On the induction operation for shift subspaces and cellular automata as presentations of dynamical systems

We consider continuous, translation-commuting transformations of compact, translation-invariant families of mappings from finitely generated groups into finite alphabets. It is well-known that such transformations and spaces can be described “locally” via families of patterns and finitary functions; such descriptions can be re-used on groups larger than the original, usually defining non-isomorphic structures. We show how some of the properties of the “induced” entities can be deduced from those of the original ones, and vice versa; then, we show how to “simulate” the smaller structure into the larger one, and obtain a characterization in terms of group actions for the dynamical systems admitting of presentations via structures as such. Special attention is given to the class of sofic shifts.