Near-semiring

In mathematics, a near-semiring (also seminearring) is an algebraic structure more general to near-ring and semiring. Near-semirings arise naturally from functions on semigroups.

Definition

A near-semiring is a nonempty set S with two binary operations `+' and `·', and a constant 0 such that (S; +; 0) is a monoid, (S; ·) is a semigroup, these structures are related by one (right or left) distributive law, and accordingly the 0 is one (right or left, respectively) side absorptive element.

Formally, an algebraic structure (S; +, ·, 0) is said to be a near-semiring if it satisfies the following axioms:

1. (S; +, 0) is a monoid,
2. (S; ·) is a semigroup,
3. (a + b) · c = a · c + b · c, for all a, b, c in S, and
4. 0 · a = 0 for all a in S.

Clearly, near-semirings are common abstraction of semirings and near-rings [Golan, 1999; Pilz, 1983]. The standard examples of near-semirings are typically of the form M(Г), the set of all mappings on a semigroup (Г; +) with identity zero, with respect to pointwise addition and composition of mappings, and certain subsets of this set.

Bibliography

• Golan, Jonathan S., Semirings and their applications. Updated and expanded version of The theory of semirings, with applications to mathematics and theoretical computer science (Longman Sci. Tech., Harlow, 1992, MR1163371. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1999. xii+381 pp. ISBN 0-7923-5786-8 MR1746739
• Krishna, K. V., Near-semirings: Theory and application, Ph.D. thesis, IIT Delhi, New Delhi, India, 2005.
• Pilz, G., Near-Rings: The Theory and Its Applications, Vol. 23 of North-Holland Mathematics Studies, North-Holland Publishing Company, 1983.
• The Near Ring Main Page at the Johannes Kepler Universität Linz
• Willy G. van Hoorn and B. van Rootselaar, Fundamental notions in the theory of seminearrings, Compositio Math. 18 (1967), 65-78.