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Extending Sparks's theorem, we determine the cardinality of the lattice of $(C_1,C_2)$-clonoids of Boolean functions for certain pairs $(C_1,C_2)$ of clones of essentially unary, linear, or $0$- or $1$-separating functions or semilattice operations. When such a $(C_1,C_2)$-clonoid lattice is uncountable, the proof is in most cases based on exhibiting a countably infinite family of functions with the property that distinct subsets thereof always generate distinct $(C_1,C_2)$-clonoids. In the cases when the lattice is finite, we enumerate the corresponding $(C_1,C_2)$-clonoids. We also provide a summary of the known results on cardinalities of $(C_1,C_2)$-clonoid lattices of Boolean functions., Comment: 27 pages

Extending Sparks's theorem, we determine the cardinality of the lattice of $(C_1,C_2)$-clonoids of Boolean functions in the cases where the target clone $C_2$ is the clone of projections. Moreover, we explicitly describe the $(C_1,C_2)$-clonoids of Boolean functions in the cases where the source clone $C_1$ is one of the four clones of monotone functions or contains the discriminator function., Comment: 39 pages

The associative spectrum of a groupoid (i.e., a set with a binary operation) measures its nonassociativity while the associative-commutative spectrum measures both nonassociativity and noncommutativity of the groupoid. The two spectra are also the coefficients of the Hilbert series of certain operads. We establish upper bounds for the two spectra of various varieties of groupoids defined by different sets of identities and provide examples (often groupoids with three elements) for which the upper bounds are achieved. Our results have connections to many interesting combinatorial objects and integer sequences and naturally lead to some questions for future studies., Comment: 19 pages

We characterise the bracketing identities satisfied by linear quasigroups with the help of certain equivalence relations on binary trees that are based on the left and right depths of the leaves modulo some integers. The numbers of equivalence classes of $n$-leaf binary trees are variants of the Catalan numbers, and they form the associative spectrum (a kind of measure of non-associativity) of a quasigroup., Comment: 32 pages

We consider $S$-operations $f \colon A^{n} \to A$ in which each argument is assigned a signum $s \in S$ representing a "property" such as being order-preserving or order-reversing with respect to a fixed partial order on $A$. The set $S$ of such properties is assumed to have a monoid structure reflecting the behaviour of these properties under the composition of $S$-operations (e.g., order-reversing composed with order-reversing is order-preserving). The collection of all $S$-operations with prescribed properties for their signed arguments is not a clone (since it is not closed under arbitrary identification of arguments), but it is a preclone with special properties, which leads to the notion of $S$-preclone. We introduce $S$-relations $\varrho = (\varrho_{s})_{s \in S}$, $S$-relational clones, and a preservation property ($f \mathrel{\stackrel{S}{\triangleright}} \varrho$), and we consider the induced Galois connection ${}^S\mathrm{Pol}$-${}^S\mathrm{Inv}$. The $S$-preclones and $S$-relational clones turn out to be exactly the closed sets of this Galois connection. We also establish some basic facts about the structure of the lattice of all $S$-preclones on $A$., Comment: 33 pages

Analogical proportions are 4-ary relations that read "A is to B as C is to D". Recent works have highlighted the fact that such relations can support a specific form of inference, called analogical inference. This inference mechanism was empirically proved to be efficient in several reasoning and classification tasks. In the latter case, it relies on the notion of analogy preservation. In this paper, we explore this relation between formal models of analogy and the corresponding classes of analogy preserving functions, and we establish a Galois theory of analogical classifiers. We illustrate the usefulness of this Galois framework over Boolean domains, and we explicitly determine the closed sets of analogical classifiers, i.e., classifiers that are compatible with the analogical inference, for each pair of Boolean analogies., Comment: 17 pages

We initiate the study of a quantitative measure for the failure of a binary operation to be commutative and associative. We call this measure the associative-commutative spectrum as it extends the so-called associative spectrum (also known as the subassociativity type), which measures the nonassociativity of a binary operation. In fact, the associative-commutative spectrum (resp. associative spectrum) is the cardinality of the symmetric (resp. nonsymmetric) operad obtained naturally from a groupoid (a set with a binary operation). In this paper we provide some general results on the associative-commutative spectrum, precisely determine this measure for certain binary operations, and propose some problems for future study., Comment: 23 pages

