10 research outputs found
Weak Bases of Boolean Co-Clones
Universal algebra and clone theory have proven to be a useful tool in the
study of constraint satisfaction problems since the complexity, up to logspace
reductions, is determined by the set of polymorphisms of the constraint
language. For classifications where primitive positive definitions are
unsuitable, such as size-preserving reductions, weaker closure operations may
be necessary. In this article we consider strong partial clones which can be
seen as a more fine-grained framework than Post's lattice where each clone
splits into an interval of strong partial clones. We investigate these
intervals and give simple relational descriptions, weak bases, of the largest
elements. The weak bases have a highly regular form and are in many cases
easily relatable to the smallest members in the intervals, which suggests that
the lattice of strong partial clones is considerably simpler than the full
lattice of partial clones
The complexity of counting locally maximal satisfying assignments of Boolean CSPs
We investigate the computational complexity of the problem of counting the
maximal satisfying assignments of a Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) over
the Boolean domain {0,1}. A satisfying assignment is maximal if any new
assignment which is obtained from it by changing a 0 to a 1 is unsatisfying.
For each constraint language Gamma, #MaximalCSP(Gamma) denotes the problem of
counting the maximal satisfying assignments, given an input CSP with
constraints in Gamma. We give a complexity dichotomy for the problem of exactly
counting the maximal satisfying assignments and a complexity trichotomy for the
problem of approximately counting them. Relative to the problem #CSP(Gamma),
which is the problem of counting all satisfying assignments, the maximal
version can sometimes be easier but never harder. This finding contrasts with
the recent discovery that approximately counting maximal independent sets in a
bipartite graph is harder (under the usual complexity-theoretic assumptions)
than counting all independent sets.Comment: V2 adds contextual material relating the results obtained here to
earlier work in a different but related setting. The technical content is
unchanged. V3 (this version) incorporates minor revisions. The title has been
changed to better reflect what is novel in this work. This version has been
accepted for publication in Theoretical Computer Science. 19 page
Minimization for Generalized Boolean Formulas
The minimization problem for propositional formulas is an important
optimization problem in the second level of the polynomial hierarchy. In
general, the problem is Sigma-2-complete under Turing reductions, but
restricted versions are tractable. We study the complexity of minimization for
formulas in two established frameworks for restricted propositional logic: The
Post framework allowing arbitrarily nested formulas over a set of Boolean
connectors, and the constraint setting, allowing generalizations of CNF
formulas. In the Post case, we obtain a dichotomy result: Minimization is
solvable in polynomial time or coNP-hard. This result also applies to Boolean
circuits. For CNF formulas, we obtain new minimization algorithms for a large
class of formulas, and give strong evidence that we have covered all
polynomial-time cases
Galois correspondence for counting quantifiers
We introduce a new type of closure operator on the set of relations,
max-implementation, and its weaker analog max-quantification. Then we show that
approximation preserving reductions between counting constraint satisfaction
problems (#CSPs) are preserved by these two types of closure operators.
Together with some previous results this means that the approximation
complexity of counting CSPs is determined by partial clones of relations that
additionally closed under these new types of closure operators. Galois
correspondence of various kind have proved to be quite helpful in the study of
the complexity of the CSP. While we were unable to identify a Galois
correspondence for partial clones closed under max-implementation and
max-quantification, we obtain such results for slightly different type of
closure operators, k-existential quantification. This type of quantifiers are
known as counting quantifiers in model theory, and often used to enhance first
order logic languages. We characterize partial clones of relations closed under
k-existential quantification as sets of relations invariant under a set of
partial functions that satisfy the condition of k-subset surjectivity. Finally,
we give a description of Boolean max-co-clones, that is, sets of relations on
{0,1} closed under max-implementations.Comment: 28 pages, 2 figure
Complexity Classifications for logic-based Argumentation
We consider logic-based argumentation in which an argument is a pair (Fi,al),
where the support Fi is a minimal consistent set of formulae taken from a given
knowledge base (usually denoted by De) that entails the claim al (a formula).
We study the complexity of three central problems in argumentation: the
existence of a support Fi ss De, the validity of a support and the relevance
problem (given psi is there a support Fi such that psi ss Fi?). When arguments
are given in the full language of propositional logic these problems are
computationally costly tasks, the validity problem is DP-complete, the others
are SigP2-complete. We study these problems in Schaefer's famous framework
where the considered propositional formulae are in generalized conjunctive
normal form. This means that formulae are conjunctions of constraints build
upon a fixed finite set of Boolean relations Ga (the constraint language). We
show that according to the properties of this language Ga, deciding whether
there exists a support for a claim in a given knowledge base is either
polynomial, NP-complete, coNP-complete or SigP2-complete. We present a
dichotomous classification, P or DP-complete, for the verification problem and
a trichotomous classification for the relevance problem into either polynomial,
NP-complete, or SigP2-complete. These last two classifications are obtained by
means of algebraic tools
Boolean approximate counting CSPs with weak conservativity, and implications for ferromagnetic two-spin
We analyse the complexity of approximate counting constraint satisfactions
problems , where is a set of
nonnegative rational-valued functions of Boolean variables. A complete
classification is known in the conservative case, where is
assumed to contain arbitrary unary functions. We strengthen this result by
fixing any permissive strictly increasing unary function and any permissive
strictly decreasing unary function, and adding only those to :
this is weak conservativity. The resulting classification is employed to
characterise the complexity of a wide range of two-spin problems, fully
classifying the ferromagnetic case. In a further weakening of conservativity,
we also consider what happens if only the pinning functions are assumed to be
in (instead of the two permissive unaries). We show that any set
of functions for which pinning is not sufficient to recover the two kinds of
permissive unaries must either have a very simple range, or must satisfy a
certain monotonicity condition. We exhibit a non-trivial example of a set of
functions satisfying the monotonicity condition.Comment: 37 page
Structure Identification of Boolean Relations and Plain Bases for co-Clones
International audienceWe give a quadratic algorithm for the following structure identification problem: given a Boolean relation R and a finite set S of Boolean relations, can the relation R be expressed as a conjunctive query over the relations in the set S? Our algorithm is derived by first introducing the concept of a plain basis for a co-clone and then identifying natural plain bases for every co-clone in Post's lattice. In the process, we also give a quadratic algorithm for the problem of finding the smallest co-clone containing a Boolean relation