Verifying local stratifiability of logic programs and databases

In this paper, we deal with the problem of verifying local stratifiability of logic programs and databases presented by Przymusinski. The notion of dependency graphs is generalized from representing the priority relation between predicate symbols to representing the priority between atoms. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the local stratifiability of logic programs are presented and algorithms for performing the verification are developed. Finally, we prove that a database DB containing clauses with disjunctive consequents can easily be converted into a logic program P such that DB is locally stratified iff P is locally stratified. Yi-Dong Shen, Dr.: Department of Computer Science, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 630044, P.R. China (Present Address) c/o Ping Ran, Department of Heat Power Engineering, Chongqing UniversityResearch interests: Artificial Intelligence, Deductive Databases, Logic Programming, Non-Monotonic Reasoning, Parallel Processing     

On Local Stratifiability of Logic Prograns and Databases

In this paper,we deal with the problem of verifying local stratifiability of logic programs and databases presented by Przymusinski.Necessary and sufficient condition for the local stratifiability of logic programs are presented and algorithms of performing the verification are developed.Finally,we prove that a database D B containing clauses with disjunctive consequents can be easily converted into a logic program P such that D B is locally statified iff P is locally stratified.     

Verifying local stratifiability of logic programs and databases II

We continue investigating ways of verifying local stratifiability of logic programs and databases. In a previous paper, we established a necessary and sufficient condition for local stratifiability of logic programs and databases and proposed an interactive procedure for performing the verification. In this paper, we extend our earlier work. We present a characterization of an infinite extending path and develop a non-interactive procedure for testing for local stratifiability of logic programs and databases. Although the unerlying problem is undecidable in general, our method proves to be powerful to treat a majority of logic programs and databases.     

FC-normal and extended stratified logic program

This paper investigates the consistency property of FC-normal logic program and presents an equivalent deciding condition whether a logic program P is an FC-normal program. The deciding condition describes the characterizations of FC-normal program. By the Petri-net presentation of a logic program, the characterizations of stratification of FC-normal program are investigated. The stratification of FC-normal program motivates us to introduce a new kind of stratification, extended stratification, over logic program. It is shown that an extended (locally) stratified logic program is an FC-normal program. Thus, an extended (locally) stratified logic program has at least one stable model. Finally, we have presented algorithms about computation of consistency property and a few equivalent deciding methods of the finite FC-normal program.     

The expressiveness of locally stratified programs

This paper completes an investigation of the logical expressibility of finite, locally stratified, general logic programs. We show that every hyperarithmetic set can be defined by a suitably chosen locally stratified logic program (as a set of values of a predicate over its perfect model). This is an optimal result, since the perfect model of a locally stratified program is itself an implicitly definable hyperarithmetic set (under a recursive coding of the Herbrand base); hence, to obtain all hyperarithmetic sets requires something new, in this case selecting one predicate from the model. We find that the expressive power of programs does not increase when one considers the programs which have a unique stable model or a total well-founded model. This shows that all these classes of structures (perfect models of logically stratified logic programs, well-founded models which turn out to be total, and stable models of programs possessing a unique stable model) are all closely connected with Kleene's hyperarithmetical hierarchy. Thus, for general logic programming, negation with respect to two-valued logic is related to the hyperarithmetic hierarchy in the same way as Horn logic is to the class of recursively enumerable sets. In particular, a set is definable in the well-founded semantics by a programP whose well-founded partial model is total iff it is hyperarithmetic.Research partially supported by the U.S. Army Research Office through the Mathematical Sciences Institute of Cornell University.Research partially supported by NSF Grant IRI-9012902 and partially supported by the U.S. Army Research Office through the Mathematical Sciences Institute of Cornell University.Research partially supported by NSF Grant IRI-8905166 and partially supported by the U.S. Army Research Office through the Mathematical Sciences Institute of Cornell University.     

Complexity and undecidability results for logic programming

This paper surveys complexity, degree of uncomputability, and expressive power results for logic programming. Some major decision problem complexity results and other results for logic programming are also covered. It also proves several new results filling in previous gaps in the literature. The paper considers seven logic programming semantics: the van Emden-Kowalski semantics for definite (Horn) logic programs; the perfect model semantics for stratified and for locally stratified logic programs; and the two- and three-valued program completion semantics, the well-founded semantics, and the stable semantics, all for normal logic programs, under skeptical inference. The main results concern expressibility and query complexity/uncomputability in five contexts: for propositional logic programs, for first order logic programs with infinite Herbrand universes on their Herbrand universes (a closed domain assumption), for first order logic programs with infinite Herbrand universes on those universes extended with infinitely many new elements (an open domain assumption), and for logic programs without function or constant symbols evaluated over varying extensional databases (DATALOG-type results, data complexity results only) under both closed and open domain assumptions. Several of the open domain assumption results are new to this paper. Other results surveyed are (1) results about the family of all stable models of a program and (2) decision questions about when a logic program has nice properties with respect to a semantics (e.g., a unique stable model). One decision result, for well-founded semantics, is new to this paper.Work supported in part by NSF grant IRI-8905166.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">FC</Emphasis>-normal and extended stratified logic program

