Relations and Kleene Algebra in Computer Science: 10th International Conference on Relational Methods in Computer Science, and 5th International Conference on Applications of Kleene Algebra, RelMiCS/AKA 2008, Frauenwörth, Germany, April 7-11, 2008. Procee

406 Pages·2008·7.73 MB·English

by  Marc Pauly (auth.)

Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4988
CommencedPublicationin1973
FoundingandFormerSeriesEditors:
GerhardGoos,JurisHartmanis,andJanvanLeeuwen
EditorialBoard
DavidHutchison
LancasterUniversity,UK
TakeoKanade
CarnegieMellonUniversity,Pittsburgh,PA,USA
JosefKittler
UniversityofSurrey,Guildford,UK
JonM.Kleinberg
CornellUniversity,Ithaca,NY,USA
AlfredKobsa
UniversityofCalifornia,Irvine,CA,USA
FriedemannMattern
ETHZurich,Switzerland
JohnC.Mitchell
StanfordUniversity,CA,USA
MoniNaor
WeizmannInstituteofScience,Rehovot,Israel
OscarNierstrasz
UniversityofBern,Switzerland
C.PanduRangan
IndianInstituteofTechnology,Madras,India
BernhardSteffen
UniversityofDortmund,Germany
MadhuSudan
MassachusettsInstituteofTechnology,MA,USA
DemetriTerzopoulos
UniversityofCalifornia,LosAngeles,CA,USA
DougTygar
UniversityofCalifornia,Berkeley,CA,USA
GerhardWeikum
Max-PlanckInstituteofComputerScience,Saarbruecken,Germany
Rudolf Berghammer Bernhard Möller
Georg Struth (Eds.)
Relations
and Kleene Algebra
in Computer Science
10th International Conference on Relational
Methods in Computer Science
and5thInternationalConferenceonApplications
of Kleene Algebra, RelMiCS/AKA 2008
Frauenwörth, Germany, April 7-11, 2008
Proceedings
1 3
VolumeEditors
RudolfBerghammer
Christian-Albrechts-UniversitätzuKiel,InstitutfürInformatik
Olshausenstraße40,24098Kiel,Germany
E-mail:[email protected]
BernhardMöller
UniversitätAugsburg,InstitutfürInformatik
Universitätsstr.14,86135Augsburg,Germany
E-mail:[email protected]
GeorgStruth
UniversityofSheffield,DepartmentofComputerScience
RegentCourt,211Portobello,SheffieldS14DP,UK
E-mail:[email protected]
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2008923359
CRSubjectClassification(1998):F.4,I.1,I.2.3,D.2.4
LNCSSublibrary:SL1–TheoreticalComputerScienceandGeneralIssues
ISSN 0302-9743
ISBN-10 3-540-78912-XSpringerBerlinHeidelbergNewYork
ISBN-13 978-3-540-78912-3SpringerBerlinHeidelbergNewYork
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Preface
This volume contains the proceedings of the 10th International Seminar on Re-
lational Methods in Computer Science (RelMiCS 10) and the 5th International
Workshop on Applications of Kleene Algebra (AKA 5). The joint conference
tookplaceinFrauenwo¨rthonanIslandinLakeChieminBavaria,April7–April
11, 2008. Its purpose was to bring together researchers various subdisciplines
of computer science, mathematics and related fields who use the calculus of re-
lations and/or Kleene algebra as methodological and conceptual tools in their
work.
Thisconferenceisthe jointcontinuationoftwodifferentstrandsofmeetings.
The seminars of the RelMiCS series were held in Schloss Dagstuhl (Germany)
in January 1994, Parati(Brazil) in July 1995,Hammamet (Tunisia) in January
1997, Warsaw (Poland) in September 1998, Qu´ebec (Canada) in January 2000,
and Oisterwijk (The Netherlands) in October 2001. The meeting on Applica-
tions of Kleene Algebra started as a workshop,also held in Schloss Dagstuhl, in
February2001.Tojointhesetwothemesinoneconferencewasmainlymotivated
by the substantial common interests and overlap of the two communities. Over
the years this has led to fruitful interactions and openened new and interesting
researchdirections.JointmeetingshavebeenheldinMalente(Germany)inMay
2003, in St. Catherines (Canada) in February 2005 and in Manchester (UK) in
August/September 2006.
Thisvolumecontains28contributionsbyresearchersfromallovertheworld.
Nextto26regularpapersthereweretheinvitedtalks“FormalMethodsandthe
Theory of Social Choice” by Marc Pauly (Stanford University, USA) and “Re-
lations Making Their Way from Logics to Mathematics and Applied Sciences”
by Gunther Schmidt (University of the Armed Forces Munich, Germany). The
papers show that relational and Kleene algebra methods have wide-ranging di-
versity and applicability in theory and practice.
In addition, for the second time, a PhD programme was offered. It included
the invited tutorials “Basics of Relation Algebra” by Jules Desharnais (Uni-
versit´e Laval, Qu´ebec, Canada), “Basics of Modal Kleene Algebra” by Georg
Struth (University of Sheffield, UK) and “Applications to Preference Systems”
by Susanne Saminger (Universita¨t Linz, Austria).
VI Preface
We are very grateful to the members of the Programme Committee and
the external referees for their care and diligence in reviewing the submitted
papers. We also want to thank Roland Glu¨ck, Peter Ho¨fner Iris Kellner and
Ulrike Pollakowski for their assistance; they made organizing this meeting a
pleasantexperience. We also gratefully appreciate the excellent facilities offered
by the EasyChair conference administration system. Finally, we want to thank
oursponsorsARIVA.DEAG(Kiel),CrossSoft(Kiel),HSHNordbankAG(Kiel)
and the Deutsche ForschungsgemeinschaftDFG for their financial support.
April 2008 Rudolf Berghammer
Bernhard M¨oller
Georg Struth
Organization
Programme Committee
R. Berghammer Kiel, Germany
H. de Swart Tilburg, The Netherlands
J. Desharnais Laval, Canada
M. Fr´ıas Buenos Aires, Argentina
H. Furusawa Kagoshima, Japan
P. Jipsen Chapman, USA
W. Kahl McMaster, Canada
Y. Kawahara Kyushu, Japan
B. Mo¨ller Augsburg, Germany
C. Morgan Sydney, Australia
M. Ojeda Aciego Ma´laga, Spain
E. Orl(cid:4)owska Warsaw, Poland
S. Saminger Linz, Austria
G. Schmidt Munich, Germany
R. Schmidt Manchester, UK
G. Scollo Catania, Italy
A. Szalas Linko¨ping, Sweden
G. Struth Sheffield, UK
J. van Benthem Amsterdam, The Netherlands
M. Winter Brock, Canada
External Referees
Natasha Alechina Peter H¨ofner
Bernd Braßel Britta Kehden
Domenico Cantone David Rydeheard
Patrik Eklund Dmitry Tishkovsky
Alexander Fronk Dimiter Vakarelov
Joanna Golinska-Pilarek

