What's Decidable About Sequences?

We present a first-order theory of sequences with integer elements, Presburger arithmetic, and regular constraints, which can model significant properties of data structures such as arrays and lists. We give a decision procedure for the quantifier-free fragment, based on an encoding into the first-order theory of concatenation; the procedure has PSPACE complexity. The quantifier-free fragment of the theory of sequences can express properties such as sortedness and injectivity, as well as Boolean combinations of periodic and arithmetic facts relating the elements of the sequence and their positions (e.g., "for all even i's, the element at position i has value i+3 or 2i"). The resulting expressive power is orthogonal to that of the most expressive decidable logics for arrays. Some examples demonstrate that the fragment is also suitable to reason about sequence-manipulating programs within the standard framework of axiomatic semantics.Comment: Fixed a few lapses in the Mergesort exampl

Existential questions in (relatively) hyperbolic groups {\it and} Finding relative hyperbolic structures

This arXived paper has two independant parts, that are improved and corrected versions of different parts of a single paper once named "On equations in relatively hyperbolic groups". The first part is entitled "Existential questions in (relatively) hyperbolic groups". We study there the existential theory of torsion free hyperbolic and relatively hyperbolic groups, in particular those with virtually abelian parabolic subgroups. We show that the satisfiability of systems of equations and inequations is decidable in these groups. In the second part, called "Finding relative hyperbolic structures", we provide a general algorithm that recognizes the class of groups that are hyperbolic relative to abelian subgroups.Comment: Two independant parts 23p + 9p, revised. To appear separately in Israel J. Math, and Bull. London Math. Soc. respectivel

Syntax without Abstract Objects

In line with the nominalistic denial of the existence of abstract objects, a basic theory of syntax for formal languages is developed and shown to satisfy certain fundamental requirements

Doing and Showing

The persisting gap between the formal and the informal mathematics is due to an inadequate notion of mathematical theory behind the current formalization techniques. I mean the (informal) notion of axiomatic theory according to which a mathematical theory consists of a set of axioms and further theorems deduced from these axioms according to certain rules of logical inference. Thus the usual notion of axiomatic method is inadequate and needs a replacement.Comment: 54 pages, 2 figure

First-Order Concatenation Theory with Bounded Quantifiers

We study first-order concatenation theory with bounded quantifiers. We give axiomatizations with interesting properties, and we prove some normal-form results. Finally, we prove a number of decidability and undecidability results.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1804.0636