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Let $G$ be a quasigroup. Associativity of the operation on $G$ can be expressed by the symbolic identity $R_x{L}_y=L_y{R}_x$ of left and right multiplication maps; likewise, commutativity can be expressed by the identity $L_x=R_x$. In this article, we investigate symmetric linear identities: these are identities in left and right multiplication symbols in which every indeterminate appears exactly once on each side, and whose sides are mirror images of each other. We determine precisely which identities imply associativity and...

We study identities of the form $$L_{x_0}{\varphi }_1\cdots {\varphi }_n{R}_{x_{n+1}}=R_{x_{n+1}}{\varphi }_{\sigma \left(1\right)}\cdots {\varphi }_{\sigma \left(n\right)}{L}_{x_0}$$ in quasigroups, where $n\ge 1$, $\sigma$ is a permutation of $\{1,...,n\}$, and for each $i$, ${\varphi }_i$ is either $L_{x_i}$ or $R_{x_i}$. We prove that in a quasigroup, every such identity implies commutativity. Moreover, if $\sigma$ is chosen randomly and uniformly, it also satisfies associativity with probability approaching $1$ as $n\to \infty$.

Let $G$ be an abelian group and $A,B$ two subsets of equal size $k$ such that $A+B$ and $A+A$ both have size $2k-1$. Answering a question of Bihani and Jin, we prove that if $A+B$ is aperiodic or if there exist elements $a\in A$ and $b\in B$ such that $a+b$ has a unique expression as an element of $A+B$ and $a+a$ has a unique expression as an element of $A+A$, then $A$ is a translate of $B$. We also give an explicit description of the various counterexamples which arise when neither condition holds.