10 research outputs found
Relating Weight Constraint and Aggregate Programs: Semantics and Representation
Weight constraint and aggregate programs are among the most widely used logic
programs with constraints. In this paper, we relate the semantics of these two
classes of programs, namely the stable model semantics for weight constraint
programs and the answer set semantics based on conditional satisfaction for
aggregate programs. Both classes of programs are instances of logic programs
with constraints, and in particular, the answer set semantics for aggregate
programs can be applied to weight constraint programs. We show that the two
semantics are closely related. First, we show that for a broad class of weight
constraint programs, called strongly satisfiable programs, the two semantics
coincide. When they disagree, a stable model admitted by the stable model
semantics may be circularly justified. We show that the gap between the two
semantics can be closed by transforming a weight constraint program to a
strongly satisfiable one, so that no circular models may be generated under the
current implementation of the stable model semantics. We further demonstrate
the close relationship between the two semantics by formulating a
transformation from weight constraint programs to logic programs with nested
expressions which preserves the answer set semantics. Our study on the
semantics leads to an investigation of a methodological issue, namely the
possibility of compact representation of aggregate programs by weight
constraint programs. We show that almost all standard aggregates can be encoded
by weight constraints compactly. This makes it possible to compute the answer
sets of aggregate programs using the ASP solvers for weight constraint
programs. This approach is compared experimentally with the ones where
aggregates are handled more explicitly, which show that the weight constraint
encoding of aggregates enables a competitive approach to answer set computation
for aggregate programs.Comment: To appear in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP), 2011.
30 page
Strong Equivalence of Logic Programs with Abstract Constraint Atoms
Abstract. Logic programs with abstract constraint atoms provide a unifying framework for studying logic programs with various kinds of constraints. Establishing strong equivalence between logic programs is a key property for program maintenance and optimization, and for guaranteeing the same behavior for a revised original program in any context. In this paper, we study strong equivalence of logic programs with abstract constraint atoms. We first give a general characterization of strong equivalence based on a new definition of program reduct for logic programs with abstract constraints. Then we consider a particular kind of program revision-constraint replacements addressing the question: under what conditions can a constraint in a program be replaced by other constraints, so that the resulting program is strongly equivalent to the original one
ASP(AC): Answer Set Programming with Algebraic Constraints
Weighted Logic is a powerful tool for the specification of calculations over
semirings that depend on qualitative information. Using a novel combination of
Weighted Logic and Here-and-There (HT) Logic, in which this dependence is based
on intuitionistic grounds, we introduce Answer Set Programming with Algebraic
Constraints (ASP(AC)), where rules may contain constraints that compare
semiring values to weighted formula evaluations. Such constraints provide
streamlined access to a manifold of constructs available in ASP, like
aggregates, choice constraints, and arithmetic operators. They extend some of
them and provide a generic framework for defining programs with algebraic
computation, which can be fruitfully used e.g. for provenance semantics of
datalog programs. While undecidable in general, expressive fragments of ASP(AC)
can be exploited for effective problem-solving in a rich framework. This work
is under consideration for acceptance in Theory and Practice of Logic
Programming.Comment: 32 pages, 16 pages are appendi
Properties and Applications of Programs with Monotone and Convex Constraints
We study properties of programs with monotone and convex constraints. We
extend to these formalisms concepts and results from normal logic programming.
They include the notions of strong and uniform equivalence with their
characterizations, tight programs and Fages Lemma, program completion and loop
formulas. Our results provide an abstract account of properties of some recent
extensions of logic programming with aggregates, especially the formalism of
lparse programs. They imply a method to compute stable models of lparse
programs by means of off-the-shelf solvers of pseudo-boolean constraints, which
is often much faster than the smodels system