2,494 research outputs found
Fixed-parameter tractability, definability, and model checking
In this article, we study parameterized complexity theory from the
perspective of logic, or more specifically, descriptive complexity theory.
We propose to consider parameterized model-checking problems for various
fragments of first-order logic as generic parameterized problems and show how
this approach can be useful in studying both fixed-parameter tractability and
intractability. For example, we establish the equivalence between the
model-checking for existential first-order logic, the homomorphism problem for
relational structures, and the substructure isomorphism problem. Our main
tractability result shows that model-checking for first-order formulas is
fixed-parameter tractable when restricted to a class of input structures with
an excluded minor. On the intractability side, for every t >= 0 we prove an
equivalence between model-checking for first-order formulas with t quantifier
alternations and the parameterized halting problem for alternating Turing
machines with t alternations. We discuss the close connection between this
alternation hierarchy and Downey and Fellows' W-hierarchy.
On a more abstract level, we consider two forms of definability, called Fagin
definability and slicewise definability, that are appropriate for describing
parameterized problems. We give a characterization of the class FPT of all
fixed-parameter tractable problems in terms of slicewise definability in finite
variable least fixed-point logic, which is reminiscent of the Immerman-Vardi
Theorem characterizing the class PTIME in terms of definability in least
fixed-point logic.Comment: To appear in SIAM Journal on Computin
On relating CTL to Datalog
CTL is the dominant temporal specification language in practice mainly due to
the fact that it admits model checking in linear time. Logic programming and
the database query language Datalog are often used as an implementation
platform for logic languages. In this paper we present the exact relation
between CTL and Datalog and moreover we build on this relation and known
efficient algorithms for CTL to obtain efficient algorithms for fragments of
stratified Datalog. The contributions of this paper are: a) We embed CTL into
STD which is a proper fragment of stratified Datalog. Moreover we show that STD
expresses exactly CTL -- we prove that by embedding STD into CTL. Both
embeddings are linear. b) CTL can also be embedded to fragments of Datalog
without negation. We define a fragment of Datalog with the successor build-in
predicate that we call TDS and we embed CTL into TDS in linear time. We build
on the above relations to answer open problems of stratified Datalog. We prove
that query evaluation is linear and that containment and satisfiability
problems are both decidable. The results presented in this paper are the first
for fragments of stratified Datalog that are more general than those containing
only unary EDBs.Comment: 34 pages, 1 figure (file .eps
On first-order expressibility of satisfiability in submodels
Let be regular cardinals, , let
be a sentence of the language in a given
signature, and let express the fact that holds
in a submodel, i.e., any model in the signature satisfies
if and only if some submodel of satisfies . It was shown in [1] that, whenever is in
in the signature having less than
functional symbols (and arbitrarily many predicate symbols), then
is equivalent to a monadic existential sentence in the
second-order language , and that for any
signature having at least one binary predicate symbol there exists in
such that is not equivalent
to any (first-order) sentence in . Nevertheless, in
certain cases are first-order expressible. In this note,
we provide several (syntactical and semantical) characterizations of the case
when is in and is
or a certain large cardinal
Categorical characterizations of the natural numbers require primitive recursion
Simpson and the second author asked whether there exists a characterization
of the natural numbers by a second-order sentence which is provably categorical
in the theory RCA. We answer in the negative, showing that for any
characterization of the natural numbers which is provably true in WKL,
the categoricity theorem implies induction. On the other hand, we
show that RCA does make it possible to characterize the natural numbers
categorically by means of a set of second-order sentences. We also show that a
certain -conservative extension of RCA admits a provably
categorical single-sentence characterization of the naturals, but each such
characterization has to be inconsistent with WKL+superexp.Comment: 17 page
Some applications of the ultrapower theorem to the theory of compacta
The ultrapower theorem of Keisler-Shelah allows such model-theoretic notions
as elementary equivalence, elementary embedding and existential embedding to be
couched in the language of categories (limits, morphism diagrams). This in turn
allows analogs of these (and related) notions to be transported into unusual
settings, chiefly those of Banach spaces and of compacta. Our interest here is
the enrichment of the theory of compacta, especially the theory of continua,
brought about by the immigration of model-theoretic ideas and techniques
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