Reduction of Database Independence to Dividing in Atomless Boolean Algebras

Abstract

We prove that the form of conditional independence at play in database theory and independence logic is reducible to the first-order dividing calculus in the theory of atomless Boolean algebras. This establishes interesting connections between independence in database theory and stochastic independence. As indeed, in light of the aforementioned reduction and recent work of Ben-Yaacov [4], the former case of independence can be seen as the discrete version of the latter.