Universal Algebra And Lattice Theory

This volume contains papers which, for the most part, are based on talks given at an international conference on Lattices, Semigroups, and Universal Algebra that was held in Lisbon, Portugal during the week of June 20-24, 1988. The conference was dedicated to the memory of Professor Antonio Almeida Costa, a Portuguese mathematician who greatly contributed to the development of th algebra in Portugal, on the 10 anniversary of his death. The themes of the conference reflect some of his research interests and those of his students. The purpose of the conference was to gather leading experts in Lattices, Semigroups, and Universal Algebra and to promote a discussion of recent developments and trends in these areas. All three fields have grown rapidly during the last few decades with varying degrees of interaction. Lattice theory and Universal Algebra have historically evolved alongside with a large overlap between the groups of researchers in the two fields. More recently, techniques and ideas of these theories have been used extensively in the theory of semigroups. Conversely, some developments in that area may inspire further developments in Universal Algebra. On the other hand, techniques of semi group theory have naturally been employed in the study of semilattices. Several papers in this volume elaborate on these interactions.

The study of lattice varieties is a field that has experienced rapid growth in the last 30 years, but many of the interesting and deep results discovered in that period have so far only appeared in research papers. The aim of this monograph is to present the main results about modular and nonmodular varieties, equational bases and the amalgamation property in a uniform way. The first chapter covers preliminaries that make the material accessible to anyone who has had an introductory course in universal algebra. Each subsequent chapter begins with a short historical introduction which sites the original references and then presents the results with complete proofs (in nearly all cases). Numerous diagrams illustrate the beauty of lattice theory and aid in the visualization of many proofs. An extensive index and bibliography also make the monograph a useful reference work.

In the summer of 1991 the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of the Universite de Montreal was fortunate to host the NATO Advanced Study Institute "Algebras and Orders" as its 30th Seminaire de mathematiques superieures (SMS), a summer school with a long tradition and well-established reputation. This book contains the contributions of the invited speakers. Universal algebra- which established itself only in the 1930's- grew from traditional algebra (e.g., groups, modules, rings and lattices) and logic (e.g., propositional calculus, model theory and the theory of relations). It started by extending results from these fields but by now it is a well-established and dynamic discipline in its own right. One of the objectives of the ASI was to cover a broad spectrum of topics in this field, and to put in evidence the natural links to, and interactions with, boolean algebra, lattice theory, topology, graphs, relations, automata, theoretical computer science and (partial) orders. The theory of orders is a relatively young and vigorous discipline sharing certain topics as well as many researchers and meetings with universal algebra and lattice theory. W. Taylor surveyed the abstract clone theory which formalizes the process of compos ing operations (i.e., the formation of term operations) of an algebra as a special category with countably many objects, and leading naturally to the interpretation and equivalence of varieties.