Let $G$ be a finite group and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}=\{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{i}\mid i\in I\}$ some partition of the set of all primes $\mathbb{P}$, that is, $\mathbb{P}=\bigcup _{i\in I}\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{i}$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{i}\cap \unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{j}=\emptyset$ for all $i\neq j$. We say that $G$ is $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-primary if $G$ is a $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{i}$-group for some $i$. A subgroup $A$ of $G$ is said to be: $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-subnormal in$G$ if there is a subgroup chain $A=A_{0}\leq A_{1}\leq \cdots \leq A_{n}=G$ such that either $A_{i-1}\unlhd A_{i}$ or $A_{i}/(A_{i-1})_{A_{i}}$ is $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-primary for all $i=1,\ldots ,n$; modular in$G$ if the following conditions hold: (i) $\langle X,A\cap Z\rangle =\langle X,A\rangle \cap Z$ for all $X\leq G,Z\leq G$ such that $X\leq Z$ and (ii) $\langle A,Y\cap Z\rangle =\langle A,Y\rangle \cap Z$ for all $Y\leq G,Z\leq G$ such that $A\leq Z$; and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-quasinormal in$G$ if $A$ is modular and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-subnormal in $G$. We study $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-quasinormal subgroups of $G$. In particular, we prove that if a subgroup $H$ of $G$ is $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-quasinormal in $G$, then every chief factor $H/K$ of $G$ between $H^{G}$ and $H_{G}$ is $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-central in$G$, that is, the semidirect product $(H/K)\rtimes (G/C_{G}(H/K))$ is $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-primary.

Let $G$ be a group and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}=\{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{i}\mid i\in I\}$ some partition of the set of all primes. A subgroup $A$ of $G$ is $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-subnormal in $G$ if there is a subgroup chain $A=A_{0}\leq A_{1}\leq \cdots \leq A_{m}=G$ such that either $A_{i-1}\unlhd A_{i}$ or $A_{i}/(A_{i-1})_{A_{i}}$ is a finite $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{j}$-group for some $j=j(i)$ for $i=1,\ldots ,m$, and it is modular in $G$ if $\langle X,A\cap Z\rangle =\langle X,A\rangle \cap Z$ when $X\leq Z\leq G$ and $\langle A,Y\cap Z\rangle =\langle A,Y\rangle \cap Z$ when $Y\leq G$ and $A\leq Z\leq G$. The group $G$ is called $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-soluble if every chief factor $H/K$ of $G$ is a finite $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{i}$-group for some $i=i(H/K)$. In this paper, we describe finite $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-soluble groups in which every $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-subnormal subgroup is modular.

A subset $X$ of a finite group $G$ is a set of pairwise noncommuting elements if $xy\neq yx$ for all $x\neq y\in X$. If $|X|\geq |Y|$ for any other subset $Y$ of pairwise noncommuting elements, then $X$ is called a maximal subset of pairwise noncommuting elements and the size of such a set is denoted by ${\it\omega}(G)$. In a recent article by Azad et al. [‘Maximal subsets of pairwise noncommuting elements of some finite $p$-groups’, Bull. Iran. Math. Soc.39(1) (2013), 187–192], the value of ${\it\omega}(G)$ is computed for certain $p$-groups $G$. In the present paper, our aim is to generalise these results and find ${\it\omega}(G)$ for some more $p$-groups of interest.

We show that two metacyclic groups of the following types are isomorphic if they have the same character tables: (i) split metacyclic groups, (ii) the metacyclic p-groups and (iii) the metacyclic {p, q}-groups, where p, q are odd primes.

It is shown that if $G$ is a finite $p$-group of coclass 2 with $p>2$, then $G$ has a noninner automorphism of order $p$.

A subgroup $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}H$ of a finite group $G$ is said to be S-semipermutable in $G$ if $H$ permutes with every Sylow $q$-subgroup of $G$ for all primes $q$ not dividing $|H |$. A finite group $G$ is an MS-group if the maximal subgroups of all the Sylow subgroups of $G$ are S-semipermutable in $G$. The aim of the present paper is to characterise the finite MS-groups.

All groups considered in this paper are finite. A subgroup $H$ of a group $G$ is called a primitive subgroup if it is a proper subgroup in the intersection of all subgroups of $G$ containing $H$ as a proper subgroup. He et al. [‘A note on primitive subgroups of finite groups’, Commun. Korean Math. Soc. 28(1) (2013), 55–62] proved that every primitive subgroup of $G$ has index a power of a prime if and only if $G/ \Phi (G)$ is a solvable PST-group. Let $\mathfrak{X}$ denote the class of groups $G$ all of whose primitive subgroups have prime power index. It is established here that a group $G$ is a solvable PST-group if and only if every subgroup of $G$ is an $\mathfrak{X}$-group.

We define sparse saturated fusion systems and show that, for odd primes, sparse systems are constrained. This simplifies the proof of the Glauberman–Thompson p-Nilpotency Theorem for fusion systems and a related theorem of Stellmacher. We then define a more restrictive class of saturated fusion systems, called extremely sparse systems, that are constrained for all primes.

Let G be a finite group. The symmetric genus σ(G) is the minimum genus of any Riemann surface on which G acts faithfully. We show that if G is a group of order 2m that has symmetric genus congruent to 3 (mod 4), then either G has exponent 2m−3 and a dihedral subgroup of index 4 or else the exponent of G is 2m−2. We then prove that there are at most 52 isomorphism types of these 2-groups; this bound is independent of the size of the 2-group G. A consequence of this bound is that almost all positive integers that are the symmetric genus of a 2-group are congruent to 1 (mod 4).

Let A be a finite group acting fixed-point freely on a finite (solvable) group G. A longstanding conjecture is that if (|G|, |A|) = 1, then the Fitting length of G is bounded by the length of the longest chain of subgroups of A. It is expected that the conjecture is true when the coprimeness condition is replaced by the assumption that A is nilpotent. We establish the conjecture without the coprimeness condition in the case where A is an abelian group whose order is a product of three odd primes and where the Sylow 2-subgroups of G are abelian.