This paper investigates the consistency property ofFC-normal logic program and presents an equivalent deciding condition whether a logic programP is anFC-normal program. The deciding condition describes the characterizations ofFC-normal program. By the Petri-net presentation of a logic program, the characterizations of stratification ofFC-normal program are investigated. The stratification ofFC-normal program motivates us to introduce a new kind of stratification, extended stratification, over logic program. It is shown that an extended (locally) stratified logic program is anFC-normal program. Thus, an extended (locally) stratified logic program has at least one stable model. Finally, we have presented algorithms about computation of consistency property and a few equivalent deciding methods of the finiteFC-normal program.     

Symmetric structure in logic programming

It is argued that some symmetric structure in logic programs could be taken into account when implementing semantics in logic programming. This may enhance the declarative ability or expressive power of the semantics. The work presented here may be seen as representative examples along this line. The focus is on the derivation of negative information and some other classic semantic issues. We first define a permutation group associated with a given logic program. Since usually the canonical models used to reflect the common sense or intended meaning are minimal or completed models of the program, we expose the relationships between minimal models and completed models of the original program and its so-called G-reduced form newly-derived via the permutation group defined. By means of this G-reduced form, we introduce a rule to assume negative information termed G-CWA, which is actually a generalization of the GCWA. We also develop the notions of G-definite, G-hierarchical and G-stratified logic programs,     

Defeasible Inheritance Through Specialization

Typed substitution provides a means of capturing inheritance in logic deduction systems. However, in the presence of method overriding and multiple inheritance, inheritance is known to be nonmonotonic, and the semantics of programs becomes a problematic issue. This article attempts to provide a general framework, based on Dung's argumentation theoretic framework, for developing a natural semantics for programs with dynamic nonmonotonic inheritance. The relationship between the presented semantics and perfect‐model (with overriding) semantics, proposed by Dobbie and Topor (1995), is investigated. It is shown that for inheritance‐stratified programs, the two semantics coincide. However, the proposed semantics also provides correct skeptical meanings for the programs that are not inheritance‐stratified.     

Disjunctive LP+integrity constraints= stable model semantics

We show that stable models of logic programs may be viewed as minimal models of programs that satisfy certain additional constraints. To do so, we transform the normal programs into disjunctive logic programs and sets of integrity constraints. We show that the stable models of the normal program coincide with the minimal models of the disjunctive program thatsatisfy the integrity constraints. As a consequence, the stable model semantics can be characterized using theextended generalized closed world assumption for disjunctive logic programs. Using this result, we develop a bottomup algorithm for function-free logic programs to find all stable models of a normal program by computing the perfect models of a disjunctive stratified logic program and checking them for consistency with the integrity constraints. The integrity constraints provide a rationale as to why some normal logic programs have no stable models.     

First-order logic characterization of program properties

A program is first-order reducible (FO-reducible) w.r.t. a set IC of integrity constraints if there exists a first-order theory T such that the set of models for T is exactly the set of intended models for the program w.r.t. all possible EDBs. In this case, we say that P is FO-reducible to T w.r.t. IC. For FO-reducible programs, it is possible to characterize, using first-order logic implications, properties of programs that are related to all possible EDBs as in the database context. These properties include, among others, containment of programs, independence of updates w.r.t. queries and integrity constraints, and characterization and implication of integrity constraints in programs, all of which have no known proof procedures. Therefore, many important problems formalized in a nonstandard logic can be dealt with by using the rich reservoir of first-order theorem-proving tools, provided that the program is FO-reducible. The following classes of programs are shown to be FO-reducible: (1) a stratified acyclic program P is FO-reducible to comp(P)∪IC w.r.t. IC for any set IC of constraints; (2) a general chained program P is FO-reducible to comp(P')∪IC w.r.t. certain acyclicity constraints IC; and (3) a bounded program P is FO-reducible to comp(P')∪IC w.r.t. any set IC of constraints, where P' is a nonrecursive program equivalent to P. Some heuristics for constructing FO-reducible programs are described     

