Monoid Valuations and Value Ordered Supervaluations

We complement two papers on supertropical valuation theory ([11 Izhakian , Z. , Knebusch , M. , Rowen , L. ( 2011 ). Supertropical semirings and supervaluations . J. Pure and Applied Alg. 215 ( 10 ): 2431 – 2463 . Preprint at arXiv:1003.1101 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]], [12 Izhakian , Z. , Knebusch , M. , Rowen , L. ( 2013 ). Dominance and transmissions in supertropical valuation theory . Commun. Algebra 41 ( 7 ): 2736 – 2782 .[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]]) by providing natural examples of m-valuations (= monoid valuations), and afterwards of supervaluations and transmissions between them. These supervaluations have values in totally ordered supertropical semirings, and the transmissions discussed respect the orderings. We develop the basics of the theory of such semirings and transmissions.     

Borderline vs. unknown: comparing three-valued representations of imperfect information

In this paper we compare the expressive power of elementary representation formats for vague, incomplete or conflicting information. These include Boolean valuation pairs introduced by Lawry and González-Rodríguez, orthopairs of sets of variables, Boolean possibility and necessity measures, three-valued valuations, supervaluations. We make explicit their connections with strong Kleene logic and with Belnap logic of conflicting information. The formal similarities between 3-valued approaches to vagueness and formalisms that handle incomplete information often lead to a confusion between degrees of truth and degrees of uncertainty. Yet there are important differences that appear at the interpretive level: while truth-functional logics of vagueness are accepted by a part of the scientific community (even if questioned by supervaluationists), the truth-functionality assumption of three-valued calculi for handling incomplete information looks questionable, compared to the non-truth-functional approaches based on Boolean possibility–necessity pairs. This paper aims to clarify the similarities and differences between the two situations. We also study to what extent operations for comparing and merging information items in the form of orthopairs can be expressed by means of operations on valuation pairs, three-valued valuations and underlying possibility distributions.     

Dominance and Transmissions in Supertropical Valuation Theory

This article is a sequel of [4 Izhakian , Z. , Knebusch , M. , Rowen , L. ( 2011 ). Supertropical semirings and supervaluations . J. Pure and Applied Alg. 215 ( 10 ): 2431 – 2463 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]], where we defined supervaluations on a commutative semiring R and studied a dominance relation ? ≥ ψ between supervaluations ? and ψ on R, aiming at an enrichment of the algebraic tool box for use in tropical geometry.

A supervaluation ?: R → U is a multiplicative map from R to a supertropical semiring U, cf. [4 Izhakian , Z. , Knebusch , M. , Rowen , L. ( 2011 ). Supertropical semirings and supervaluations . J. Pure and Applied Alg. 215 ( 10 ): 2431 – 2463 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]], [7 Izhakian , Z. , Rowen , L. ( 2011 ). Supertropical matrix algebra . Israel J. Math. 182 ( 1 ): 383 – 424 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]], [8 Izhakian , Z. , Rowen , L. ( 2010 ). Supertropical polynomials and resultants . J. Alg. 324 : 1860 – 1886 . (Preprint at arXiv:0902.2155.) [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]], [5 Izhakian , Z. , Knebusch , M. , Rowen , L. Supertropical monoids: Basics and canonical factorization . Preprint at arXiv:1108.1880 . [Google Scholar]], [9 Maclane , S. ( 1998 ). Categories for the Working Mathemtician. , 4th ed. Springer Vereag . [Google Scholar]], with further properties, which mean that ? is a sort of refinement, or covering, of an m-valuation (= monoid valuation) v: R → M. In the most important case, that R is a ring, m-valuations constitute a mild generalization of valuations in the sense of Bourbaki [1 Bourbaki , N. Algèbre Commutative VI, §3 No. 1 . [Google Scholar]], while ? ≥ ψ means that ψ: R → V is a sort of coarsening of the supervaluation ?. If ?(R) generates the semiring U, then ? ≥ ψ iff there exists a “transmission” α: U → V with ψ = α ○ ?.

Transmissions are multiplicative maps with further properties, cf. [4 Izhakian , Z. , Knebusch , M. , Rowen , L. ( 2011 ). Supertropical semirings and supervaluations . J. Pure and Applied Alg. 215 ( 10 ): 2431 – 2463 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Section 5]. Every semiring homomorphism α: U → V is a transmission, but there are others which lack additivity, and this causes a major difficulty. In the main body of the article we study surjective transmissions via equivalence relations on supertropical semirings. We put special emphasis on homomorphic equivalence relations. Even those are often much more complicated than congruences by ideals in usual commutative algebra.