Natural dualities for semilattice-based algebras

While every finite lattice-based algebra is dualisable, the same is not true of semilattice-based algebras. We show that a finite semilattice-based algebra is dualisable if all its operations are compatible with the semilattice operation. We also give examples of infinite semilattice-based algebras that are dualisable. In contrast, we present a general condition that guarantees the inherent non-dualisability of a finite semilattice-based algebra. We combine our results to characterise dualisability amongst the finite algebras in the classes of flat extensions of partial algebras and closure semilattices. Throughout, we emphasise the connection between the dualisability of an algebra and the residual character of the variety it generates. Presented by R. Willard.     

Skew Boolean algebras derived from generalized Boolean algebras

Every skew Boolean algebra S has a maximal generalized Boolean algebra image given by S/ where is the Green’s relation defined initially on semigroups. In this paper we study skew Boolean algebras constructed from generalized Boolean algebras B by a twisted product construction for which . In particular we study the congruence lattice of with an eye to viewing as a minimal skew Boolean cover of B. This construction is the object part of a functor from the category GB of generalized Boolean algebras to the category LSB of left-handed skew Boolean algebras. Thus we also look at its left adjoint functor . This paper was written while the second author was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Education at the University of Cagliari. The facilities and assistance provided by the University and by the Department are gratefully acknowledged.     

Free Boolean algebras over unions of two well orderings

Given a partially ordered set P there exists the most general Boolean algebra which contains P as a generating set, called the free Boolean algebra over P. We study free Boolean algebras over posets of the form P=P₀∪P₁, where P₀, P₁ are well orderings. We call them nearly ordinal algebras.Answering a question of Maurice Pouzet, we show that for every uncountable cardinal κ there are κ² pairwise non-isomorphic nearly ordinal algebras of cardinality κ.Topologically, free Boolean algebras over posets correspond to compact 0-dimensional distributive lattices. In this context, we classify all closed sublattices of the product (ω₁+1)×(ω₁+1), showing that there are only ℵ₁ many types. In contrast with the last result, we show that there are ℵ₁² topological types of closed subsets of the Tikhonov plank (ω₁+1)×(ω+1).     

Representable semilattice-ordered monoids

We show that no finite set of first-order axioms can define the class of representable semilattice-ordered monoids. Received July 2, 2004; accepted in final form February 22, 2007.     

2-uniform congruences in majority algebras and a closure operator

A ternary term m(x, y, z) of an algebra is called a majority term if the algebra satisfies the identities m(x, x, y) = x, m(x, y, x) = x and m(y, x, x) = x. A congruence α of a finite algebra is called uniform if all of its blocks (i.e., classes) have the same number of elements. In particular, if all the α-blocks are two-element then α is said to be a 2-uniform congruence. If all congruences of A are uniform then A is said to be a uniform algebra. Answering a problem raised by Gr?tzer, Quackenbush and Schmidt [2], Kaarli [3] has recently proved that uniform finite lattices are congruence permutable. In connection with Kaarli’s result, our main theorem states that for every finite algebra A with a majority term any two 2-uniform congruences of A permute. Examples show that we can say neither “algebra” instead of “algebra with a majority term”, nor “3-uniform” instead of “2-uniform”. Given two nonempty sets A and B, each relation gives rise to a pair of closure operators, which are called the Galois closures on A and B induced by ρ. Galois closures play an important role in many parts of algebra, and they play the main role in formal concept analysis founded by Wille [4]. In order to prove our main theorem, we introduce a pair of smaller closure operators induced by ρ. These closure operators will hopefully find further applications in the future. Dedicated to the memory of Kazimierz Głazek Presented by E. T. Schmidt. Received November 29, 2005; accepted in final form May 23, 2006. This research was partially supported by the NFSR of Hungary (OTKA), grant no. T049433 and T037877.     

Terms that are self-dual in Boolean algebras but not in MO 2

An absorption law is an identity of the form p = x. The ternary function x+y+z (ring addition) in Boolean algebras satisfies three absorption laws in two variables. If a term satisfies these three identities in a variety, it is called a minority term for that variety. We construct a minority term p for orthomodular lattices such the identity defines Boolean algebras modulo orthomodular lattices. (The dual of p is denoted by .) Consequently, having a unique minority term function characterizes Boolean algebras among orthomodular lattices. Our main result generalizes this example to arbitrary arity and arbitrary consistent sets of 2-variable absorption laws. Presented by J. Berman.     

