R.E. Axiomatization of Conditional Independence

Abstract: The paper investigates properties of the conditional independence relation between pieces of information. This relation is also known in the database theory as embedded multivalued dependency. In 1980, Parker and Parsaye-Ghomi established that the properties of this relation can not be described by a finite system of inference rules. In 1995, Herrmann proved that the propositional theory of this relation is undecidable. The main result of this paper is a complete recursively enumerable axiomatization of this theory.