Toward leaner binary-clause reasoning in a satisfiability solver

Binary-clause reasoning has been shown to reduce the size of the search space on many satisfiability problems, but has often been so expensive that run-time was higher than that of a simpler procedure that explored a larger space. The method of Sharir for detecting strongly connected components in a directed graph can be adapted to performing lean resolution on a set of binary clauses. Beyond simply detecting unsatisfiability, the goal is to find implied equivalent literals, implied unit clauses, and implied binary clauses.     

Toward leaner binary-clause reasoning in a satisfiability solver

Binary-clause reasoning has been shown to reduce the size of the search space on many satisfiability problems, but has often been so expensive that run-time was higher than that of a simpler procedure that explored a larger space. The method of Sharir for detecting strongly connected components in a directed graph can be adapted to performing lean resolution on a set of binary clauses. Beyond simply detecting unsatisfiability, the goal is to find implied equivalent literals, implied unit clauses, and implied binary clauses.     

Four-index integral transformation exploiting symmetry

We present a Fortran implementation of four-index integral transformation in the LCAO-MO (linear combination of atomic orbitals-molecular orbitals) framework that exploits symmetry. Electron correlation calculations, such as configuration interaction (CI) calculations, usually require electron repulsion integrals to be transformed to a molecular orbital basis from a basis using atomic orbitals. In large molecular systems it is vital to exploit the sparsity of integrals in making this transformation. By exploiting symmetry, the sparsity of integrals is fully utilized, the size of intermediate file is minimized, and the computational cost is reduced. The present algorithm is simple and can readily be added to existing quantum chemistry program packages.

Program summary

Title of program: SYM4TR (symmetry adapted 4-index integral transformation)Catalogue identifier: ADUWProgram summary URL:http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/ADUWProgram obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen's University of Belfast, N. IrelandComputers: IBM/AIX, HP Alpha server/Tru64, PC's/LinuxProgram language used: Fortran 95Number of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 4519No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 32 095Distributed format: tar gzip fileNature of physical problem: Molecular orbital calculations including electron correlation effects usually require electron repulsion integrals to be transformed from an atomic orbital (AO) basis to a molecular orbital (MO) basis. By exploiting the sparsity of molecular integrals, the computational cost and memory needed for the transformation are minimized.Method of solution: The sparsity of molecular integrals is exploited. The program treats only nonzero integrals. The length of running indices in DO loops is reduced using the block-diagonal form of the MO coefficient matrix. In the present program, the point group is limited to D_2h and its subgroups.     

A BDD SAT solver for satisfiability testing: An industrial case study

The satisfiability problem (SAT) is a fundamental problem in mathematical logic, constraint satisfaction, VLSI engineering, and computing theory. Methods to solve the satisfiability problem play an important role in the development of computing theory and systems. In this paper, we give a BDD (Binary Decision Diagrams) SAT solver for practical asynchronous circuit design. The BDD SAT solver consists of a structural SAT formula preprocessor and a complete, incremental SAT algorithm that is able to find an optimal solution. The preprocessor compresses a large size SAT formula representing the circuit into a number of smaller SAT formulas. This avoids the problem of solving very large SAT formulas. Each small size SAT formula is solved by the BDD SAT algorithm efficiently. Eventually, the results of these subproblems are integrated together that contribute to the solution of the original problem. According to recent industrial assessments, this BDD SAT solver provides solutions to the practical, industrial asynchronous circuit design problems.This research is supported in part by the 1993 ACM/IEEE Design Automation Award, by the Alberta Microelectronics Graduate Scholarship, by the NSERC research grant OGP0046423, and was supported in part by the NSERC strategic grant MEF0045793.Presently, Jun Gu is on leave with the Department of Computer Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong.     

基于可满足性模理论求解器的程序路径验证方法

针对程序中因存在路径条数过多或复杂循环路径而导致路径验证时的路径搜索空间过大,直接影响验证的效率和准确率的问题,提出一种基于可满足性模理论（SMT）求解器的程序路径验证方法。首先利用决策树的方法对复杂循环路径提取不变式,构造无循环控制流图（NLCFG）;然后通过基本路径法对控制流图（CFG）进行遍历,提取基本路径信息;最后利用SMT求解器作为约束求解器,将路径验证问题转化为约束求解问题来进行处理。与同样基于SMT求解器的路径验证工具CBMC和FSoft-SMT相比,该方法在对测试集程序的验证时间上比CBMC降低了25%以上,比FSoft-SMT降低了15%以上;在验证精度上,该方法有明显的提升。实验结果表明,方法可以有效解决路径搜索空间过大的问题,同时提高路径验证的效率和准确率。     

Correlations between Horn fractions, satisfiability and solver performance for fixed density random 3-CNF instances

