Isolated Suborders and their Application to Counting Closure Operators

Abstract: In this paper we investigate the interplay between isolated suborders and closures. Isolated suborders are a special kind of suborders and can be used to diminish the number of elements of an ordered set by means of a quotient construction. The decisive point is that there are simple formulae establishing relationships between the number of closures in the original ordered set and the quotient thereof induced by isolated suborders. We show how these connections can be used to derive a recursive algorithm for counting closures, provided the ordered set under consideration contains suitable isolated suborders.