Dependency Schemes in QBF Calculi: Semantics and Soundness

We study the parametrisation of QBF resolution calculi by dependency schemes. One of the main problems in this area is to understand for which dependency schemes the resulting calculi are sound. Towards this end we propose a semantic framework for variable independence based on ‘exhibition’ by QBF models, and use it to express a property of dependency schemes called full exhibition that is known to be sufficient for soundness in Q-resolution. Introducing a generalised form of the long-distance resolution rule, we propose a complete parametrisation of classical long-distance Q-resolution, and show that full exhibition remains sufficient for soundness. We demonstrate that our approach applies to the current research frontiers by proving that the reflexive resolution path dependency scheme is fully exhibited

Tackling Incomplete System Specifcations Using Natural Deduction in the Paracomplete Setting

In many modern computer applications the significanceofspecificationbasedverificationiswellaccepted.However, when we deal with such complex processes as the integration of heterogeneous systems, parts of specification may be not known. Therefore it is important to have techniques that are able to cope with such incomplete information. An adequate formal set up is given by so called paracomplete logics, where, contrary to the classical framework, for some statements we do not have evidence to conclude if they are true or false. As a consequence, for example, the law of excluded middle is not valid. In this paper we justify how the automated proof search technique for paracomplete logic PComp can be efficiently applied to the reasoning about systems with incomplete information. Note that for many researchers, one of the core features of natural deduction, the opportunity to introduce arbitrary formulae as assumptions, has been a point of great scepticism regarding the very possibility of the automation of the proof search. Here, not only we show the contrary, but we also turned the assumptions management into an advantage showing the applicability of the proposed technique to assume-guarantee reasoning. Keywords - incomplete information, automated natural deduction, paracomplete logic, requirements engineering, assumeguarantee reasoning, component based system assembly

Representing Scope in Intuitionistic Deductions

Intuitionistic proofs can be segmented into scopes which describe when assumptions can be used. In standard descriptions of intuitionistic logic, these scopes occupy contiguous regions of proofs. This leads to an explosion in the search space for automated deduction, because of the difficulty of planning to apply a rule inside a particular scoped region of the proof. This paper investigates an alternative representation which assigns scope explicitly to formulas, and which is inspired in part by semantics-based translation methods for modal deduction. This calculus is simple and is justified by direct proof-theoretic arguments that transform proofs in the calculus so that scopes match standard descriptions. A Herbrand theorem, established straightforwardly, lifts this calculus to incorporate unification. The resulting system has no impermutabilities whatsoever—rules of inference may be used equivalently anywhere in the proof. Nevertheless, a natural specification describes how λ-terms are to be extracted from its deductions