Associative, idempotent, symmetric, and order-preserving operations on chains (Q2183096)

Associativity of binary operations is important because numerous algebraic structures are defined with associative operations as semigroups, groups, rings, lattices, etc. Associativity has been considered in conjunction with other properties such as idempotency or quasitriviality. The authors characterize the associative, idempotent, symmetric, and order-preserving binary operations on finite chains in terms of their associated semilattice order. They prove that the number of associative, idempotent, symmetric and order-preserving operations on an \(n\)-element chain is just the \(n\)-th Catalan number.