A history-based scheme for accelerating Prolog interpretation

An algorithm for improving the performance of a Prolog interpreter is introduced. The algorithm, unlike the intelligent backtracking schemes which improve the performance by avoiding redundant redos, avoids redundant calls. The algorithm identifies the redundant calls by maintaining a history of the program execution. The algorithm can be used in conjunction with an intelligent backtracking scheme for a further speed-up of the programs

On the Complexity of the Tiden-Arnborg Algorithm for Unification modulo One-Sided Distributivity

We prove that the Tiden and Arnborg algorithm for equational unification modulo one-sided distributivity is not polynomial time bounded as previously thought. A set of counterexamples is developed that demonstrates that the algorithm goes through exponentially many steps.Comment: In Proceedings UNIF 2010, arXiv:1012.455

Entangled queries: enabling declarative data-driven coordination

Many data-driven social and Web applications involve collaboration and coordination. The vision of Declarative Data-Driven Coordination (D3C), proposed in Kot et al. [2010], is to support coordination in the spirit of data management: to make it data-centric and to specify it using convenient declarative languages. This article introduces entangled queries, a language that extends SQL by constraints that allow for the coordinated choice of result tuples across queries originating from different users or applications. It is nontrivial to define a declarative coordination formalism without arriving at the general (NP-complete) Constraint Satisfaction Problem from AI. In this article, we propose an efficiently enforceable syntactic safety condition that we argue is at the sweet spot where interesting declarative power meets applicability in large-scale data management systems and applications. The key computational problem of D3C is to match entangled queries to achieve coordination. We present an efficient matching algorithm which statically analyzes query workloads and merges coordinating entangled queries into compound SQL queries. These can be sent to a standard database system and return only coordinated results. We present the overall architecture of an implemented system that contains our evaluation algorithm. We also describe a proof-of-concept Facebook application we have built on top of this system to allow friends to coordinate flight plans. Finally, we evaluate the performance of the matching algorithm experimentally on realistic coordination workloads

Set Unification

The unification problem in algebras capable of describing sets has been tackled, directly or indirectly, by many researchers and it finds important applications in various research areas--e.g., deductive databases, theorem proving, static analysis, rapid software prototyping. The various solutions proposed are spread across a large literature. In this paper we provide a uniform presentation of unification of sets, formalizing it at the level of set theory. We address the problem of deciding existence of solutions at an abstract level. This provides also the ability to classify different types of set unification problems. Unification algorithms are uniformly proposed to solve the unification problem in each of such classes. The algorithms presented are partly drawn from the literature--and properly revisited and analyzed--and partly novel proposals. In particular, we present a new goal-driven algorithm for general ACI1 unification and a new simpler algorithm for general (Ab)(Cl) unification.Comment: 58 pages, 9 figures, 1 table. To appear in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP