We study cluster categories arising from marked surfaces (with punctures and nonempty boundaries). By constructing skewed-gentle algebras, we show that there is a bijection between tagged curves and string objects. Applications include interpreting dimensions of Ext1 as intersection numbers of tagged curves and Auslander-Reiten translation as tagged rotation. An important consequence is that the cluster(-tilting) exchange graphs of such cluster categories are connected.

We give bounds for various homological invariants (including Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity, degrees of local cohomology, and injective dimension) of finitely generated VI-modules in the non-describing characteristic case. It turns out that the formulas of these bounds for VI-modules are the same as the formulas of corresponding bounds for FI-modules.

Using the Nakayama functor, we construct an equivalence from a Serre quotient category of a category of finitely generated modules to a category of finite-dimensional modules. We then apply this result to the categories FI_G and VI_q, and answer positively an open question of Nagpal on representation stability theory.

For any unital separable simple infinite-dimensional nuclear$C$^{∗}-algebra with finitely many extremal traces, we prove that $$ \mathcal{Z} $$ -absorption, strict comparison and property (SI) are equivalent. We also show that any unital separable simple nuclear$C$^{∗}-algebra with tracial rank zero is approximately divisible, and hence is $$ \mathcal{Z} $$ -absorbing.

In this paper we give an explicit algorithm to construct the ordinary quiver of a finite EI category for which the endomorphism groups of all objects have orders invertible in the field k. We classify all finite EI categories with hereditary category algebras, characterizing them as free EI categories (in a sense which we define) for which all endomorphism groups of objects have invertible orders. Some applications on the representation types of finite EI categories are derived.