On a natural extension of Jacob's ranks (Q1112079)

The main result (Theorem 2) proves that for a finitely generated ordered semigroup D the following are equivalent: (i) D is finite and for all \(a,b\in D\), if \(ab=ba=b\) and \(a\leq b\) then \(a=b\); (ii) D is a ``strongly hypo-Ramseyan''; (iii) D is ``strongly hyporepetitive''. (All terms in quotes are defined in the text.) The authors obtain a five-fold characterization of finite semigroups within the class of finitely generated semigroups which include their realization as those finitely generated semigroups with the ``strongly repetitive'' property. As a further special case they recover a theorem of G. Jacob on ``ranks'', which are maps from a semigroup to the nonnegative integers with certain ordering properties.