GLUING OPERATION FOR R-MATRICES, QUANTUM GROUPS AND LINK-INVARIANTS OF HECKE TYPE

We introduce an associative glueing operation +(q) on the space of sol utions of the Quantum Yang-Baxter Equations of Hecke type. The corresp onding glueing operations for the associated quantum groups and quantu m vector spaces are also found. The former involves 2x2 quantum matric es whose entries are themselves square or rectangular quantum matrices . The corresponding glueing operation for link-invariants is introduce d and involves a state-sum model with Boltzmann weights determined by the link invariants to be glued. The standard su(n) solution, its asso ciated quantum matrix group, quantum space and link-invariant arise at once by repeated glueing of the one-dimensional case.