Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2009
If G is an additive (but not necessarily abelian) group and S is a semigroup of endomorphisms of G, the endomorphism near-ring R of G generated by S consists of all the expressions of the form ɛ1s1+…+ɛnsnwhere ɛi=±1 and si∈S for each i. When functions are written on the right, R forms a distributively generated left near-ring under pointwise addition and composition of functions. A basic reference on near-rings which has a substantial treatment of endomorphism near-rings is [6].