An enhanced concept of sub-optimal reverse Horn fraction of a CNF-formula was introduced in [18]. It was shown that this fraction is very useful in effectively (almost) separating 3-colorable random graphs with fixed node-edge density from the non-3-colorable ones. A correlation between this enhanced sub-optimal reverse Horn fraction and satisfiability of random 3-SAT instances with a fixed density was observed. In this paper, we present experimental evidence that this correlation scales to larger-sized instances and that it extends to solver performances as well, both of complete and incomplete solvers. Furthermore, we give a motivation for various phases in the algorithm aHS, establishing the enhanced sub-optimal reverse Horn fraction, and we present clear evidence for the fact that the observed correlations are stronger than correlations between satisfiability and sub-optimal MAXSAT-fractions established similarly to the enhanced sub-optimal reverse Horn fraction. The latter observation is noteworthy because the correlation between satisfiability and the optimal MAXSAT-fraction is obviously 100%. AMS subject classification 90C05, 03B99, 68Q01, 68W01     

Browsing zoomable treemaps: structure-aware multi-scale navigation techniques

Treemaps provide an interesting solution for representing hierarchical data. However, most studies have mainly focused on layout algorithms and paid limited attention to the interaction with treemaps. This makes it difficult to explore large data sets and to get access to details, especially to those related to the leaves of the trees. We propose the notion of zoomable treemaps (ZTMs), an hybridization between treemaps and zoomable user interfaces that facilitates the navigation in large hierarchical data sets. By providing a consistent set of interaction techniques, ZTMs make it possible for users to browse through very large data sets (e.g., 700,000 nodes dispatched amongst 13 levels). These techniques use the structure of the displayed data to guide the interaction and provide a way to improve interactive navigation in treemaps.     

Towards a structure-aware failure semantics for streaming media communication models

Failure semantics in communication models for distributed systems deal with the impossibility of achieving an exactly once invocation semantics in failure-prone environments. For remote procedure invocation models, failure semantics such as at-least-once and at-most-once specify guarantees about the number of executions of an invocation as well as its completeness even under the assumption that communication and server failures may occur.While such failure semantics are quite successful for remote procedure call models they have significant weaknesses when applied to streaming media communication. The main reasons are fundamental differences in the basic communication model as well as case-dependency and granularity of failure treatment in media streams, resulting in awkward abstractions as well as inefficient implementations.This paper is a step towards an adaptive failure semantics for streaming media communication. We argue that in order to achieve simplicity and economy, failure semantics must dynamically exploit application-level knowledge as well as knowledge from lower system layers, the three corner stones being media stream structure, timing constraints and resource availability.The paper focuses on structure-awareness as one of these three corner stones. It discusses the role of importance of a media stream fragment, develops a function to quantify importance, and discusses its computability. Experimental results evaluating importance based failure handling conclude the work.     

Simplification in a satisfiability checker for VLSI applications

INSTEP is a satisfiability checker designed for the original purpose of solving a specific target set of problems in the formal verification of VLSI circuits. These are real-world problems concerning a sequential circuit that is part of a commercial chip manufactured by Texas Instruments. The program has succeeded in solving these problems, which require satisfiability checking for combinational representations containing up to around 10 000 variables and a graphical representation of around 17 000 nodes. It has also been successfully applied to a number of standard benchmark problems in combinational circuit verification. Results on these benchmarks are overall competitive with those for the widely used method based onbinary decision diagrams, and for the first time demonstrate the solution in polynomial time of certain benchmarks involving combinational multipliers.A central part of the INSTEP algorthim is simplification. Most simplifications that take place in previous tautology checkers consist of the replacement of a formula by a shorter formula that is logically equivalent. Most simplifications in INSTEP replace a formula by another formula which isnot logically equivalent, but such that satisfiability is nevertheless preserved. These new simplifications depend on the pattern of occurrence of one or more variables and particularly on theirpolarity.The simplifications used by INSTEP rest on several new theorems in an area of propositional calculus (or Boolean algebra) which is crucial to the general theory of effective simplification of propositional formulas. The primary purpose of the present paper is to demonstrate these theorems and explain the simplifications that depend on them.For the present paper we have tried INSTEP on the well-known pigeonhole problem. So far as we know INSTEP is the first implemented program to produce proofs of polynomial length for pigeonhole problems. It also produces these proofs in polynomial time.     

Interactive scheduling as a constraint satisfiability problem

A constraint satisfiability problem consists of a set of variables, their associated domains (i.e., the set of values the variable can take) and a set of constraints on these variables. A solution to the CSP is an instantiation (or labeling) of all the variables which does not violate any of the constraints. Since constraint satisfiability problems are, in general, NP-complete, it is of interest to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of heuristic algorithms as applied, in particular, to our application. Our research effort attempts to determine which algorithms perform best in solving the student scheduling problem (SSP) and under what conditions. We also investigate the probabilistic techniques of Nudel for finding a near-optimal instantiation order for search algorithms, and develop our own modifications which can yield a significant improvement in efficiency for the SSP. Experimental results have been collected and are reported here. Our system was developed for and used at Bar-Ilan University during the registration period, being available for students to construct their timetables.     