An Efficient Evaluation Technique for Non-Stratified Programs by Transformation to Explicitly Locally Stratified Programs

We give a simple transformation from normal programs with no stratification (local, weak, modular, etc.) into a subclass of the locally stratified programs, called Explicitly Locally Stratified (ELS) programs, for which there are efficient evaluation techniques. One set of predicates are generated for the true tuples and a different set of predicate are generated for the true and undefined tuples. A similar transformation is given that incorporates a magic sets like transformation. Previous approaches to magic sets transformations of unstratified programs either restricted the class of sips used or generated a program that required special treatment of the magic sets predicates. Our transformation does not suffer from these flaws.     

A Fixpoint Semantics for Stratified Databases

Przmusinski extended the notion of stratified logic programs,developed by Apt,Blair and Walker,and by van Gelder,to stratified databases that allow both negative premises and disjunctive consequents.However,he did not provide a fixpoint theory for such class of databases.On the other hand,although a fixpoint semantics has been developed by Minker and Rajasekar for non-Horn logic programs,it is tantamount to traditional minimal model semantics which is not sufficient to capture the intended meaning of negation in the premises of clauses in stratified databases.In this paper,a fixpoint approach to stratified databases is developed,which corresponds with the perfect model semantics.Moreover,algorithms are proposed for computing the set of perfect models of a stratified database.     

Datalog逻辑程序调用语义及其应用研究

提出Datalog逻辑程序调用语义和调用谓词,说明包含程序调用谓词的可更新U-Datalog程序的操作语义及其固定点语义。提出在有限分层调用情况下U-Datalog程序的通用评价(evaluation)算法。最后对Datalog程序调用语义在数字版权语言中的应用做了说明并给出示例。     

Logic programming with solution preferences

Preference logic programming (PLP) is an extension of logic programming for declaratively specifying problems requiring optimization or comparison and selection among alternative solutions to a query. PLP essentially separates the programming of a problem itself from the criteria specification of its solution selection. In this paper we present a declarative method for specifying preference logic programs. The method introduces a precise formalization for the syntax and semantics of PLP. The syntax of a preference logic program contains two disjoint sets of definite clauses, separating a core program specifying a general computational problem from its preference rules for optimization; the semantics of PLP is given based on the Herbrand model and fixed point theory, where how preferences affects the least Herbrand model of a logic program is interpreted as a sequence of meta-level mapping operations. In addition, we present an operational semantics based on a new resolution strategy and a memoized recursive algorithm for computing strictly stratified logic programs with well-formed preferences, and further show that the operational semantics of such a preference logic program is consistent to its declarative semantics.     

Strong equivalence of logic programs under the infinite-valued semantics

We consider the notion of strong equivalence [V. Lifschitz, D. Pearce, A. Valverde, Strongly equivalent logic programs, ACM Transactions on Computational Logic 2 (4) (2001) 526-541] of normal propositional logic programs under the infinite-valued semantics [P. Rondogiannis, W.W. Wadge, Minimum model semantics for logic programs with negation-as-failure, ACM Transactions on Computational Logic 6 (2) (2005) 441-467] (which is a purely model-theoretic semantics that is compatible with the well-founded one). We demonstrate that two such programs are strongly equivalent under the infinite-valued semantics if and only if they are logically equivalent in the corresponding infinite-valued logic. In particular, we show that strong equivalence of normal propositional logic programs is decidable, and more specifically coNP-complete. Our results have a direct implication for the well-founded semantics since, as we demonstrate, if two programs are strongly equivalent under the infinite-valued semantics, then they are also strongly equivalent under the well-founded semantics.     

正规逻辑程序回答集存在性研究

判断逻辑程序的回答集是否存在是回答集程序设计的一个重要问题,也是NP完全问题。当前利用否定圈边数的奇偶性来判断回答集存在性的方法还具有一定的局限性,即:对于非分层逻辑程序,现有方法并不能准确判断其回答集存在性。针对该问题,提出了一种新的基于否定圈的判断方法,给出了该判断方法的算法框架,证明了算法的正确性,并以实例分析说明了方法的有效性。     

一种用于指针程序验证的指针逻辑

本文改进并扩展先前为验证指针程序提出的指针逻辑,主要贡献是提出了合法访问路径集合的概念,极大地简化了访问路径上的基本运算,并使得指针逻辑推理规则变得易理解.另外,增加了局部推理规则和函数构造的推理规则,使得指针逻辑可以方便地用于有函数调用的场合.