Automation of Diagrammatic Proofs in Mathematics

Theorems in automated theorem proving are usually proved by logical formal proofs. However, there is a subset of problems which can also be proved in a more informal way by the use of geometric operations on diagrams, so called diagrammatic proofs. Insight is more clearly perceived in these than in the corresponding logical proofs: they capture an intuitive notion of truthfulness that humans find easy to see and understand. The proposed research project is to identify and ultimately automate this diagrammatic reasoning on mathematical theorems. The system that we are in the process of implementing will be given a theorem and will (initially) interactively prove it by the use of geometric manipulations on the diagram that the user chooses to be the appropriate ones. These operations will be the inference steps of the proof. The constructive !-rule will be used as a tool to capture the generality of diagrammatic proofs. In this way, we hope to verify and to show that the diagra..

Tactical diagrammatic reasoning

Although automated reasoning with diagrams has been possible for some years, tools for diagrammatic reasoning are generally much less sophisticated than their sentential cousins. The tasks of exploring levels of automation and abstraction in the construction of proofs and of providing explanations of solutions expressed in the proofs remain to be addressed. In this paper we take an interactive proof assistant for Euler diagrams, Speedith, and add tactics to its reasoning engine, providing a level of automation in the construction of proofs. By adding tactics to Speedith's repertoire of inferences, we ease the interaction between the user and the system and capture a higher level explanation of the essence of the proof. We analysed the design options for tactics by using metrics which relate to human readability, such as the number of inferences and the amount of clutter present in diagrams. Thus, in contrast to the normal case with sentential tactics, our tactics are designed to not only prove the theorem, but also to support explanation

SEPIA: Search for Proofs Using Inferred Automata

This paper describes SEPIA, a tool for automated proof generation in Coq. SEPIA combines model inference with interactive theorem proving. Existing proof corpora are modelled using state-based models inferred from tactic sequences. These can then be traversed automatically to identify proofs. The SEPIA system is described and its performance evaluated on three Coq datasets. Our results show that SEPIA provides a useful complement to existing automated tactics in Coq.Comment: To appear at 25th International Conference on Automated Deductio

On Automating Diagrammatic Proofs of Arithmetic Arguments

. Theorems in automated theorem proving are usually proved by formal logical proofs. However, there is a subset of problems which humans can prove by the use of geometric operations on diagrams, so called diagrammatic proofs. Insight is often more clearly perceived in these proofs than in the corresponding algebraic proofs; they capture an intuitive notion of truthfulness that humans find easy to see and understand. We are investigating and automating such diagrammatic reasoning about mathematical theorems. Concrete, rather than general diagrams are used to prove particular concrete instances of the universally quantified theorem. The diagrammatic proof is captured by the use of geometric operations on the diagram. These operations are the "inference steps" of the proof. An abstracted schematic proof of the universally quantified theorem is induced from these proof instances. The constructive !-rule provides the mathematical basis for this step from schematic proofs to theoremhood. In ..

Reasoning with concept diagrams about antipatterns

Ontologies are notoriously hard to define, express and reason about. Many tools have been developed to ease the debugging and the reasoning process with ontologies, however they often lack accessibility and formalisation. A visual representation language, concept diagrams, was developed for expressing and reasoning about ontologies in an accessible way. Indeed, empirical studies show that concept diagrams are cognitively more accessible to users in ontology debugging tasks. In this paper we answer the question of “ How can concept diagrams be used to reason about inconsistencies and incoherence of ontologies?”. We do so by formalising a set of inference rules for concept diagrams that enables stepwise verification of the inconsistency and/or incoherence of a set of ontology axioms. The design of inference rules is driven by empirical evidence that concise (merged) diagrams are easier to comprehend for users than a set of lower level diagrams that offer a one-to-one translation of OWL ontology axioms into concept diagrams. We prove that our inference rules are sound, and exemplify how they can be used to reason about inconsistencies and incoherence. Finally, we indicate how our rules can serve as a foundation for new rules required when representing ontologies in diverse new domains

Deductive reasoning about expressive statements using external graphical representations

Research in psychology on reasoning has often been restricted to relatively inexpressive statements involving quantifiers. This is limited to situations that typically do not arise in practical settings, such as ontology engineering. In order to provide an analysis of inference, we focus on reasoning tasks presented in external graphic representations where statements correspond to those involving multiple quantifiers and unary and binary relations. Our experiment measured participants’ performance when reasoning with two notations. The first used topology to convey information via node-link diagrams (i.e. graphs). The second used topological and spatial constraints to convey information (Euler diagrams with additional graph-like syntax). We found that topological- spatial representations were more effective than topological representations. Unlike topological-spatial representations, reasoning with topological representations was harder when involving multiple quantifiers and binary relations than single quantifiers and unary relations. These findings are compared to those for sentential reasoning tasks

Nonlinear diffusion in two-dimensional ordered porous media based on a free volume theory.

A continuum nonlinear diffusion model is developed to describe molecular transport in ordered porous media. An existing generic van der Waals equation of state based free volume theory of binary diffusion coefficients is modified and introduced into the two-dimensional diffusion equation. The resulting diffusion equation is solved numerically with the alternating-direction fully implicit method under Neumann boundary conditions. Two types of pore structure symmetries are considered, hexagonal and cubic. The former is modeled as parallel channels while in case of the latter equal-sized channels are placed perpendicularly thus creating an interconnected network. First, general features of transport in both systems are explored, followed by the analysis of the impact of molecular properties on diffusion inside and out of the porous matrix. The influence of pore size on the diffusion-controlled release kinetics is assessed and the findings used to comment recent experimental studies of drug release profiles from ordered mesoporous silicates