Composition of relations


In the mathematics of binary relations, the composition relations is a concept of forming a new relation from two given relations R and S. The composition of relations is called relative multiplication in the calculus of relations. The composition is then the relative product of the factor relations. Composition of functions is a special case of composition of relations.
The words uncle and aunt indicate a compound relation: for a person to be an uncle, he must be a brother of a parent. In algebraic logic it is said that the relation of Uncle is the composition of relations "is a brother of" and "is a parent of".
Beginning with Augustus De Morgan, the traditional form of reasoning with by syllogism has been subsumed by relational logical expressions and their composition.

Definition

If and are two binary relations, then
their composition is the relation
In other words, is defined by the rule that says if and only if there is an element such that .

Notational variations

The semicolon as an infix notation for composition of relations dates back to Ernst Schroder's textbook of 1895. Gunther Schmidt has renewed the use of the semicolon, particularly in Relational Mathematics. The use of semicolon coincides with the notation for function composition used in category theory, as well as the notation for dynamic conjunction within linguistic dynamic semantics.
A small circle has been used for the infix notation of composition of relations by John M. Howie in his books considering semigroups of relations. However, the small circle is widely used to represent composition of functions which reverses the text sequence from the operation sequence. The small circle was used in the introductory pages of Graphs and Relations until it was dropped in favor of juxtaposition. Juxtaposition is commonly used in algebra to signify multiplication, so too, it can signify relative multiplication.
Further with the circle notation, subscripts may be used. Some authors prefer to write and explicitly when necessary, depending whether the left or the right relation is the first one applied. A further variation encountered in computer science is the Z notation: is used to denote the traditional composition, but ⨾ ; denotes left composition.
The binary relations are sometimes regarded as the morphisms in a category Rel which has the sets as objects. In Rel, composition of morphisms is exactly composition of relations as defined above. The category Set of sets is a subcategory of Rel that has the same objects but fewer morphisms.

Properties

Finite binary relations are represented by logical matrices. The entries of these matrices are either zero or one, depending on whether the relation represented is false or true for the row and column corresponding to compared objects. Working with such matrices involves the Boolean arithmetic with 1 + 1 = 1 and 1 × 1 = 1. An entry in the matrix product of two logical matrices will be 1, then, only if the row and column multiplied have a corresponding 1. Thus the logical matrix of a composition of relations can be found by computing the matrix product of the matrices representing the factors of the composition. "Matrices constitute a method for computing the conclusions traditionally drawn by means of hypothetical syllogisms and sorites."

Heterogeneous relations

Consider a heterogeneous relation R ⊆ A × B. Then using composition of relation R with its converse RT, there are homogeneous relations R RT and RT R.
If ∀x ∈ A ∃y ∈ B xRy, then ∀x xRRTx so that R RT is a reflexive relation or I ⊆ R RT where I is the identity relation. Similarly, if R is a surjective relation then
The composition is used to distinguish relations of Ferrer's type, which satisfy

Example

Let A = and B = with the relation R given by aRb when b is a national language of a. The logical matrix for R is given by

Schröder rules

For a given set V, the collection of all binary relations on V forms a Boolean lattice ordered by inclusion. Recall that complementation reverses inclusion:
In the calculus of relations it is common to represent the complement of a set by an overbar:
If S is a binary relation, let represent the converse relation, also called the transpose. Then the Schröder rules are
Verbally, one equivalence can be obtained from another: select the first or second factor and transpose it; then complement the other two relations and permute them.
Though this transformation of an inclusion of a composition of relations was detailed by Ernst Schröder, in fact Augustus De Morgan first articulated the transformation as Theorem K in 1860. He wrote
With Schröder rules and complementation one can solve for an unknown relation X in relation inclusions such as
For instance, by Schröder rule and complementation gives which is called the left residual of S by R.

Quotients

Just as composition of relations is a type of multiplication resulting in a product, so some compositions compare to division and produce quotients. Three quotients are exhibited here: left residual, right residual, and symmetric quotient. The left residual of two relations is defined presuming that they have the same domain, and the right residual presumes the same codomain. The symmetric quotient presumes two relations share a domain and a codomain.
Definitions:
Using Schröder's rules, AX ⊆ B is equivalent to X ⊆ AB. Thus the left residual is the greatest relation satisfying AX ⊆ B. Similarly, the inclusion YC ⊆ D is equivalent to Y ⊆ D/C, and the right residual is the greatest relation satisfying YC ⊆ D.

Join: another form of composition

A fork operator has been introduced to fuse two relations c: H → A and d: H → B into c'd: H → A × B.
The construction depends projections a: A × B → A and b: A × B → B, understood as relations, meaning that there are converse relations aT and bT. Then the fork' of c and d is given by
Another form of composition of relations, which applies to general n-place relations for n ≥ 2, is the join'' operation of relational algebra. The usual composition of two binary relations as defined here can be obtained by taking their join, leading to a ternary relation, followed by a projection that removes the middle component. For example, in the query language SQL there is the operation Join.