The 93 minions of Boolean functions stable under left composition with the clone of self-dual monotone functions are described. As an easy consequence, all $(C_1,C_2)$-stable classes of Boolean functions are determined for an arbitrary clone $C_1$ and for any clone $C_2$ containing the clone of self-dual monotone functions., Comment: 37 pages, 3 figures, 1 table

This paper completely characterizes the standard Young tableaux that can be reconstructed from their sets or multisets of $1$-minors. In particular, any standard Young tableau with at least $5$ entries can be reconstructed from its set of $1$-minors., Comment: 9 pages

A necessary and sufficient condition is presented for a graph algebra to satisfy a bracketing identity. The associative spectrum of an arbitrary graph algebra is shown to be either constant or exponentially growing., Comment: 20 pages

Associative spectra of graph algebras are examined with the help of homomorphisms of DFS trees. Undirected graphs are classified according to the associative spectra of their graph algebras; there are only three distinct possibilities: constant 1, powers of 2, and Catalan numbers. Associative and antiassociative digraphs are described, and associative spectra are determined for certain families of digraphs, such as paths, cycles, and graphs on two vertices., Comment: 21 pages

When does the complex product of a given number of subsets of a group generate the same subgroup as their union? We answer this question in a more general form by introducing HS-stability and characterising the HS-stable involution subsemigroup generated by a subset of a given involution semigroup. We study HS-stability for the special cases of regular ${}^{*}$-semigroups and commutative involution semigroups., Comment: 14 pages

Classes of multisorted minions closed under extensions, reflections, and direct powers are considered from a relational point of view. As a generalization of a result of Barto, Opr\v{s}al, and Pinsker, the closure of a multisorted minion is characterized in terms of constructions on multisorted relation pairs which are invariant for minions., Comment: 18 pages, Remark 4.15 rephrased

We describe the associative multilinear polynomial functions over commutative integral domains. This extends Marichal and Mathonet's result on infinite integral domains and provides a new proof of Andres's classification of two-element $n$-semigroups., Comment: 5 pages

Introduced by C. R. Shallon in 1979, graph algebras establish a useful connection between graph theory and universal algebra. This makes it possible to investigate graph varieties and graph quasivarieties, i.e., classes of graphs described by identities or quasi-identities. In this paper, graph quasivarieties are characterized as classes of graphs closed under directed unions of isomorphic copies of finite strong pointed subproducts., Comment: 15 pages

A new class of functions with a unique identification minor is introduced: functions determined by content and singletons. Relationships between this class with other known classes of functions with a unique identification minor are investigated. Some properties of functions determined by content and singletons are established, especially concerning invariance groups and similarity., Comment: 22 pages

For an arbitrary finite permutation group $G$, subgroup of the symmetric group $S_\ell$, we determine the permutations involving only members of $G$ as $\ell$-patterns, i.e., avoiding all patterns in the set $S_\ell \setminus G$. The set of all $n$-permutations with this property constitutes again a permutation group. We consequently refine and strengthen the classification of sets of permutations closed under pattern involvement and composition that is due to Atkinson and Beals., Comment: 39 pages; extensively reorganized and rewritten, misprints corrected

There is a connection between permutation groups and permutation patterns: for any subgroup $G$ of the symmetric group $S_\ell$ and for any $n \geq \ell$, the set of $n$-permutations involving only members of $G$ as $\ell$-patterns is a subgroup of $S_n$. Making use of the monotone Galois connection induced by the pattern avoidance relation, we characterize the permutation groups that arise via pattern avoidance as automorphism groups of relations of a certain special form. We also investigate a related monotone Galois connection for permutation groups and describe its closed sets and kernels as automorphism groups of relations., Comment: 24 pages, 1 figure, typos corrected, some arguments clarified, results unchanged

We shed some new light to the problem of characterizing those functions of several arguments that have a unique identification minor. The 2-set-transitive functions are known to have this property. We describe another class of functions that have a unique identification minor, namely functions determined by the order of first occurrence. We also present some examples of other kinds of functions with a unique identification minor. These examples have a relatively small arity., Comment: 10 pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1208.3110

We introduce the concept of associativity for string functions, where a string function is a unary operation on the set of strings over a given alphabet. We discuss this new property and describe certain classes of associative string functions. We also characterize the recently introduced preassociative functions as compositions of associative string functions with injective unary maps. Finally, we provide descriptions of the classes of associative and preassociative functions which depend only on the length of the input.

