2,312 research outputs found
The Model-Theoretic Expressiveness of Propositional Proof Systems
We establish new, and surprisingly tight, connections between propositional proof complexity and finite model theory.
Specifically, we show that the power of several propositional proof systems, such as Horn resolution, bounded width resolution, and the polynomial calculus of bounded degree, can be characterised in a precise sense by variants of fixed-point logics that are of fundamental importance in descriptive complexity theory.
Our main results are that Horn resolution has the same expressive power as least fixed-point logic, that bounded width resolution captures existential least fixed-point logic, and that the (monomial restriction of the) polynomial calculus of bounded degree solves precisely the problems definable in fixed-point logic with counting
Combining Spatial and Temporal Logics: Expressiveness vs. Complexity
In this paper, we construct and investigate a hierarchy of spatio-temporal
formalisms that result from various combinations of propositional spatial and
temporal logics such as the propositional temporal logic PTL, the spatial
logics RCC-8, BRCC-8, S4u and their fragments. The obtained results give a
clear picture of the trade-off between expressiveness and computational
realisability within the hierarchy. We demonstrate how different combining
principles as well as spatial and temporal primitives can produce NP-, PSPACE-,
EXPSPACE-, 2EXPSPACE-complete, and even undecidable spatio-temporal logics out
of components that are at most NP- or PSPACE-complete
Modular Construction of Complete Coalgebraic Logics
We present a modular approach to defining logics for a wide variety of state-based systems. The systems are modelled by coalgebras, and we use modal logics to specify their observable properties. We show that the syntax, semantics and proof systems associated to such logics can all be derived in a modular fashion. Moreover, we show that the logics thus obtained inherit soundness, completeness and expressiveness properties from their building blocks. We apply these techniques to derive sound, complete and expressive logics for a wide variety of probabilistic systems, for which no complete axiomatisation has been obtained so far
Quantified CTL: Expressiveness and Complexity
While it was defined long ago, the extension of CTL with quantification over
atomic propositions has never been studied extensively. Considering two
different semantics (depending whether propositional quantification refers to
the Kripke structure or to its unwinding tree), we study its expressiveness
(showing in particular that QCTL coincides with Monadic Second-Order Logic for
both semantics) and characterise the complexity of its model-checking and
satisfiability problems, depending on the number of nested propositional
quantifiers (showing that the structure semantics populates the polynomial
hierarchy while the tree semantics populates the exponential hierarchy)
Applying Formal Methods to Networking: Theory, Techniques and Applications
Despite its great importance, modern network infrastructure is remarkable for
the lack of rigor in its engineering. The Internet which began as a research
experiment was never designed to handle the users and applications it hosts
today. The lack of formalization of the Internet architecture meant limited
abstractions and modularity, especially for the control and management planes,
thus requiring for every new need a new protocol built from scratch. This led
to an unwieldy ossified Internet architecture resistant to any attempts at
formal verification, and an Internet culture where expediency and pragmatism
are favored over formal correctness. Fortunately, recent work in the space of
clean slate Internet design---especially, the software defined networking (SDN)
paradigm---offers the Internet community another chance to develop the right
kind of architecture and abstractions. This has also led to a great resurgence
in interest of applying formal methods to specification, verification, and
synthesis of networking protocols and applications. In this paper, we present a
self-contained tutorial of the formidable amount of work that has been done in
formal methods, and present a survey of its applications to networking.Comment: 30 pages, submitted to IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorial
On the Relative Expressiveness of Argumentation Frameworks, Normal Logic Programs and Abstract Dialectical Frameworks
We analyse the expressiveness of the two-valued semantics of abstract
argumentation frameworks, normal logic programs and abstract dialectical
frameworks. By expressiveness we mean the ability to encode a desired set of
two-valued interpretations over a given propositional signature using only
atoms from that signature. While the computational complexity of the two-valued
model existence problem for all these languages is (almost) the same, we show
that the languages form a neat hierarchy with respect to their expressiveness.Comment: Proceedings of the 15th International Workshop on Non-Monotonic
Reasoning (NMR 2014
Real-time and Probabilistic Temporal Logics: An Overview
Over the last two decades, there has been an extensive study on logical
formalisms for specifying and verifying real-time systems. Temporal logics have
been an important research subject within this direction. Although numerous
logics have been introduced for the formal specification of real-time and
complex systems, an up to date comprehensive analysis of these logics does not
exist in the literature. In this paper we analyse real-time and probabilistic
temporal logics which have been widely used in this field. We extrapolate the
notions of decidability, axiomatizability, expressiveness, model checking, etc.
for each logic analysed. We also provide a comparison of features of the
temporal logics discussed
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