Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 September 2009
Inspired by the results of Adin, Postnikov and Roichman, we propose combinatorial Gelfand models for semigroup algebras of some finite semigroups, which include the symmetric inverse semigroup, the dual symmetric inverse semigroup, the maximal factorizable subsemigroup in the dual symmetric inverse semigroup and the factor power of the symmetric group. Furthermore, we extend the Gelfand model for the semigroup algebras of the symmetric inverse semigroup to a Gelfand model for the q-rook monoid algebra.