On the Continuity of Effective Multifunctions

Dieter Spreen
2008 Electronical Notes in Theoretical Computer Science  
If one wants to compute with infinite objects like real numbers or data streams, continuity is a necessary requirement: better and better (finite) approximations of the input are transformed in better and better (finite) approximations of the output. In case the objects are constructively generated, they can be represented by a finite description of the generating procedure. By effectively transforming such descriptions for the generation of the input (respectively, their codes) in (the code
more » ... a description for the generation of the output another type of computable operation is obtained. Such operations are also called effective. The relationship of both classes of operations has always been a question of great interest and well known theorems such as those of Myhill and Shepherdson, Kreisel, Lacombe and Shoenfield, Ceȋtin, and/or Moschovakis present answers for important special cases. A general, unifying approach has been developed by the present author in [19] . In this paper the approach is extended to the case of multifunctions. Such functions appear very naturally in applied mathematics, logic and theoretical computer science. Various ways of coding (indexing) sets are discussed and effective versions of several continuity notions for multifunctions are introduced. For each of these notions an indexing system for sets is exhibited so that the multifunctions that are effective with respect to this indexing system and possess certain witness functions are exactly the multifunction which are effectively continuous with respect to the continuity notion under consideration. Important special cases are discussed where such witnessing functions always exist.
doi:10.1016/j.entcs.2008.12.023 fatcat:s2nq2k6g5fhqbd3dbwl7q3o6gu