Weakly representable relation algebras form a variety

We prove that the class of weakly representable relation algebras is closed under homomorphic images, hence it is a variety. As a corollary we classify the subdirectly irreducible algebras in this class. Received April 3, 2007; accepted in final form February 7, 2008.     

Convexities of partial monounary algebras

In the present paper we prove that the collection of all convexities of partial monounary algebras is finite; namely, it has exactly 23 elements. Further, we show that for each element there exists a subset of such that is generated by and card . This work was supported by the Science and Technology Assistance Agency under the contract No. APVT-20-004104. Supported by Grant VEGA 1/3003/06.     

Cancellation in entropic algebras

We describe the equational theory of the class of cancellative entropic algebras of a fixed type. We prove that a cancellative entropic algebra embeds into an entropic polyquasigroup, a natural generalization of a quasigroup. In fact our results are even more general and some corollaries hold also for non-entropic algebras. For instance an algebra with a binary cancellative term operation, which is a homomorphism, is quasi-affine. This gives a strengthening of K. Kearnes’ theorem. Our results generalize theorems obtained earlier by M. Sholander and by J. Ježek and T. Kepka in the case of groupoids. The work on this paper was conducted within the framework of INTAS project no. 03 51 4110 “Universal algebra and lattice theory”. The author was also supported by the Statutory Grant of Warsaw University of Technology no. 504G11200013000.     

Congruences on equivalence algebras

A certain class of atomic, semimodular, semisimple partition lattices is studied. It is shown that this class is precisely the class of congruence lattices of equivalence algebras. The first author is granted by project POCTI-ISFL-1-143 of the “Centro de álgebra da Universidade de Lisboa”, supported by FCT and FEDER.     

Bifunctional-elementary relation algebras

A relation algebra is bifunctional-elementary if it is atomic and for any atom a, the element a;1;a is the join of at most two atoms, and one of these atoms is bifunctional (an element x is bifunctional if ’). We show that bifunctional-elementary relation algebras are representable. Our proof combines the representation theorems for: pair-dense relation algebras given by R. Maddux; relation algebras generated by equivalence elements provided corresponding relativizations are representable by S. Givant; and strong-elementary relation algebras dealt with in our earlier work. It turns out that atomic pair-dense relation algebras are bifunctional elementary, showing that our theorem generalizes the representation theorem of atomic pair-dense relation algebras. The problem is still open whether the related classes of rather elementary, functional-elementary, and strong functional-elementary relation algebras are representable. Received July 15, 2007; accepted in final form March 17, 2008.     

Endomorphisms of monadic Boolean algebras

A classical result about Boolean algebras independently proved by Magill [10], Maxson [11], and Schein [17] says that non-trivial Boolean algebras are isomorphic whenever their endomorphism monoids are isomorphic. The main point of this note is to show that the finite part of this classical result is true within monadic Boolean algebras. By contrast, there exists a proper class of non-isomorphic (necessarily) infinite monadic Boolean algebras the endomorphism monoid of each of which has only one element (namely, the identity), this being the first known example of a variety that is not universal (in the sense of Hedrlín and Pultr), but contains a proper class of non-isomorphic rigid algebras (that is, the identity is the only endomorphism). Received February 3, 2006; accepted in final form September 5, 2006.     

Invariants of simple algebras

We determine the group of invariants with values in Galois cohomology with coefficients of central simple algebras of degree at most 8 and exponent dividing 2. The work of A. S. Merkurjev has been supported by the NSF grant DMS #0652316.     

Riesz ideals in generalized effect algebras and in their unitizations

We show that quotients of generalized effect algebras by Riesz ideals preserve some important special properties, e.g., homogeneity and hereditary Riesz decomposition properties; moreover, quotients of generalized orthoalgebras, weak generalized orthomodular posets, generalized orthomodular lattices and generalized MV-algebras with respect to Riesz ideals belong to the same class. We give a necessary and sufficient condition under which a Riesz ideal I of a generalized effect algebra P is a Riesz ideal also in the unitization E of P. We also study relations between Riesz ideals and central elements in GEAs and in their unitizations. In the last section, we demonstrate the notion of Riesz ideals by some illustrative examples. Received June 28, 2005; accepted in final form January 23, 2007.     

