Saddle Point
Back to the cover

Part I · Foundations

  1. 0 Mathematical Foundations
  2. 1 Observation, Beliefs, and Decision

Part II · Engines

  1. 2 Competing for Allocation: The Blotto Game
  2. 3 Bargaining, Commitment, and Repeated Cooperation
  3. 4 Signals, Disclosure, and Persuasion
  4. 5 Different Models of One Game
  5. 6 Leadership and Rules: Inspection
  6. 7 Decisions in Time
  7. 8 Many Agents
  8. 9 Networks, Dependence, and Resilience
  9. 10 Aggregating Information

Part III · Systems

  1. 11 Architecture of Decision Support
  2. 12 Simulation and Wargaming with AI Agents

Part IV · Limits

  1. 13 Where the Mathematics Stops
Yuri I. Zhuravlev

Chapter 10 · Aggregating Information

Yuri I. Zhuravlev

1935 – 2022

Photograph: Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, Moscow State University, Yuri Zhuravlev; photographer and date not credited; CC BY 4.0. Shown toned. File and licence

The problem on the desk

Could imperfect recognition procedures be combined through specified algebraic operations into a class containing a correct procedure? Zhuravlev made algorithms themselves objects of an algebra, separating recognition operators from decision rules.1

A life in moments

  1. 1935

    Voronezh

    Born on 14 January.2

  2. 1957

    Moscow State University · Moscow

    Graduated from the mechanics and mathematics faculty.2

  3. 1959–1969

    Institute of Mathematics · Novosibirsk

    Worked at the institute in research and leadership posts.2

  4. 1969

    Computing Centre of the Academy of Sciences · Moscow

    Joined the centre.2

  5. 1977

    Published Algebras over Sets of Incorrect (Heuristic) Algorithms.1

  6. 1997

    Moscow State University · Moscow

    Became head of the mathematical methods of forecasting department.3

  7. 2022

    Died on 14 January.3

Every line rests on a dated source (numbered below) unless it carries a mark: R for an inference, S for a story as told.

A story

Algorithms as mathematical objects

The 1977 paper defines operations on recognition operators before studying when the resulting algebra contains a correct algorithm. The construction makes the permitted operations and assumptions explicit.4

Around Zhuravlev

  • student Konstantin Rudakov The MSU memorial identifies Rudakov among Zhuravlev’s students.3

Advisor in the record Aleksei Andreevich Lyapunov Students in the record Konstantin Vladimirovich Rudakov, Alexander Aleksandrovich Sapozhenko, Levon Aslanyan Mathematics Genealogy Project record

The genealogy lists only what the database records; a missing name is not a missing teacher.

The card in the book

Mathematician, a Moscow State University graduate of 1957, who worked in Novosibirsk (1959–69) and from 1969 at the Computing Centre of the Soviet and then Russian Academy of Sciences; corresponding member of the Academy from 1984 and full member from 1992; professor at Moscow State University, where he held the chair of mathematical methods of forecasting from 1997 to 2022; working in discrete mathematics and pattern recognition. His algebraic approach to recognition treated whole families of imperfect classification algorithms as objects on which operations are defined, proving that suitable closures of such families contain correct algorithms — an algebraic perspective, developed in the late 1970s, that invites comparison with modern ensemble methods.

Main works “Algebras over sets of incorrect (heuristic) algorithms” (DAN SSSR 235(4), 1977); “On an algebraic approach to problems of recognition or classification” (Problemy kibernetiki 33, 1978).

To read further

Sources (4)
  1. Algebras over Sets of Incorrect (Heuristic) Algorithms, Yu. I. Zhuravlev, 1977; Doklady AN SSSR 235(4), pp. 761–763; definitions 1–4 and subsequent theorem
  2. Academician Yuri Ivanovich Zhuravlev: 85th birthday, Russian Academy of Sciences, 2020; 14 January 2020; opening professional chronology
  3. In memory of Yuri Ivanovich Zhuravlev, Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, Moscow State University, 2022; 14 January 2022; obituary and site licence footer
  4. Algebras over Sets of Incorrect (Heuristic) Algorithms, Yu. I. Zhuravlev, 1977; pp. 761–763

The facts on this page were gathered for the site from the sources listed, each checked against its locator; the book's card is reproduced unchanged.