The Oversemigroups of a Numerical Semigroup

We study the set of numerical semigroups containing a given numerical semigroup. As an application we prove characterizations of irreducible numerical semigroups that unify some of the existing characterizations for symmetric and pseudo-symmetric numerical semigroups. Finally we describe an algorithm for computing a minimal decomposition of a numerical semigroup in terms of irreducible numerical semigroups.