An example of a nonfinitely based involution monoid of order five has recently been discovered. We confirm that this example is, up to isomorphism, the unique smallest among all involution monoids.

For every group G, the set $\mathcal {P}(G)$ of its subsets forms a semiring under set-theoretical union $\cup $ and element-wise multiplication $\cdot $, and forms an involution semigroup under $\cdot $ and element-wise inversion ${}^{-1}$. We show that if the group G is finite, non-Dedekind, and solvable, neither the semiring $(\mathcal {P}(G),\cup ,\cdot )$ nor the involution semigroup $(\mathcal {P}(G),\cdot ,{}^{-1})$ admits a finite identity basis. We also solve the finite basis problem for the semiring of Hall relations over any finite set.

Let $T_{n}(\mathbb{F})$ be the semigroup of all upper triangular $n\times n$ matrices over a field $\mathbb{F}$. Let $UT_{n}(\mathbb{F})$ and $UT_{n}^{\pm 1}(\mathbb{F})$ be subsemigroups of $T_{n}(\mathbb{F})$, respectively, having $0$s and/or $1$s on the main diagonal and $0$s and/or $\pm 1$s on the main diagonal. We give some sufficient conditions under which an involution semigroup is nonfinitely based. As an application, we show that $UT_{2}(\mathbb{F}),UT_{2}^{\pm 1}(\mathbb{F})$ and $T_{2}(\mathbb{F})$ as involution semigroups under the skew transposition are nonfinitely based for any field $\mathbb{F}$.

We establish a new sufficient condition under which a monoid is nonfinitely based and apply this condition to Lee monoids $L_{\ell }^{1}$, obtained by adjoining an identity element to the semigroup generated by two idempotents $a$ and $b$ with the relation $0=abab\cdots \,$ (length $\ell$). We show that every monoid $M$ which generates a variety containing $L_{5}^{1}$ and is contained in the variety generated by $L_{\ell }^{1}$ for some $\ell \geq 5$ is nonfinitely based. We establish this result by analysing $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}$-terms for $M$, where $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}$ is a certain nontrivial congruence on the free semigroup. We also show that if $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}$ is the trivial congruence on the free semigroup and $\ell \leq 5$, then the $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}$-terms (isoterms) for $L_{\ell }^{1}$ carry no information about the nonfinite basis property of $L_{\ell }^{1}$.

For each positive $n$, let $\mathbf{u}_{n}\approx \boldsymbol{v}_{n}$ denote the identity obtained from the Adjan identity $(xy)(yx)(xy)(xy)(yx)\approx (xy)(yx)(yx)(xy)(yx)$ by substituting $(xy)\rightarrow (x_{1}x_{2}\ldots x_{n})$ and $(yx)\rightarrow (x_{n}\ldots x_{2}x_{1})$. We show that every monoid which satisfies $\mathbf{u}_{n}\approx \boldsymbol{v}_{n}$ for each positive $n$ and generates a variety containing the bicyclic monoid is nonfinitely based. This implies that the monoid $U_{2}(\mathbb{T})$ (respectively, $U_{2}(\overline{\mathbb{Z}})$) of two-by-two upper triangular tropical matrices over the tropical semiring $\mathbb{T}=\mathbb{R}\cup \{-\infty \}$ (respectively, $\overline{\mathbb{Z}}=\mathbb{Z}\cup \{-\infty \}$) is nonfinitely based.

Let 𝒯n(F) denote the monoid of all upper triangular n×n matrices over a finite field F. It has been shown by Volkov and Goldberg that 𝒯n(F) is nonfinitely based if ∣F∣>2 and n≥4, but the cases when ∣F∣>2 and n=2,3 or when ∣F∣=2 have remained open. In this paper, it is shown that the monoid 𝒯2 (F) is finitely based when ∣F∣=2 , and a finite identity basis for it is given. Moreover, all maximal subvarieties of the variety generated by 𝒯2 (F) with ∣F∣=2 are determined.

We prove that the pseudovariety of monoids of Krohn-Rhodes complexity at most n is not finitely based for all n>0. More specifically, for each pair of positive integers n,k, we construct a monoid of complexity n+1, all of whose k-generated submonoids have complexity at most n.