We prove that in the character group of an abelian topological group, the topology associated (in a standard way) to the continuous convergence structure is the finest of all those which induce the topology of simple convergence on the corresponding equicontinuous subsets. If the starting group is furthermore metrizable (or even almost metrizable), we obtain that such a topology coincides with the compact-open topology. This result constitutes a generalization of the theorem of Banach-Dieudonné, which is well known in the theory of locally convex spaces.

We also characterize completeness, in the class of locally quasi-convex metrizable groups, by means of a property which we have called the quasi-convex compactness property, or briefly qcp (Section 3).

A locally compact semilattice with open principal filters is a zero-dimensional scattered space. Cardinal invariants of locally compact and compact semilattices with open principal filters are investigated. Structure of topological semilattices on the one-point Alexandroff compactification of an uncountable discrete space and linearly ordered compact semilattices with open principal filters are researched.

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.

Consider a compact zero dimensional (profinite) monoid. While the group of units must be open, a regular D-class need not be open in the ideal it generates. This is the case if and only if the semigroup contains infinitely many copies of a certain semilattice composed of an increasing sequence of idempotents converging to an upper bound.

Using compactifications of free products, two generator compact monoids with these properties are constructed.

We prove that every (locally) contractible topological group is (L)EC and apply these results to homeomorphism groups, free topological groups, reduced products and symmetric products. Our main results are: The free topological group of a θ-contractible space is equiconnected. A paracompact and weakly locally contractible space is locally equiconnected if and only if it has a local mixer. There exist compact metric contractible spaces X whose reduced (symmetric) products are not retracts of the Graev free topological groups F(X) (A(X)) (thus correcting results we published ibidem).

It is shown that if {Gn: n = 1, 2,…} is a countable family of Hausdorff kω-topological groups with a common closed subgroup A, then the topological amalgamated free product *AGn exists and is a Hausdorff kω-topological group with each Gn as a closed subgroup. A consequence is the theorem of La Martin that epimorphisms in the category of kω-topological groups have dense image.

Representations of non-type I groups G which may be expressed as an increasing union of type I normal subgroups are considered. Groups with this structure are natural generalisations of the CAR algebra (viewed as a twisted group C*-algebra) and are also group theoretic analogues of AF algebras. This paper gives a systematic account of their representation theory based on a canonical construction of one-cocycles for the G-action on the dual of a normal subgroup. Some examples are considered showing how to construct inquivalent irreducible representations (non-cohomologous cocycles) and also factor representations by a method which generalises the well-known construction of non-isomorphic factors for the CAR algebra.

When G is a topological group, the set N(G) of continuous self-maps of G, and the subset N0(G) of those which fix the identity of G, are near-rings. In this paper we examine the (left) ideal structure of these near-rings when G is finite. N0(G) is shown to have exactly two maximal ideals, whose intersection is the radical. In the final section we investigate subnear-rings of N0(G) determined by certain continuous elements of the endomorphism near-ring.

The topology of the Čech fundamental group of the one-point compactification of an appropriate space Y induces a topology on the fundamental group of Y. We describe this topology in terms of a topological group introduced by Higman.

In this paper we study commutative topological semigroups S admitting an absolutely continuous measure. When S is cancellative we show that S admits a weaker topology J with respect to which (S, J) is embeddable as a subsemigroup with non-empty interior in some locally compact topological group. As a consequence, we deduce certain results related to the existence of invariant measures on S and for a large class of locally compact topological semigroups S, we associate S with some useful topological subsemigroup of a locally compact group.

N(G) denotes the near-ring of all continuous selfmaps of the topological group G (under composition and the pointwise induced operation) and N0(G) is the subnear-ring of N(G) consisting of all functions having the identity element of G fixed. It is known that if G is discrete then (a) N0(G) is simple and (b) N(G) is simple if and only if G is not of order 2. We begin a study of the ideal structure of these near-rings when G is a disconnected group.

A semigroup over a generalized tree, denoted by the term ℳL-semigroup, is a compact semigroup S such that Green's relation H is a congruence on S and S/H is an abelian generalized tree with idempotent endpoints and E(S/H) a Lawson semilattice. Each such semigroup is characterized as being constructible from cylindrical subsemigroups of S and the generalized tree S/H in a manner similar to the construction of semigroups over trees and of the hormos. Indeed, semigroups over trees are shown to be particular examples of the construction given herein.