The clones of Boolean functions are classified in regard to set-reconstructibility via a strong dichotomy result: the clones containing only affine functions, conjunctions, disjunctions or constant functions are set-reconstructible, whereas the remaing clones are not weakly reconstructible., Comment: 8 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1306.5578

The class of threshold functions is known to be characterizable by functional equations or, equivalently, by pairs of relations, which are called relational constraints. It was shown by Hellerstein that this class cannot be characterized by a finite number of such objects. In this paper, we investigate classes of threshold functions which arise as intersections of the class of all threshold functions with clones of Boolean functions, and provide a complete classification of such intersections in respect to whether they have finite characterizations. Moreover, we provide a characterizing set of relational constraints for each class of threshold functions arising in this way., Comment: 22 pages

A reconstruction problem is formulated for Sperner systems, and infinite families of nonreconstructible Sperner systems are presented. This has an application to a reconstruction problem for functions of several arguments and identification minors. Sperner systems being representations of certain monotone functions, infinite families of nonreconstructible functions are thus obtained. The clones of Boolean functions are completely classified in regard to reconstructibility., Comment: 38 pages

A reconstruction problem is formulated for multisets over commutative groupoids. The cards of a multiset are obtained by replacing a pair of its elements by their sum. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the reconstructibility of multisets are determined. These results find an application in a different kind of reconstruction problem for functions of several arguments and identification minors: classes of linear or affine functions over nonassociative semirings are shown to be weakly reconstructible. Moreover, affine functions of sufficiently large arity over finite fields are reconstructible., Comment: 18 pages. Int. J. Algebra Comput. (2014)

We investigate the problem whether a function of several arguments can be reconstructed from its identification minors. We focus on functions with a unique identification minor, and we establish some positive and negative results on the reconstruction problem. In particular, we show that totally symmetric functions (of sufficiently large arity) are reconstructible and the class of functions weakly determined by the order of first occurrence (of sufficiently large arity) is weakly reconstructible., Comment: 46 pages

Abelian groups are classified by the existence of certain additive decompositions of group-valued functions of several variables with arity gap 2., Comment: 17 pages

The authors' previous results on the arity gap of functions of several variables are refined by considering polynomial functions over arbitrary fields. We explicitly describe the polynomial functions with arity gap at least 3, as well as the polynomial functions with arity gap equal to 2 for fields of characteristic 0 or 2. These descriptions are given in the form of decomposition schemes of polynomial functions. Similar descriptions are given for arbitrary finite fields. However, we show that these descriptions do not extend to infinite fields of odd characteristic., Comment: 14 pages

The aim of this paper is to classify order-preserving functions according to their arity gap. Noteworthy examples of order-preserving functions are so-called aggregation functions. We first explicitly classify the Lov\'asz extensions of pseudo-Boolean functions according to their arity gap. Then we consider the class of order-preserving functions between partially ordered sets, and establish a similar explicit classification for this function class., Comment: 11 pages, material reorganized

We study the arity gap of functions of several variables defined on an arbitrary set A and valued in another set B. The arity gap of such a function is the minimum decrease in the number of essential variables when variables are identified. We establish a complete classification of functions according to their arity gap, extending existing results for finite functions. This classification is refined when the codomain B has a group structure, by providing unique decompositions into sums of functions of a prescribed form. As an application of the unique decompositions, in the case of finite sets we count, for each n and p, the number of n-ary functions that depend on all of their variables and have arity gap p., Comment: 13 pages

We provide sufficient conditions for a lattice polynomial function to be self-commuting. We explicitly describe self-commuting polynomial functions over chains., Comment: 10 pages

Partially ordered sets labeled with k labels (k-posets) and their homomorphisms are examined. We give a representation of directed graphs by k-posets; this provides a new proof of the universality of the homomorphism order of k-posets. This universal order is a distributive lattice. We investigate some other properties, namely the infinite distributivity, the computation of infinite suprema and infima, and the complexity of certain decision problems involving the homomorphism order of k-posets. Sublattices are also examined., Comment: 14 pages

