32,801 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
Tight Logic Programs
This note is about the relationship between two theories of negation as
failure -- one based on program completion, the other based on stable models,
or answer sets. Francois Fages showed that if a logic program satisfies a
certain syntactic condition, which is now called ``tightness,'' then its stable
models can be characterized as the models of its completion. We extend the
definition of tightness and Fages' theorem to programs with nested expressions
in the bodies of rules, and study tight logic programs containing the
definition of the transitive closure of a predicate.Comment: To appear in Special Issue of the Theory and Practice of Logic
Programming Journal on Answer Set Programming, 200
Combining Static and Dynamic Analysis for Vulnerability Detection
In this paper, we present a hybrid approach for buffer overflow detection in
C code. The approach makes use of static and dynamic analysis of the
application under investigation. The static part consists in calculating taint
dependency sequences (TDS) between user controlled inputs and vulnerable
statements. This process is akin to program slice of interest to calculate
tainted data- and control-flow path which exhibits the dependence between
tainted program inputs and vulnerable statements in the code. The dynamic part
consists of executing the program along TDSs to trigger the vulnerability by
generating suitable inputs. We use genetic algorithm to generate inputs. We
propose a fitness function that approximates the program behavior (control
flow) based on the frequencies of the statements along TDSs. This runtime
aspect makes the approach faster and accurate. We provide experimental results
on the Verisec benchmark to validate our approach.Comment: There are 15 pages with 1 figur
The preliminary SOL (Sizing and Optimization Language) reference manual
The Sizing and Optimization Language, SOL, a high-level special-purpose computer language has been developed to expedite application of numerical optimization to design problems and to make the process less error-prone. This document is a reference manual for those wishing to write SOL programs. SOL is presently available for DEC VAX/VMS systems. A SOL package is available which includes the SOL compiler and runtime library routines. An overview of SOL appears in NASA TM 100565
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