Binary patterns in the Prouhet-Thue-Morse sequence

We show that, with the exception of the words $a^2ba^2$ and $b^2ab^2$, all (finite or infinite) binary patterns in the Prouhet-Thue-Morse sequence can actually be found in that sequence as segments (up to exchange of letters in the infinite case). This result was previously attributed to unpublished work by D. Guaiana and may also be derived from publications of A. Shur only available in Russian. We also identify the (finitely many) finite binary patterns that appear non trivially, in the sense that they are obtained by applying an endomorphism that does not map the set of all segments of the sequence into itself

Equidivisible pseudovarieties of semigroups

We give a complete characterization of pseudovarieties of semigroups whose finitely generated relatively free profinite semigroups are equidivisible. Besides the pseudovarieties of completely simple semigroups, they are precisely the pseudovarieties that are closed under Mal'cev product on the left by the pseudovariety of locally trivial semigroups. A further characterization which turns out to be instrumental is as the non-completely simple pseudovarieties that are closed under two-sided Karnofsky-Rhodes expansion

Commutative positive varieties of languages

We study the commutative positive varieties of languages closed under various operations: shuffle, renaming and product over one-letter alphabets

Recognizing pro-R closures of regular languages

Given a regular language L, we effectively construct a unary semigroup that recognizes the topological closure of L in the free unary semigroup relative to the variety of unary semigroups generated by the pseudovariety R of all finite R-trivial semigroups. In particular, we obtain a new effective solution of the separation problem of regular languages by R-languages

On the group of a rational maximal bifix code

We give necessary and sufficient conditions for the group of a rational maximal bifix code $Z$ to be isomorphic with the $F$-group of $Z\cap F$, when $F$ is recurrent and $Z\cap F$ is rational. The case where $F$ is uniformly recurrent, which is known to imply the finiteness of $Z\cap F$, receives special attention. The proofs are done by exploring the connections with the structure of the free profinite monoid over the alphabet of $F$