In this paper we introduce perfectly supportable semigroups and prove that they are σ-discrete in each Hausdorff shiftinvariant topology. The class of perfectly supportable semigroups includes each semigroup S such that FSym(X) ⊂ S ⊂ FRel(X) where FRel(X) is the semigroup of finitely supported relations on an infinite set X and FSym(X) is the group of finitely supported permutations of X.

If G is a group then the abelian subgroup spectrum of G is defined to be the set of all κ such that there is a maximal abelian subgroup of G of size κ. The cardinal invariant A(G) is defined to be the least uncountable cardinal in the abelian subgroup spectrum of G. The value of A(G) is examined for various groups G which are quotients of certain permutation groups on the integers. An important special case, to which much of the paper is devoted, is the quotient of the full symmetric group by the...