17,667 research outputs found
Towards Intelligent Databases
This article is a presentation of the objectives and techniques
of deductive databases. The deductive approach to databases aims at extending
with intensional definitions other database paradigms that describe
applications extensionaUy. We first show how constructive specifications can
be expressed with deduction rules, and how normative conditions can be defined
using integrity constraints. We outline the principles of bottom-up and
top-down query answering procedures and present the techniques used for
integrity checking. We then argue that it is often desirable to manage with
a database system not only database applications, but also specifications of
system components. We present such meta-level specifications and discuss
their advantages over conventional approaches
Computing Preferred Answer Sets by Meta-Interpretation in Answer Set Programming
Most recently, Answer Set Programming (ASP) is attracting interest as a new
paradigm for problem solving. An important aspect which needs to be supported
is the handling of preferences between rules, for which several approaches have
been presented. In this paper, we consider the problem of implementing
preference handling approaches by means of meta-interpreters in Answer Set
Programming. In particular, we consider the preferred answer set approaches by
Brewka and Eiter, by Delgrande, Schaub and Tompits, and by Wang, Zhou and Lin.
We present suitable meta-interpreters for these semantics using DLV, which is
an efficient engine for ASP. Moreover, we also present a meta-interpreter for
the weakly preferred answer set approach by Brewka and Eiter, which uses the
weak constraint feature of DLV as a tool for expressing and solving an
underlying optimization problem. We also consider advanced meta-interpreters,
which make use of graph-based characterizations and often allow for more
efficient computations. Our approach shows the suitability of ASP in general
and of DLV in particular for fast prototyping. This can be fruitfully exploited
for experimenting with new languages and knowledge-representation formalisms.Comment: 34 pages, appeared as a Technical Report at KBS of the Vienna
University of Technology, see http://www.kr.tuwien.ac.at/research/reports
Towards a Rule Interchange Language for the Web
This articles discusses rule languages that are needed for a a
full deployment of the SemanticWeb. First, it motivates the need for such
languages. Then, it presents ten theses addressing (1) the rule and/or
logic languages needed on the Web, (2) data and data processing, (3)
semantics, and (4) engineering and rendering issues. Finally, it discusses
two options that might be chosen in designing a Rule Interchange Format
for the Web
The DLV System for Knowledge Representation and Reasoning
This paper presents the DLV system, which is widely considered the
state-of-the-art implementation of disjunctive logic programming, and addresses
several aspects. As for problem solving, we provide a formal definition of its
kernel language, function-free disjunctive logic programs (also known as
disjunctive datalog), extended by weak constraints, which are a powerful tool
to express optimization problems. We then illustrate the usage of DLV as a tool
for knowledge representation and reasoning, describing a new declarative
programming methodology which allows one to encode complex problems (up to
-complete problems) in a declarative fashion. On the foundational
side, we provide a detailed analysis of the computational complexity of the
language of DLV, and by deriving new complexity results we chart a complete
picture of the complexity of this language and important fragments thereof.
Furthermore, we illustrate the general architecture of the DLV system which
has been influenced by these results. As for applications, we overview
application front-ends which have been developed on top of DLV to solve
specific knowledge representation tasks, and we briefly describe the main
international projects investigating the potential of the system for industrial
exploitation. Finally, we report about thorough experimentation and
benchmarking, which has been carried out to assess the efficiency of the
system. The experimental results confirm the solidity of DLV and highlight its
potential for emerging application areas like knowledge management and
information integration.Comment: 56 pages, 9 figures, 6 table
Inferring Termination Conditions for Logic Programs using Backwards Analysis
This paper focuses on the inference of modes for which a logic program is
guaranteed to terminate. This generalises traditional termination analysis
where an analyser tries to verify termination for a specified mode. Our
contribution is a methodology in which components of traditional termination
analysis are combined with backwards analysis to obtain an analyser for
termination inference. We identify a condition on the components of the
analyser which guarantees that termination inference will infer all modes which
can be checked to terminate. The application of this methodology to enhance a
traditional termination analyser to perform also termination inference is
demonstrated
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