Related papers: Relativised homomorphism preservation at the finit…
A class of structures is said to have the homomorphism-preservation property just in case every first-order formula that is preserved by homomorphisms on this class is equivalent to an existential-positive formula. It is known by a result…
A canonical result in model theory is the homomorphism preservation theorem (h.p.t.) which states that a first-order formula is preserved under homomorphisms iff it is equivalent to an existential-positive formula, standardly proved via a…
We revisit the work studying homomorphism preservation for first-order logic in sparse classes of structures initiated in [Atserias et al., JACM 2006] and [Dawar, JCSS 2010]. These established that first-order logic has the homomorphism…
Previous work of the author [39] showed that the Homomorphism Preservation Theorem of classical model theory remains valid when its statement is restricted to finite structures. In this paper, we give a new proof of this result via a…
Predicate logic is the premier choice for specifying classes of relational structures. Homomorphisms are key to describing correspondences between relational structures. Questions concerning the interdependencies between these two means of…
The classical homomorphism preservation theorem, due to {\L}o\'s, Lyndon and Tarski, states that a first-order sentence $\phi$ is preserved under homomorphisms between structures if, and only if, it is equivalent to an existential positive…
Preservation theorems provide a direct correspondence between the syntactic structure of first-order sentences and the closure properties of their respective classes of models. A line of work has explored preservation theorems relativised…
One of the longstanding problems in universal algebra is the question of which finite lattices are isomorphic to the congruence lattices of finite algebras. This question can be phrased as which finite lattices can be represented as…
This paper investigates the expressiveness of a fragment of first-order sentences in Gaifman normal form, namely the positive Boolean combinations of basic local sentences. We show that they match exactly the first-order sentences preserved…
We explore new interactions between finite model theory and classical streams of universal algebra and semigroup theory. A key result is an example of finite algebras whose variety is not finitely axiomatisable in first order logic, but…
In this paper we study structural properties of residuated lattices that are idempotent as monoids. We provide descriptions of the totally ordered members of this class and obtain counting theorems for the number of finite algebras in…
In the course of classifying the homogeneous permutations, Cameron introduced the viewpoint of permutations as structures in a language of two linear orders, and this structural viewpoint is taken up here. The majority of this thesis is…
It is well known that the classic {\L}o\'s-Tarski preservation theorem fails in the finite: there are first-order definable classes of finite structures closed under extensions which are not definable (in the finite) in the existential…
A structural condition is given for finite maximal antichains in the homomorphism order of relational structures to have the splitting property. It turns out that non-splitting antichains appear only at the bottom of the order. Moreover, we…
This thesis investigates the central role of homomorphism problems (structure-preserving maps) in two complementary domains: database querying over finite, graph-shaped data, and constraint solving over (potentially infinite) structures.…
We study the minor relation for algebra homomorphims in finitely generated quasivarieties that admit a logarithmic natural duality. We characterize the minor homomorphism posets of finite algebras in terms of disjoint unions of dual…
Two main topics are considered: The characterisation of finite homomorphism dualities for relational structures, and the splitting property of maximal antichains in the homomorphism order.
We start a systematic analysis of the first-order model theory of free lattices. Firstly, we prove that the free lattices of finite rank are not positively indistinguishable, as there is a positive $\exists \forall$-sentence true in…
Many-valued models generalise the structures from classical model theory by defining truth values for a model with an arbitrary algebra. Just as algebraic varieties provide semantics for many non-classical propositional logics, models…
Each finite algebra $\mathbf A$ induces a lattice~$\mathbf L_{\mathbf A}$ via the quasi-order~$\to$ on the finite members of the variety generated by~$\mathbf A$, where $\mathbf B \to \mathbf C$ if there exists a homomorphism from $\mathbf…