  In this paper we introduce the notion of near semiring with involution.
Generalizing the theory of semirings we aim at represent quantum structures,
such as basic algebras and orthomodular lattices, in terms of near semirings
with involution. In particular, after discussing several properties of near
semirings, we introduce the so-called \L ukasiewicz near semirings, as a
particular case of near semirings, and we show that every basic algebra is
representable as (precisely, it is term equivalent to) a near semiring. In the
particular case in which a \L ukasiewicz near semiring is also a semiring, we
obtain as a corollary a representation of MV-algebras as semirings.
Analogously, by introducing a particular subclass of \L ukasiewicz near
semirings, that we termed orthomodular near semirings, we obtain a
representation of orthomodular lattices. In the second part of the paper, we
discuss several universal algebraic properties of \L ukasiewicz near semirings
and we show that the variety of involutive integral near semirings is a Church
variety. This yields a neat equational characterization of central elements of
this variety. As a byproduct of such, we obtain several direct decomposition
theorems for this class of algebras.
