relational system
A relational system, loosely speaking, is a pair where is a set and is a set of finitary relations defined on (a finitary relation is just an -ary relation
where ; when , it is called a property). Since an -ary operator on a set is an -ary the set, a relational system can be thought of as a generalization
of an algebraic system. We can formalize the notion of a relation system as follows:
Call a set a relation set, if there is a function , the set of natural numbers. For each , call the arity of .
Let be a set and a relation set. The pair is called an -relational system if there is a set such that
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is a set of finitary relations on , called the relation set of , and
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there is a one-to-one correspondence between and , given by , such that the the arity of .
Since operators and partial operators are special types of relations. algebraic systems and partial algebraic systems can be treated as relational systems.
Below are some exmamples of relational systems:
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any algebraic or partial algebraic system.
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a poset , where is a binary relation, called the partial ordering, on . A lattice
, generally considered an algebraic system, can also be considered as a relational system, because it is a poset, and that alone defines the algebraic operations ( and ).
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a pointed set is also a relational system, where a unary relation, or property, is the singled-out element . A pointed set is also an algebraic system, if we treat as the lone nullary operator (constant).
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a bounded poset is a relational system. It is a poset, with two unary relations and .
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a Buekenhout-Tits geometry can be thought of as a relational system. It consists of a set with two binary relations on it: one is an equivalence relation
called type, and the other is a symmetric
reflexive relation called incidence, such that if and , then (incident
objects of the same type are identical).
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ordered algebraic structures, such as ordered groups and ordered rings are also relational systems. They are not algebraic systems because of the additional ordering relations ( and ) defined on these objects. Note that these orderings are generally considered total orders
.
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ordered partial algebras such as ordered fields , etc…
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structures
that are not relational are complete
lattices (http://planetmath.org/CompleteLattice) and topological spaces, because the operations
involved are infinitary.
Remark. Relational systems and algebraic systems are both examples of structures in model theory. Although an algebraic system is a relational system in the sense discussed above, they are treated as distinct entities. A structure involves three objects, a set , a set of function symbols , and a set of relation symbols , so a relational system is a structure where and an algebraic system is a structure where .
References
- 1 G. Grätzer: Universal Algebra, 2nd Edition, Springer, New York (1978).