On irreducible \(n\)-ary quasigroups with reducible retracts. (Q2472844)

Let \((\Sigma,Q)\), where \(Q\colon\Sigma^n\to\Sigma\), be an \(n\)-ary quasigroup of order \(|\Sigma|\). \(Q\) is called (permutably) reducible if \(Q(x_1,\dots,x_n)=P(R(x_{\sigma(1)},\dots,x_{\sigma(k)}),x_{\sigma(k+1)},\dots,x_{\sigma(n)})\), where \(P\) and \(R\) are \((n-k+1)\)-ary and \(k\)-ary quasigroup operations, respectively, \(\sigma\) is a permutation, and \(1<k<n\). \(Q\) is called irreducible if it is not reducible. Assigning some fixed values to \(l\leq n\) variables in the predicate \(x_0=Q(x_1,\dots,x_n)\) determines an \((n-l)\)-ary quasigroup called a retract of \(Q\). The question is if there exists an irreducible \(n\)-quasigroup such that all its \((n-1)\)-retracts are reducible. It is shown that in the case of order \(4r\) such \(n\)-quasigroup exists for even \(n\geq 4\). Partial Boolean functions with similar properties are used to investigate the mentioned quasigroup problem.