Preclones are described as the closed classes of the Galois connection induced by a preservation relation between operations and matrix collections. The Galois closed classes of matrix collections are also described by explicit closure conditions., Comment: 11 pages

We consider sets of operations on a set A that are closed under permutation of variables, addition of dummy variables and composition. We describe these closed sets in terms of a Galois connection between operations and systems of pointed multisets, and we also describe the closed sets of the dual objects by means of necessary and sufficient closure conditions. Moreover, we show that the corresponding closure systems are uncountable for every A with at least two elements., Comment: 22 pages; Section 4 added

Let A and B be arbitrary sets with at least two elements. The arity gap of a function f: A^n \to B is the minimum decrease in its essential arity when essential arguments of f are identified. In this paper we study the arity gap of polynomial functions over bounded distributive lattices and present a complete classification of such functions in terms of their arity gap. To this extent, we present a characterization of the essential arguments of polynomial functions, which we then use to show that almost all lattice polynomial functions have arity gap 1, with the exception of truncated median functions, whose arity gap is 2., Comment: 7 pages

For each clone C on a set A there is an associated equivalence relation analogous to Green's R-relation, which relates two operations on A if and only if each one is a substitution instance of the other using operations from C. We study the maximal and submaximal clones on a three-element set and determine which of them have only finitely many relative R-classes., Comment: 17 pages

For each clone C on a set A there is an associated equivalence relation analogous to Green's R-relation, which relates two operations on A iff each one is a substitution instance of the other using operations from C. We study the clones for which there are only finitely many relative R-classes., Comment: 41 pages; proofs improved, examples added

Classes of functions of several variables on arbitrary non-empty domains that are closed under permutation of variables and addition of dummy variables are characterized in terms of generalized constraints, and hereby Hellerstein's Galois theory of functions and generalized constraints is extended to infinite domains. Furthermore, classes of operations on arbitrary non-empty domains that are closed under permutation of variables, addition of dummy variables and composition are characterized in terms of clusters, and a Galois connection is established between operations and clusters., Comment: 21 pages

The C-minor partial orders determined by the clones generated by a semilattice operation (and possibly the constant operations corresponding to its identity or zero elements) are shown to satisfy the descending chain condition., Comment: 6 pages, proofs improved, introduction and references added

Swierczkowski's Lemma - as it is usually formulated - asserts that if f is an at least quaternary operation on a finite set A and every operation obtained from f by identifying a pair of variables is a projection, then f is a semiprojection. We generalize this lemma in various ways. First, it is extended to B-valued functions on A instead of operations on A and to essentially at most unary functions instead of projections. Then we characterize the arity gap of functions of small arities in terms of quasi-arity, which in turn provides a further generalization of Swierczkowski's Lemma. Moreover, we explicitly classify all pseudo-Boolean functions according to their arity gap. Finally, we present a general characterization of the arity gaps of B-valued functions on arbitrary finite sets A., Comment: 11 pages, proofs simplified, contents reorganized

For each clone C on a set A there is an associated equivalence relation, called C-equivalence, on the set of all operations on A, which relates two operations iff each one is a substitution instance of the other using operations from C. In this paper we prove that if C is a discriminator clone on a finite set, then there are only finitely many C-equivalence classes. Moreover, we show that the smallest discriminator clone is minimal with respect to this finiteness property. For discriminator clones of Boolean functions we explicitly describe the associated equivalence relations., Comment: 17 pages

For a class C of operations on a nonempty base set A, an operation f is called a C-subfunction of an operation g, if f = g(h_1, ..., h_n), where all the inner functions h_i are members of C. Two operations are C-equivalent if they are C-subfunctions of each other. The C-subfunction relation is a quasiorder if and only if the defining class C is a clone. The C-subfunction relations defined by clones that contain all unary operations on a finite base set are examined. For each such clone it is determined whether the corresponding partial order satisfies the descending chain condition and whether it contains infinite antichains., Comment: 15 pages

We show that every function of several variables on a finite set of k elements with n>k essential variables has a variable identification minor with at least n-k essential variables. This is a generalization of a theorem of Salomaa on the essential variables of Boolean functions. We also strengthen Salomaa's theorem by characterizing all the Boolean functions f having a variable identification minor that has just one essential variable less than f., Comment: 10 pages