in Proposition 1.6 to an alternative description of the maximal trivializable subgroup associated with a length function, defined in [3].

Here we mean growth in the sense of Milnor and Gromov. After a brief survey of known results, we compute the growth series of the groups , with respect to generators {x, y}. This is done using minimal normal forms obtained by informal use of judiciously chosen rewrite rules. In both of these examples the growth series is a rational function, and we suspect that this is not the case for the Baumslag-Solitar group

.

If G is an elementary amenable group of finite Hirsch length h, then the quotient of G by its maximal locally finite normal subgroup has a maximal solvable normal subgroup, of derived length and index bounded in terms of h.

Our set-up will consist of the following: (i) a graph with vertex set V and edge set E; (ii) for each vertex ∈ V a non-trivial group Gv given by a presentation (xν; rν); (iii) for each edge e = {u, ν} ∈ E a group Ge given by a presentation (xu, xv; re) where re consists of the elements of ru ∪ rv, together with some further words on xu ∪ xv. We let G = (x; r) where x = ∪v∈v xv, r = ∪e∈E re. Ouraim is to try to describe the structure of G in terms of the groups Gv, (v ∈ V), Ge (e ∈ E). Under suitable conditions the natural homomorphisms Gv, → G (ν ∈ V), Ge → Ge (e ε E) are injective; and there is a short exact sequence (where, for any group H, IH is the augmentation ideal). Some (co)homological consequences of these resultsare derived.

A composition sequence for a torsion-free abelian group A is an increasing sequenceof pure subgroups with rank 1 quotients and union A. Properties of A can be described by the sequence of types of these quotients. For example, if A is uniform, that is all the types in some sequence are equal, then A is complete decomposable if it is homogeneous. If A has finite rank and all permutations ofone of its type sequences can be realized, then A is quasi-isomorphic to a direct sum of uniform groups.

In this note a characterization of semigroups with atomistic consruence lattices, given for weakly reductive semigroups, is generalized to arbitrary semigroups. Also, it is shown that there is a complete congruence on the congruence lattice of such a semigroup that decomposes it into a disjoint union of intervals of the partition lattice.

We define an equivalence relation on the class of torsion-free abelian groups under which two groups are equivalent ifevery pure subgroup of one has a non-zero image in the other, and each has a non-zero image in every torsion-free factor of the other.

We study the closure properties of the equivalence classes, and the structural properties of the class of all equivalence classes. Finally we identify a class of groups which satisfy Krull-Schmidt and Jordan-Hölder properties with respect to the equivalence.

A semigroup is totally commutative if each of its essentially binary polynomials is commutative, or equivalently, if in every polynomial (word) every two essential variables commute. In the present paper we describe all varieties (equational classes) of totally commutative semigroups, lattices of subvarieties for any variety, and their free spectra.

Let S, T1,… Tk be finite semigroups and Ψ: S → Ti, be embeddings. When C[S] is semisimple, we find necessary and sufficient conditions for the semigroup amalgam (T1,…, Tk; S) to be embeddable in a finite semigroup. As a consequence we show that if S is a finite semigroup with C[S] semisimple, then S is an amalgamation base for the class of finite semigroups if and only if the principal ideals of S are linearly ordered. Our proof uses both the theory of representations by transformations and the theory of matrix representations as developed by Clifford, Munn and Ponizovskii

In this paper a technique for constructing Fitting Classes is applied to certain groups of nilpotent length three which have non-unique minimal normal subgroups. A characterisation of the minimal Fitting Class of some of these groups is also given.

We establish a duality between distributive bisemilattices and certain compact left normal bands. The main technique in the proof utilizes the idea of Plonka sums.

If (G+) is a group and M is a nonempty set of endomorphisms of G operating on the left then G is said to be M-Goldie when (i) G has no infinite independent family of nonzero M-subgroups, and (ii) annihilators in M of subsets of G satisfy the a.c.c. (under set inclusion). Here we prove some results, analogous to those of a Noetherian module in some special cases, even when the set M of operators has no other algebraic structure than the existence of a zero element or in some cases M is at most a finite dimensional commutative near-ring. Precisely speaking, we prove that the collection of associated operating sets of G is finite and there exists a primary decomposition of 0 of such a Goldie M-group, and then if M is a finite dimensional commutative near-ring with unity, for any x belonging to each associated operating set of G, a power of it belongs to the annthilator of G.

We speak of rigidity, if partial information about the prime decomposition in an extension of number fields K¦k determines the decomposition law completely (and hence the zeta function ζK), or even fixes the field K itself. Several concepts of rigidity, depending on the degree of information we start from, are introduced and studied. The strongest concept (absolute rigidity) was only known to hold for the ground field and all quadratic extensions. Here a complete list of all Galois quartic extensions which are absolutely rigid is given. For the weaker concept of rigidity, all rigid situations among the fields of degree up to 8 are determined.

In 1980, McCaughan and Stonehewer showed that a finite soluble group in which every subnormal subgroup has defect at most two has derived length at most nine and Fitting length at most five, and gave an example of derived length five and Fitting length four. In 1984 Casolo showed that derived length five and Fitting length four are best possible bounds.

In this paper we show that for groups of odd order the bounds can be improved. A group of odd order with every subnormal subgroup of defect at most two has derived and Fitting length at most three, and these bounds are best possible.