Tameness of pseudovariety joins involving R

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 20M07 (primary); 20M05, 20M35, 68Q70 (secondary).In this paper, we establish several decidability results for pseudovariety joins of the form VvW, where V is a subpseudovariety of J or the pseudovariety R. Here, J (resp. R) denotes the pseudovariety of all J-trivial (resp. R-trivial) semigroups. In particular, we show that the pseudovariety VvW is (completely) kappa-tame when V is a subpseudovariety of J with decidable kappa-word problem and W is (completely) kappa-tame. Moreover, if W is a kappa-tame pseudovariety which satisfies the pseudoidentity x_1...x_ry^{\omega+1}zt^\omega = x_1... x_ryzt^\omega, then we prove that RvW is also kappa-tame. In particular the joins RvAb, RvG, RvOCR, and RvCR are decidable.União Europeia (UE). Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) - POCTI/32817/MAT/2000.International Association for the Promotion of Co-operation with Scientists from the New Independent States (NIS) of the Former Soviet Union (INTAS) - project 99-1224.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)

Complete reducibility of pseudovarieties

The notion of reducibility for a pseudovariety has been introduced as an abstract property which may be used to prove decidability results for various pseudovariety constructions. This paper is a survey of recent results establishing this and the stronger property of complete reducibility for specific pseudovarieties.FCT through the Centro de Matemática da Universidade do Minho and Centro de Matemática da Universidade do Port

Pointlike sets with respect to R and J

We present an algorithm to compute the pointlike subsets of a finite semigroup with respect to the pseudovariety R of all finite R-trivial semigroups. The algorithm is inspired by Henckell’s algorithm for computing the pointlike subsets with respect to the pseudovariety of all finite aperiodic semigroups. We also give an algorithm to compute J-pointlike sets, where J denotes the pseudovariety of all finite J-trivial semigroups. We finally show that, in contrast with the situation for R, the natural adaptation of Henckell’s algorithm to J computes pointlike sets, but not all of them.Pessoa French-Portuguese project Egide- Grices 11113YMFundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Free profinite locally idempotent and locally commutative semigroups

This paper is concerned with the structure of semigroups of implicit operations on the pseudovariety LSl of finite locally idempotent and locally commutative semigroups. We depart from a general result of Almeida and Weil to give two descriptions of these semigroups: the first in terms of infinite words, and the second in terms of infinite and bi-infinite words. We then derive some applications.North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) - Gabinete de Relações Internacionais da Ciência e do Ensino Superior (INVOTAN) - 4/A/94/PO.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - Centro de Matemática da Universidade do Minho - Algebra, Geometry and Combinatory (AGC) - Praxis/2/2.1/MAT/63/94