13/09/2016 CompositionofrelationsWikipedia,thefreeencyclopedia

CompositionofrelationsWikipedia,thefreeencyclopedia

Inmathematics,thecompositionofbinaryrelationsisaconceptofforminganewrelationSRfromtwogiven
relationsRandS,havingasitsbestknownspecialcasethecompositionoffunctions.

Definition[edit]

If

and

aretwobinaryrelations,thentheircomposition

istherelation

Inotherwords,

isdefinedbytherulethatsays

ifandonlyifthereisanelement

suchthat

(i.e.

and

).

Inparticularfields,authorsmightdenotebyRSwhatisdefinedheretobeSR.Theconventionchosenhere
issuchthatfunctioncomposition(withtheusualnotation)isobtainedasaspecialcase,whenRandSare
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functionalrelations.Someauthors[1]prefertowrite

and

explicitlywhennecessary,dependingwhethertheleftortherightrelationisthefirstoneapplied.

AfurthervariationencounteredincomputerscienceistheZnotation:

isusedtodenotethetraditional(right)composition,but(afatopensemicolonwithUnicodecodepoint
U+2A3E)denotesleftcomposition.[2][3]Thisuseofsemicoloncoincideswiththenotationforfunction
compositionused(mostlybycomputerscientists)inCategorytheory,[4]aswellasthenotationfordynamic
conjunctionwithinlinguisticdynamicsemantics.[5]Thesemicolonnotation(withthissemantic)wasintroduced
byErnstSchrderin1895.[6]

Thebinaryrelations

aresometimesregardedasthemorphisms

inacategoryRelwhichhasthesetsasobjects.InRel,compositionofmorphismsisexactlycompositionof
relationsasdefinedabove.ThecategorySetofsetsisasubcategoryofRelthathasthesameobjectsbut
fewermorphisms.Ageneralizationofthisisfoundinthetheoryofallegories.

Properties[edit]

Compositionofrelationsisassociative.

TheinverserelationofSRis(SR)1=R1S1.Thispropertymakesthesetofallbinaryrelationsonaset
asemigroupwithinvolution.

Thecompositionof(partial)functions(i.e.functionalrelations)isagaina(partial)function.

IfRandSareinjective,thenSRisinjective,whichconverselyimpliesonlytheinjectivityofR.

IfRandSaresurjective,thenSRissurjective,whichconverselyimpliesonlythesurjectivityofS.

ThesetofbinaryrelationsonasetX(i.e.relationsfromXtoX)togetherwith(leftorright)relationcomposition
formsamonoidwithzero,wheretheidentitymaponXistheneutralelement,andtheemptysetisthezero
element.

Otherformsofcompositionofrelations,whichapplytogeneralnplacerelationsinsteadofbinaryrelations,are
foundinthejoinoperationofrelationalalgebra.Theusualcompositionoftwobinaryrelationsasdefinedhere

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canbeobtainedbytakingtheirjoin,leadingtoaternaryrelation,followedbyaprojectionthatremovesthe
middlecomponent.

Compositionintermsofmatrices[edit]

If

isarelationbetweentwofinitesetsthenoneobtainsanassociatedadjacencymatrix

(seehere).Thenif

and

aretworelationswhichcanbecomposed,thematrix

isexactlythematrixproduct

,whereitisunderstoodthat

.(Notealsothereversaloforderof

and

.)

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