Abstract
Two different types of functional dependencies are compared: dependencies that are functional due to the laws of nature and dependencies that are functional if all involved agents behave rationally. The first type of dependencies was axiomatized by Armstrong. This article gives a formal definition of the second type of functional dependencies in terms of strategic games and describes a sound and complete axiomatization of their properties. The axiomatization is significantly different from the Armstrong’s axioms.
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Notes
Although soundness and completeness were shown by Armstrong for a database semantics, his proofs could be easily adopted to other formalizations of functional dependence.
References
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Naumov, P., Nicholls, B. Rationally Functional Dependence. J Philos Logic 43, 603–616 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-013-9283-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-013-9283-5