As an appropriate generalisation of the features of the classical (Schein) theory of representations of inverse semigroups in $mathscr{I}_{X}$, a theory of representations of inverse semigroups by homomorphisms into complete atomistic inverse algebra
s is developed. This class of inverse algebras includes partial automorphism monoids of entities such as graphs, vector spaces and modules. A workable theory of decompositions is reached; however complete distributivity is required for results approaching those of the classical case.
We present a survey of results on profinite semigroups and their link with symbolic dynamics. We develop a series of results, mostly due to Almeida and Costa and we also include some original results on the Schutzenberger groups associated to a uniformly recurrent set.
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 Malcev 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.
Brauer and Fowler noted restrictions on the structure of a finite group G in terms of the order of the centralizer of an involution t in G. We consider variants of these themes. We first note that for an arbitrary finite group G of even order, we hav
e |G| is less than the number of conjugacy classes of the Fitting subgroup times the order of the centralizer to the fourth power of any involution in G. This result does require the classification of the finite simple groups. The groups SL(2,q) with q even shows that the exponent 4 cannot be replaced by any exponent less than 3. We do not know at present whether the exponent 4 can be improved in general, though we note that the exponent 3 suffices for almost simple groups G. We are however able to prove that every finite group $G$ of even order contains an involution u such that [G:F(G)] is less than the cube of the order of the centralizer of u. There is a dichotomy in the proof of this fact, as it reduces to proving two residual cases: one in which G is almost simple (where the classification of the finite simple groups is needed) and one when G has a Sylow 2-subgroup of order 2. For the latter result, the classification of finite simple groups is not needed (though the Feit-Thompson odd order theorem is). We also prove a very general result on fixed point spaces of involutions in finite irreducible linear groups which does not make use of the classification of the finite simple groups, and some other results on the existence of non-central elements (not necessarily involutions) with large centralizers in general finite groups. We also show (without the classification of finite simple groups) that if t is an involution in G and p is a prime divisor of [G:F(G)], then p is at most 1 plus the order of the centralizer of t (and this is best possible).
We study algebraic and topological properties of the convolution semigroups of probability measures on a topological groups and show that a compact Clifford topological semigroup $S$ embeds into the convolution semigroup $P(G)$ over some topological
group $G$ if and only if $S$ embeds into the semigroup $exp(G)$ of compact subsets of $G$ if and only if $S$ is an inverse semigroup and has zero-dimensional maximal semilattice. We also show that such a Clifford semigroup $S$ embeds into the functor-semigroup $F(G)$ over a suitable compact topological group $G$ for each weakly normal monadic functor $F$ in the category of compacta such that $F(G)$ contains a $G$-invariant element (which is an analogue of the Haar measure on $G$).