11 research outputs found
Transforming floundering into success
We show how logic programs with "delays" can be transformed to programs
without delays in a way which preserves information concerning floundering
(also known as deadlock). This allows a declarative (model-theoretic),
bottom-up or goal independent approach to be used for analysis and debugging of
properties related to floundering. We rely on some previously introduced
restrictions on delay primitives and a key observation which allows properties
such as groundness to be analysed by approximating the (ground) success set.
This paper is to appear in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP).
Keywords: Floundering, delays, coroutining, program analysis, abstract
interpretation, program transformation, declarative debuggingComment: Number of pages: 24 Number of figures: 9 Number of tables: non
Formal Models for Concurrent Communicating Systems
This report was originally written to fulfill in part the requirements of the author\u27s WPE examinations, part of the qualifying examinations for the University of Pennsylvania\u27a Computer Science Ph.D program. The report first introduces CCS and uses it to illustrate various features of established methods of modelling concurrent, communicating systems. The report then goes on to describe and investigate two new models for such systems: The Chemical Abstract Machine, a simple yet predominant in most models for such systems; and the Ï-calculus, a calculus similar in many respects to CCS, but able to model mobile processes and other, more difficult phenomena
On the Existence of Characterization Logics and Fundamental Properties of Argumentation Semantics
Given the large variety of existing logical formalisms it is of utmost importance
to select the most adequate one for a specific purpose, e.g. for representing
the knowledge relevant for a particular application or for using the formalism
as a modeling tool for problem solving. Awareness of the nature of a logical
formalism, in other words, of its fundamental intrinsic properties, is indispensable
and provides the basis of an informed choice.
One such intrinsic property of logic-based knowledge representation languages
is the context-dependency of pieces of knowledge. In classical propositional
logic, for example, there is no such context-dependence: whenever two
sets of formulas are equivalent in the sense of having the same models (ordinary
equivalence), then they are mutually replaceable in arbitrary contexts (strong
equivalence). However, a large number of commonly used formalisms are not
like classical logic which leads to a series of interesting developments. It turned
out that sometimes, to characterize strong equivalence in formalism L, we can
use ordinary equivalence in formalism L0: for example, strong equivalence in
normal logic programs under stable models can be characterized by the standard
semantics of the logic of here-and-there. Such results about the existence of
characterizing logics has rightly been recognized as important for the study of
concrete knowledge representation formalisms and raise a fundamental question:
Does every formalism have one? In this thesis, we answer this question
with a qualified âyesâ. More precisely, we show that the important case of
considering only finite knowledge bases guarantees the existence of a canonical
characterizing formalism. Furthermore, we argue that those characterizing
formalisms can be seen as classical, monotonic logics which are uniquely determined (up to isomorphism) regarding their model theory.
The other main part of this thesis is devoted to argumentation semantics
which play the flagship role in Dungâs abstract argumentation theory. Almost
all of them are motivated by an easily understandable intuition of what should
be acceptable in the light of conflicts. However, although these intuitions equip
us with short and comprehensible formal definitions it turned out that their
intrinsic properties such as existence and uniqueness, expressibility, replaceability
and verifiability are not that easily accessible. We review the mentioned
properties for almost all semantics available in the literature. In doing so we
include two main axes: namely first, the distinction between extension-based
and labelling-based versions and secondly, the distinction of different kind of
argumentation frameworks such as finite or unrestricted ones
Metalogical Contributions to the Nonmonotonic Theory of Abstract Argumentation
The study of nonmonotonic logics is one mayor field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The reason why such kind of formalisms are so attractive to model human reasoning is that they allow to withdraw former conclusion. At the end of the 1980s the novel idea of using argumentation to model nonmonotonic reasoning emerged in AI. Nowadays argumentation theory is a vibrant research area in AI, covering aspects of knowledge representation, multi-agent systems, and also philosophical questions.