Many-valued quantum algebras

We deal with algebras of the same signature as MV-algebras which are a common extension of MV-algebras and orthomodular lattices, in the sense that (i) A bears a natural lattice structure, (ii) the elements a for which is a complement in the lattice form an orthomodular sublattice, and (iii) subalgebras whose elements commute are MV-algebras. We also discuss the connections with lattice-ordered effect algebras and prove that they form a variety. Supported by the Research and Development Council of the Czech Government via the project MSM6198959214.     

On the semidistributivity of elements in weak congruence lattices of algebras and groups

Weak congruence lattices and semidistributive congruence lattices are both recent topics in universal algebra. This motivates the main result of the present paper, which asserts that a finite group G is a Dedekind group if and only if the diagonal relation is a join-semidistributive element in the lattice of weak congruences of G. A variant in terms of subgroups rather than weak congruences is also given. It is pointed out that no similar result is valid for rings. An open problem and some results on the join-semidistributivity of weak congruence lattices are also included. This research of the second and third authors was partially supported by Serbian Ministry of Science and Environment, Grant No. 144011 and by the Provincial Secretariat for Science and Technological Development, Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, grant ”Lattice methods and applications”.     

Pseudocomplemented semilattices are finite-to-finite relatively universal

It is shown that the category of directed graphs is isomorphic to a subcategory of the variety S of all pseudocomplemented semilattices which contains all homomorphisms whose images do not lie in the subvariety B of all Boolean pseudocomplemented semilattices. Moreover, the functor exhibiting the isomorphism may be chosen such that each finite directed graph is assigned a finite pseudocomplemented semilattice. That is to say, it is shown that the variety S of all pseudocomplemented semilattices is finite-to-finite B-relatively universal. This illustrates the complexity of the endomorphism monoids of pseudocomplemented semilattices since it follows immediately that, for any monoid M, there exists a proper class of non-isomorphic pseudocomplemented semilattices such that, for each member S, the endomorphisms of S which do not have an image contained in the skeleton of S form a submonoid of the endomorphism monoid of S which is isomorphic to M. Received June 17, 2006; accepted in final form May 8, 2007.     

Full but not strong dualities at the finite level: Extending the realm

The realm of natural dualities that are known to be full but not strong at the finite level is a very small one, consisting of a single example. This example, based on the three-element bounded distributive lattice, was presented by Davey, Haviar and Willard [8]. In this paper, we extend this realm to the class of all natural dualities based on a finite non-boolean bounded distributive lattice. Received June 15, 2005; accepted in final form November 26, 2005.     

Sums, products and negations of contexts and complete lattices

In Formal Concept Analysis, one associates with every context its concept lattice , and conversely, with any complete lattice L the standard context L, constituted by the join-irreducible elements as ‘objects’, the meet-irreducible elements as ‘attributes’, and the incidence relation induced by the lattice order. We investigate the effect of the operators and on various (finite or infinite) sum and product constructions. The rules obtained confirm the ‘exponential’ behavior of and the ‘logarithmic’ behavior of with respect to cardinal operations but show a ‘linear’ behavior on ordinal sums. We use these results in order to establish several forms of De Morgan’s law for the lattice-theoretical negation operator, associating with any complete lattice the concept lattice of the complementary standard context. Received February 7, 2001; accepted in final form January 6, 2006.     

The Blok–Ferreirim theorem for normal GBL-algebras and its application

Generalized basic logic algebras (GBL-algebras for short) have been introduced in [JT02] as a generalization of Hájek’s BL-algebras, and constitute a bridge between algebraic logic and ℓ-groups. In this paper we investigate normal GBL-algebras, that is, integral GBL-algebras in which every filter is normal. For these structures we prove an analogue of Blok and Ferreirim’s [BF00] ordinal sum decomposition theorem. This result allows us to derive many interesting consequences, such as the decidability of the universal theory of commutative GBL-algebras, the fact that n-potent GBL-algebras are commutative, and a representation theorem for finite GBL-algebras as poset sums of GMV-algebras, a result which generalizes Di Nola and Lettieri’s [DL03] representation of finite BL-algebras. Presented by J. G. Raftery. Received May 23, 2007; accepted in final form February 20, 2008.