可满足问题中的模型计数

模型计数问题是指计算给定问题的解的个数,这是一类比决策更困难的问题,也是人工智能领域研究的一个热点问题.对模型计数问题的研究不仅可以提高算法的求解效率,更能促进对问题困难本质的了解.以可满足问题（命题可满足（SAT）和约束可满足问题（CSP））为例,从精确算法和近似求解两方面综述了模型计数问题的研究现状,重点介绍了相关概念以及各个算法之间的优缺点,并提出了有待解决的开放性问题,对模型计数问题的研究予以了总结和展望.     

Solving satisfiability in combinational circuits

As EDA evolves, researchers continue to find modeling tools to solve problems of test generation, design verification, logic, and physical synthesis, among others. One such modeling tool is Boolean satisfiability (SAT), which has very broad applicability in EDA. The authors review modern SAT algorithms, show how these algorithms can account for structural information in combinational circuits, and explain what recursive learning can add to SAT.     

GASAT: a genetic local search algorithm for the satisfiability problem

This paper presents GASAT, a hybrid algorithm for the satisfiability problem (SAT). The main feature of GASAT is that it includes a recombination stage based on a specific crossover and a tabu search stage. We have conducted experiments to evaluate the different components of GASAT and to compare its overall performance with state-of-the-art SAT algorithms. These experiments show that GASAT provides very competitive results.     

On a robust multigrid solver

We consider a two-grid method based on approximation of the Schur complement. We study the dependence of the two-grid convergence rate on certain problem parameters. As test problems we take the rotated anisotropic diffusion equation and the convection-diffusion equation. Using Fourier analysis we show that for both test problems the two-grid method is robust w.r.t. variation in the relevant problem parameters. For the multigrid method we use a standardW-cycle on coarse grids. This multigrid method then has the same algorithmic structure as a standard multigrid method and is fairly efficient. Moreover, when applied to the two test problems then, as in the two-grid method, we have a strong robustness w.r.t. variation of the problem parameters.     

The satisfiability problem in regular CNF-formulas

 In this paper we deal with the propositional satisfiability (SAT) problem for a kind of multiple-valued clausal forms known as regular CNF-formulas and extend some known results from classical logic to this kind of formulas. We present a Davis–Putnam-style satisfiability checking procedure for regular CNF-formulas equipped with suitable data structures and prove its completeness. Then, we describe a series of experiments for regular random 3-SAT instances. We observe that, for the regular 3-SAT problem with this procedure, there exists a threshold of the ratio of clauses to variables such that (i) the most computationally difficult instances tend to be found near the threshold, (ii) there is a sharp transition from satisfiable to unsatisfiable instances at the threshold and (iii) the value of the threshold increases as the number of truth values considered increases. Instances in the hard part provide benchmarks for the evaluation of regular satisfiability solvers.     

Some interesting research directions in satisfiability

The satisfiability problem and algorithms for solving it have received greatly increased attention in the last few years. This interest comes from a variety of disciplines such as Computer Science, Operations Research, Graph Theory, and Physics, among others. This paper shows some of the current interesting directions in satisfiability research from these disciplines and presents some possible future directions. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Accelerated numerical simulations of a heaving floating body by coupling a motion solver with a two-phase fluid solver

This paper presents a study on the coupling between a fluid solver and a motion solver to perform fluid–structure interaction (FSI) simulations of floating bodies such as point absorber wave energy converters heaving under wave loading. The two-phase fluid solver with dynamic mesh handling, interDyMFoam, is a part of the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) toolbox OpenFOAM. The incompressible Navier–Stokes (NS) equations are solved together with a conservation equation for the Volume of Fluid (VoF). The motion solver is computing the kinematic body motion induced by the fluid flow. A coupling algorithm is needed between the fluid solver and the motion solver to obtain a converged solution between the hydrodynamic flow field around and the kinematic motion of the body during each time step in the transient simulation. For body geometries with a significant added mass effect, simple coupling algorithms show slow convergence or even instabilities. In this paper, we identify the mechanism for the numerical instability and we derive an accelerated coupling algorithm (based on a Jacobian) to enhance the convergence speed between the fluid and motion solver. Secondly, we illustrate the coupling algorithm by presenting a free decay test of a heaving wave energy converter. Thirdly and most challenging, a water impact test of a free falling wedge with a significant added mass effect is successfully simulated. For both test cases, the numerical results obtained by using the accelerated coupling algorithm are in a very good agreement with the experimental measurements.