9,859 research outputs found
Assignment Methods for Incidence Calculus
AbstractIncidence calculus is a mechanism for probabilistic reasoning in which sets of possible worlds, called incidences, are associated with axioms, and probabilities are then associated with these sets. Inference rules are used to deduce bounds on the incidence of formulae which are not axioms, and bounds for the probability of such a formula can then be obtained. In practice an assignment of probabilities directly to axioms may be given, and it is then necessary to find an assignment of incidence which will reproduce these probabilities. We show that this task of assigning incidences can be viewed as a tree searching problem, and two techniques for performing this research are discussed. One of these is a new proposal involving a depth first search, while the other incorporates a random element. A Prolog implementation of these methods has been developed. The two approaches are compared for efficiency and the significance of their results are discussed. Finally we discuss a new proposal for applying techniques from linear programming to incidence calculus
A Generalized Method for Proving Polynomial Calculus Degree Lower Bounds
We study the problem of obtaining lower bounds for polynomial calculus (PC)
and polynomial calculus resolution (PCR) on proof degree, and hence by
[Impagliazzo et al. '99] also on proof size. [Alekhnovich and Razborov '03]
established that if the clause-variable incidence graph of a CNF formula F is a
good enough expander, then proving that F is unsatisfiable requires high PC/PCR
degree. We further develop the techniques in [AR03] to show that if one can
"cluster" clauses and variables in a way that "respects the structure" of the
formula in a certain sense, then it is sufficient that the incidence graph of
this clustered version is an expander. As a corollary of this, we prove that
the functional pigeonhole principle (FPHP) formulas require high PC/PCR degree
when restricted to constant-degree expander graphs. This answers an open
question in [Razborov '02], and also implies that the standard CNF encoding of
the FPHP formulas require exponential proof size in polynomial calculus
resolution. Thus, while Onto-FPHP formulas are easy for polynomial calculus, as
shown in [Riis '93], both FPHP and Onto-PHP formulas are hard even when
restricted to bounded-degree expanders.Comment: Full-length version of paper to appear in Proceedings of the 30th
Annual Computational Complexity Conference (CCC '15), June 201
Coupling Non-Gravitational Fields with Simplicial Spacetimes
The inclusion of source terms in discrete gravity is a long-standing problem.
Providing a consistent coupling of source to the lattice in Regge Calculus (RC)
yields a robust unstructured spacetime mesh applicable to both numerical
relativity and quantum gravity. RC provides a particularly insightful approach
to this problem with its purely geometric representation of spacetime. The
simplicial building blocks of RC enable us to represent all matter and fields
in a coordinate-free manner. We provide an interpretation of RC as a discrete
exterior calculus framework into which non-gravitational fields naturally
couple with the simplicial lattice. Using this approach we obtain a consistent
mapping of the continuum action for non-gravitational fields to the Regge
lattice. In this paper we apply this framework to scalar, vector and tensor
fields. In particular we reconstruct the lattice action for (1) the scalar
field, (2) Maxwell field tensor and (3) Dirac particles. The straightforward
application of our discretization techniques to these three fields demonstrates
a universal implementation of coupling source to the lattice in Regge calculus.Comment: 10 pages, no figures, Latex, fixed typos and minor corrections
On SAT representations of XOR constraints
We study the representation of systems S of linear equations over the
two-element field (aka xor- or parity-constraints) via conjunctive normal forms
F (boolean clause-sets). First we consider the problem of finding an
"arc-consistent" representation ("AC"), meaning that unit-clause propagation
will fix all forced assignments for all possible instantiations of the
xor-variables. Our main negative result is that there is no polysize
AC-representation in general. On the positive side we show that finding such an
AC-representation is fixed-parameter tractable (fpt) in the number of
equations. Then we turn to a stronger criterion of representation, namely
propagation completeness ("PC") --- while AC only covers the variables of S,
now all the variables in F (the variables in S plus auxiliary variables) are
considered for PC. We show that the standard translation actually yields a PC
representation for one equation, but fails so for two equations (in fact
arbitrarily badly). We show that with a more intelligent translation we can
also easily compute a translation to PC for two equations. We conjecture that
computing a representation in PC is fpt in the number of equations.Comment: 39 pages; 2nd v. improved handling of acyclic systems, free-standing
proof of the transformation from AC-representations to monotone circuits,
improved wording and literature review; 3rd v. updated literature,
strengthened treatment of monotonisation, improved discussions; 4th v. update
of literature, discussions and formulations, more details and examples;
conference v. to appear LATA 201
Weak Form of Stokes-Dirac Structures and Geometric Discretization of Port-Hamiltonian Systems
We present the mixed Galerkin discretization of distributed parameter
port-Hamiltonian systems. On the prototypical example of hyperbolic systems of
two conservation laws in arbitrary spatial dimension, we derive the main
contributions: (i) A weak formulation of the underlying geometric
(Stokes-Dirac) structure with a segmented boundary according to the causality
of the boundary ports. (ii) The geometric approximation of the Stokes-Dirac
structure by a finite-dimensional Dirac structure is realized using a mixed
Galerkin approach and power-preserving linear maps, which define minimal
discrete power variables. (iii) With a consistent approximation of the
Hamiltonian, we obtain finite-dimensional port-Hamiltonian state space models.
By the degrees of freedom in the power-preserving maps, the resulting family of
structure-preserving schemes allows for trade-offs between centered
approximations and upwinding. We illustrate the method on the example of
Whitney finite elements on a 2D simplicial triangulation and compare the
eigenvalue approximation in 1D with a related approach.Comment: Copyright 2018. This manuscript version is made available under the
CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Extended incidence calculus and its comparison with related theories
This thesis presents a comprehensive study o f incidence calculus, a probabilistic logic for reasoning under uncertainty which extends two-value propositional logic to a multiple-value logic. There are three main contributions in this thesis.First of all, the original incidence calculus is extended considerably in three aspects: (a) the original incidence calculus is generalized; (b) an efficient algorithm for incidence assignment based on generalized incidence calculus is developed; (c) a combination rule is proposed for the combination of both independent and some dependent pieces of evidence. Extended incidence calculus has the advantages of representing information flexibly and combining multiple sources o f evidence.Secondly, a comprehensive comparison between extended incidence calculus and the Dempster-Shafer (DS) theory of evidence is provided. It is proved that extended incidence calculus is equivalent to DS theory in representing evidence and combining independent evidence but superior to DS theory in combining dependent evidence.Thirdly, the relations between extended incidence calculus and the assumption- based truth maintenance systems are discussed. It is proved that extended incidence calculus is equivalent to the ATM S in calculating labels for nodes. Extended incidence calculus can also be used as a basis for constructing probabilistic ATMSs.The study in this thesis reveals that extended incidence calculus can be regarded as a bridge between numerical and symbolic reasoning mechanisms
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