Cohen-Macaulayness and computation of Newton graded toric rings

Let H⊆Z^d be a positive semigroup generated by A⊆H, and let K[H] be the associated semigroup ring over a field K. We investigate heredity of the Cohen-Macaulay property from K[H] to both its A-Newton graded ring and to its face rings. We show by example that neither one inherits in general the Cohen-Macaulay property. On the positive side, we show that for every H there exist generating sets A for which the Newton graduation preserves Cohen-Macaulayness. This gives an elementary proof for an important vanishing result on A-hypergeometric Euler-Koszul homology. As a tool for our investigations we develop an algorithm to compute algorithmically the Newton filtration on a toric ring.