Formal Methods and the Theory of Social Choice
Marc Pauly
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University
Social Choice Theory
SocialChoiceTheory(SCT,see[2]foranintroduction)studiessocialaggregation
problems, i.e., the problem of aggregating individual choices, preferences, opin-
ions,judgments,etc.intoagroupchoice,preference,opinionorjudgment.Exam-
plesofsuchaggregationproblemsincludethefollowing:aggregatingthepolitical
opinions of a country’s population in order to choose a president or parliament,
assigningcollege students to dormitoriesbased ontheir preferences,dividing an
inheritanceamonganumberofpeople,andmatchingromance-seekingwebusers
at an internet dating site. On the one hand, SCT analyzes existing aggregation
mechanisms,e.g.the votingproceduresofdifferentcountriesordifferentmatch-
ing algorithms.On the other hand, SCT exploresdifferent normative properties
suchasanonymityorneutrality,andthe logicaldependencies amongthem. The
central results in SCT fall into the second category, the most well-known being
Arrow’s impossibility theorem [1] and the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem [3,8].
When socialchoicetheoriststalk aboutthe link betweenSCT andlogic,they
usuallyrefertoresultslikeArrow’stheorem.Itisaresultusinglogicinthesense
that it shows that a number of (prima facia) natural and desirable conditions
thatcanbeimposedonavotingprocedureareinconsistentwhentakentogether.
The logician, however, would point out that the use of logic in these results is
restricted to the kind of logic that is used in much mathematical reasoning. It
is only more recently that formallogic and formalmethods more generallyhave
been introduced to social choice theory. In this talk, I will argue that this is a
fruitfulavenueofresearchbygivingtwoexamplesofthesenewcontactsbetween
SCT and formal methods.
Formal Methods
What is needed in order to apply formal methods to SCT is to take a more
formal approach to the language, axioms and theorems of SCT. The key step
hereistheintroductionofformallanguages.Oncewehaveformulatedtheaxioms
andtheoremsofSCTinaformallanguage,variousmeta-theoreticquestionscan
be asked about SCT. In fact, the step from SCT to meta-SCT is analogous to
the step from mathematics to meta-mathematics. It allows us to ask questions
about axiomatizability, definability, decidability, etc. that are typical benefits
of the formal approach. This methodological view has been argued for in [6].
In this talk, I will give two examples of results that can be obtained in this
approach,one example that provides a new characterizationof majority voting,
and a second example that looks at how much of social choice theory can be
carried out in first-order logic.
R.Berghammer,B.M¨oller,G.Struth(Eds.):RelMiCS/AKA2008,LNCS4988,pp.1–2,2008.
(cid:2)c Springer-VerlagBerlinHeidelberg2008