The First Order Truth Behind Undecidability of Regular Path Queries Determinacy

In our paper [Gluch, Marcinkowski, Ostropolski-Nalewaja, LICS ACM, 2018] we have solved an old problem stated in [Calvanese, De Giacomo, Lenzerini, Vardi, SPDS ACM, 2000] showing that query determinacy is undecidable for Regular Path Queries. Here a strong generalisation of this result is shown, and - we think - a very unexpected one. We prove that no regularity is needed: determinacy remains undecidable even for finite unions of conjunctive path queries

A Family of Approximation Algorithms for the Maximum Duo-Preservation String Mapping Problem

In the Maximum Duo-Preservation String Mapping problem we are given two strings and wish to map the letters of the former to the letters of the latter as to maximise the number of duos. A duo is a pair of consecutive letters that is mapped to a pair of consecutive letters in the same order. This is complementary to the well-studied Minimum Common String Partition problem, where the goal is to partition the former string into blocks that can be permuted and concatenated to obtain the latter string. Maximum Duo-Preservation String Mapping is APX-hard. After a series of improvements, Brubach [WABI 2016] showed a polynomial-time 3.25-approximation algorithm. Our main contribution is that, for any eps>0, there exists a polynomial-time (2+eps)-approximation algorithm. Similarly to a previous solution by Boria et al. [CPM 2016], our algorithm uses the local search technique. However, this is used only after a certain preliminary greedy procedure, which gives us more structure and makes a more general local search possible. We complement this with a specialised version of the algorithm that achieves 2.67-approximation in quadratic time

Decidability of Querying First-Order Theories via Countermodels of Finite Width

We propose a generic framework for establishing the decidability of a wide range of logical entailment problems (briefly called querying), based on the existence of countermodels that are structurally simple, gauged by certain types of width measures (with treewidth and cliquewidth as popular examples). As an important special case of our framework, we identify logics exhibiting width-finite finitely universal model sets, warranting decidable entailment for a wide range of homomorphism-closed queries, subsuming a diverse set of practically relevant query languages. As a particularly powerful width measure, we propose Blumensath's partitionwidth, which subsumes various other commonly considered width measures and exhibits highly favorable computational and structural properties. Focusing on the formalism of existential rules as a popular showcase, we explain how finite partitionwidth sets of rules subsume other known abstract decidable classes but -- leveraging existing notions of stratification -- also cover a wide range of new rulesets. We expose natural limitations for fitting the class of finite unification sets into our picture and provide several options for remedy

Finite-Cliquewidth Sets of Existential Rules: Toward a General Criterion for Decidable yet Highly Expressive Querying

In our pursuit of generic criteria for decidable ontology-based querying, we introduce finite-cliquewidth sets (fcs) of existential rules, a model-theoretically defined class of rule sets, inspired by the cliquewidth measure from graph theory. By a generic argument, we show that fcs ensures decidability of entailment for a sizable class of queries (dubbed DaMSOQs) subsuming conjunctive queries (CQs). The fcs class properly generalizes the class of finite-expansion sets (fes), and for signatures of arity ? 2, the class of bounded-treewidth sets (bts). For higher arities, bts is only indirectly subsumed by fcs by means of reification. Despite the generality of fcs, we provide a rule set with decidable CQ entailment (by virtue of first-order-rewritability) that falls outside fcs, thus demonstrating the incomparability of fcs and the class of finite-unification sets (fus). In spite of this, we show that if we restrict ourselves to single-headed rule sets over signatures of arity ? 2, then fcs subsumes fus

On monotonic determinacy and rewritability for recursive queries and views

A query Q is monotonically determined over a set of views if Q can be expressed as a monotonic function of the view image. In the case of relational algebra views and queries, monotonic determinacy coincides with rewritability as a union of conjunctive queries, and it is decidable in important special cases, such as for CQ views and queries. We investigate the situation for views and queries in the recursive query language Datalog. We give both positive and negative results about the ability to decide monotonic determinacy, and also about the co-incidence of monotonic determinacy with Datalog rewritability

A Journey to the Frontiers of Query Rewritability

International audienceWe consider (first-order) query rewritability in the context of theorymediated query answering. The starting point of our journey is the FUS/FES conjecture, which states that any theory that is a finite expansion set (FES) and admits query rewriting (BDD, FUS) must be uniformly bounded. We show that this conjecture holds for a large class of BDD theories, which we call "local". Upon investigating how "non-local" BDD theories can actually get, we discover unexpected phenomena that, we think, are at odds with prevailing intuitions about BDD theories

A Journey to the Frontiers of Query Rewritability

International audienceWe consider (first-order) query rewritability in the context of theorymediated query answering. The starting point of our journey is the FUS/FES conjecture, which states that any theory that is a finite expansion set (FES) and admits query rewriting (BDD, FUS) must be uniformly bounded. We show that this conjecture holds for a large class of BDD theories, which we call "local". Upon investigating how "non-local" BDD theories can actually get, we discover unexpected phenomena that, we think, are at odds with prevailing intuitions about BDD theories