We calculate the centralizers of elements, finite subgroups and virtually cyclic subgroups of Houghton’s group Hn. We discuss various Bredon (co)homological finiteness conditions satisfied by Hn including the Bredon (co)homological dimension and FPn conditions, which are analogues of the ordinary cohomological dimension and FPn conditions, respectively.

Let $\Gamma $ be a group and ${\Gamma }^{\prime } $ be a subgroup of $\Gamma $ of finite index. Let $M$ be a $\Gamma $-module. It is shown that $M$ is (strongly) Gorenstein flat if and only if it is (strongly) Gorenstein flat as a ${\Gamma }^{\prime } $-module. We also provide some criteria in which the classes of Gorenstein projective and strongly Gorenstein flat $\Gamma $-modules are the same.

We show that Brin's generalizations 2V and 3V of the Thompson–Higman group V are of type FP∞. Our methods also give a new proof that both groups are finitely presented.

We give algebraic proofs of some results of Wang on homomorphisms of nonzero degree between aspherical closed orientable 3-manifolds. Our arguments apply to PDn-groups which are virtually poly-Z or have a Kropholler decomposition into parts of generalized Seifert type, for all n.

We show that the group F discovered by Richard Thompson in 1965 has a subexponential upper bound for its Dehn function. This disproves a conjecture by Gersten. We also prove that F has a regular terminating confluent presentation.