Linkage of modules over Cohen-Macaulay rings

Inspired by the works in linkage theory of ideals, the concept of sliding depth of extension modules is defined to prove the Cohen-Macaulyness of linked module if the base ring is merely Cohen-Macaulay. Some relations between this new condition and other module-theory conditions such as G-dimension and sequentially Cohen-Macaulay are established. By the way several already known theorems in linkage theory are improved or recovered by new approaches.