11,456 research outputs found
The Constructive method for query containment checking (extended version)
We present a new method that checks Query Containment for queries with negated derived atoms and/or integrity constraints.
Existing methods for Query Containment checking that deal with these cases do not check actually containment but another
related property called uniform containment, which is a sufficient but not necessary condition for containment. Our method can
be seen as an extension of the canonical databases approach beyond the class of conjunctive queries.Postprint (published version
Trading inference effort versus size in CNF Knowledge Compilation
Knowledge Compilation (KC) studies compilation of boolean functions f into
some formalism F, which allows to answer all queries of a certain kind in
polynomial time. Due to its relevance for SAT solving, we concentrate on the
query type "clausal entailment" (CE), i.e., whether a clause C follows from f
or not, and we consider subclasses of CNF, i.e., clause-sets F with special
properties. In this report we do not allow auxiliary variables (except of the
Outlook), and thus F needs to be equivalent to f.
We consider the hierarchies UC_k <= WC_k, which were introduced by the
authors in 2012. Each level allows CE queries. The first two levels are
well-known classes for KC. Namely UC_0 = WC_0 is the same as PI as studied in
KC, that is, f is represented by the set of all prime implicates, while UC_1 =
WC_1 is the same as UC, the class of unit-refutation complete clause-sets
introduced by del Val 1994. We show that for each k there are (sequences of)
boolean functions with polysize representations in UC_{k+1}, but with an
exponential lower bound on representations in WC_k. Such a separation was
previously only know for k=0. We also consider PC < UC, the class of
propagation-complete clause-sets. We show that there are (sequences of) boolean
functions with polysize representations in UC, while there is an exponential
lower bound for representations in PC. These separations are steps towards a
general conjecture determining the representation power of the hierarchies PC_k
< UC_k <= WC_k. The strong form of this conjecture also allows auxiliary
variables, as discussed in depth in the Outlook.Comment: 43 pages, second version with literature updates. Proceeds with the
separation results from the discontinued arXiv:1302.442
Productive Corecursion in Logic Programming
Logic Programming is a Turing complete language. As a consequence, designing
algorithms that decide termination and non-termination of programs or decide
inductive/coinductive soundness of formulae is a challenging task. For example,
the existing state-of-the-art algorithms can only semi-decide coinductive
soundness of queries in logic programming for regular formulae. Another, less
famous, but equally fundamental and important undecidable property is
productivity. If a derivation is infinite and coinductively sound, we may ask
whether the computed answer it determines actually computes an infinite
formula. If it does, the infinite computation is productive. This intuition was
first expressed under the name of computations at infinity in the 80s. In
modern days of the Internet and stream processing, its importance lies in
connection to infinite data structure processing.
Recently, an algorithm was presented that semi-decides a weaker property --
of productivity of logic programs. A logic program is productive if it can give
rise to productive derivations. In this paper we strengthen these recent
results. We propose a method that semi-decides productivity of individual
derivations for regular formulae. Thus we at last give an algorithmic
counterpart to the notion of productivity of derivations in logic programming.
This is the first algorithmic solution to the problem since it was raised more
than 30 years ago. We also present an implementation of this algorithm.Comment: Paper presented at the 33nd International Conference on Logic
Programming (ICLP 2017), Melbourne, Australia, August 28 to September 1, 2017
16 pages, LaTeX, no figure
An interactive semantics of logic programming
We apply to logic programming some recently emerging ideas from the field of
reduction-based communicating systems, with the aim of giving evidence of the
hidden interactions and the coordination mechanisms that rule the operational
machinery of such a programming paradigm. The semantic framework we have chosen
for presenting our results is tile logic, which has the advantage of allowing a
uniform treatment of goals and observations and of applying abstract
categorical tools for proving the results. As main contributions, we mention
the finitary presentation of abstract unification, and a concurrent and
coordinated abstract semantics consistent with the most common semantics of
logic programming. Moreover, the compositionality of the tile semantics is
guaranteed by standard results, as it reduces to check that the tile systems
associated to logic programs enjoy the tile decomposition property. An
extension of the approach for handling constraint systems is also discussed.Comment: 42 pages, 24 figure, 3 tables, to appear in the CUP journal of Theory
and Practice of Logic Programmin
Classes of Terminating Logic Programs
Termination of logic programs depends critically on the selection rule, i.e.
the rule that determines which atom is selected in each resolution step. In
this article, we classify programs (and queries) according to the selection
rules for which they terminate. This is a survey and unified view on different
approaches in the literature. For each class, we present a sufficient, for most
classes even necessary, criterion for determining that a program is in that
class. We study six classes: a program strongly terminates if it terminates for
all selection rules; a program input terminates if it terminates for selection
rules which only select atoms that are sufficiently instantiated in their input
positions, so that these arguments do not get instantiated any further by the
unification; a program local delay terminates if it terminates for local
selection rules which only select atoms that are bounded w.r.t. an appropriate
level mapping; a program left-terminates if it terminates for the usual
left-to-right selection rule; a program exists-terminates if there exists a
selection rule for which it terminates; finally, a program has bounded
nondeterminism if it only has finitely many refutations. We propose a
semantics-preserving transformation from programs with bounded nondeterminism
into strongly terminating programs. Moreover, by unifying different formalisms
and making appropriate assumptions, we are able to establish a formal hierarchy
between the different classes.Comment: 50 pages. The following mistake was corrected: In figure 5, the first
clause for insert was insert([],X,[X]
The use of data-mining for the automatic formation of tactics
This paper discusses the usse of data-mining for the automatic formation of tactics. It was presented at the Workshop on Computer-Supported Mathematical Theory Development held at IJCAR in 2004. The aim of this project is to evaluate the applicability of data-mining techniques to the automatic formation of tactics from large corpuses of proofs. We data-mine information from large proof corpuses to find commonly occurring patterns. These patterns are then evolved into tactics using genetic programming techniques
Operational Semantics of Resolution and Productivity in Horn Clause Logic
This paper presents a study of operational and type-theoretic properties of
different resolution strategies in Horn clause logic. We distinguish four
different kinds of resolution: resolution by unification (SLD-resolution),
resolution by term-matching, the recently introduced structural resolution, and
partial (or lazy) resolution. We express them all uniformly as abstract
reduction systems, which allows us to undertake a thorough comparative analysis
of their properties. To match this small-step semantics, we propose to take
Howard's System H as a type-theoretic semantic counterpart. Using System H, we
interpret Horn formulas as types, and a derivation for a given formula as the
proof term inhabiting the type given by the formula. We prove soundness of
these abstract reduction systems relative to System H, and we show completeness
of SLD-resolution and structural resolution relative to System H. We identify
conditions under which structural resolution is operationally equivalent to
SLD-resolution. We show correspondence between term-matching resolution for
Horn clause programs without existential variables and term rewriting.Comment: Journal Formal Aspect of Computing, 201
Rhetorical structure and reader manipulation in Agatha Christie's <i>Murder on the Orient Express</i>
This paper describes Agatha Christie’s use of rhetoric to convince readers of the ‘truth’ of her detective’s solution in The Murder on the Orient Express, and uses an adaptation of Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) designed for analyses of long extracts of a narrative text. The paper aims to demonstrate firstly the rhetorical practice of Christie, and secondly to demonstrate a tabular, non-diagrammatic exposition of RST, with some suggestions for future alterations to this method
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