Phan Minh Dungâs abstract argumentation frameworks (AFs) play a dominant role in the field of argumentation. In AFs arguments
and attacks between them are treated as primitives, i.e. the
internal structure of arguments is not considered. The major focus is
on resolving conflicts. To this end a variety of semantics have been defined, each of them specifying acceptable sets of arguments, so-called extensions, in a particular way. Although, Dung-style AFs are among the simplest argumentation systems one can think of, this approach is still powerful. It can be seen as a general theory capturing several nonmonotonic formalisms as well as a tool for solving well-known problems as the stable-marriage problem.
This thesis is mainly concerned with the investigation of metalogical
properties of Dungâs abstract theory. In particular, we provide cardinality, monotonicity and splitting results as well as characterization theorems for equivalence notions. The established results have theoretical and practical gains. On the one hand, they yield deeper theoretical insights into how this nonmonotonic theory works, and on the other the obtained results can be used to refine existing algorithms or even give rise to new computational procedures. A further main part is the study of problems regarding dynamic aspects of abstract argumentation. Most noteworthy we solve the so-called enforcing and the more general minimal change problem for a huge number of semantics
From enhanced coinduction towards enhanced induction
International audienceThere exist a rich and well-developed theory of enhancements of the coinduction proof method, widely used on behavioural relations such as bisimilarity. We study how to develop an analogous theory for inductive behaviour relations, i.e., relations defined from inductive observables. Similarly to the coinductive setting, our theory makes use of (semi)-progressions of the form R->F(R), where R is a relation on processes and F is a function on relations, meaning that there is an appropriate match on the transitions that the processes in R can perform in which the process derivatives are in F(R). For a given preorder, an enhancement corresponds to a sound function, i.e., one for which R->F(R) implies that R is contained in the preorder; and similarly for equivalences. We introduce weights on the observables of an inductive relation, and a weight-preserving condition on functions that guarantees soundness. We show that the class of functions contains non-trivial functions and enjoys closure properties with respect to desirable function constructors, so to be able to derive sophisticated sound functions (and hence sophisticated proof techniques) from simpler ones. We consider both strong semantics (in which all actions are treated equally) and weak semantics (in which one abstracts from internal transitions). We test our enhancements on a few non-trivial examples
Domain Theory in Constructive and Predicative Univalent Foundations
We develop domain theory in constructive and predicative univalent
foundations (also known as homotopy type theory). That we work predicatively
means that we do not assume Voevodsky's propositional resizing axioms. Our work
is constructive in the sense that we do not rely on excluded middle or the
axiom of (countable) choice. Domain theory studies so-called directed complete
posets (dcpos) and Scott continuous maps between them and has applications in
programming language semantics, higher-type computability and topology. A
common approach to deal with size issues in a predicative foundation is to work
with information systems, abstract bases or formal topologies rather than
dcpos, and approximable relations rather than Scott continuous functions. In
our type-theoretic approach, we instead accept that dcpos may be large and work
with type universes to account for this. A priori one might expect that complex
constructions of dcpos result in a need for ever-increasing universes and are
predicatively impossible. We show that such constructions can be carried out in
a predicative setting. We illustrate the development with applications in the
semantics of programming languages: the soundness and computational adequacy of
the Scott model of PCF and Scott's model of the untyped
-calculus. We also give a predicative account of continuous and
algebraic dcpos, and of the related notions of a small basis and its rounded
ideal completion. The fact that nontrivial dcpos have large carriers is in fact
unavoidable and characteristic of our predicative setting, as we explain in a
complementary chapter on the constructive and predicative limitations of
univalent foundations. Our account of domain theory in univalent foundations is
fully formalised with only a few minor exceptions. The ability of the proof
assistant Agda to infer universe levels has been invaluable for our purposes.Comment: PhD thesis, extended abstract in the pdf. v5: Fixed minor typos in
6.2.18, 6.2.19 and 6.4.