Search results for "first-order logic"
showing 10 items of 22 documents
Nondeterministic operations on finite relational structures
1998
Abstract This article builds on a tutorial introduction to universal algebra for language theory (Courcelle, Theoret. Comput. Sci. 163 (1996) 1–54) and extends it in two directions. First, nondeterministic operations are considered, i.e., operations which give a set of results instead of a single one. Most of their properties concerning recognizability and equational definability carry over from the ordinary case with minor modifications. Second, inductive sets of evaluations are studied in greater detail. It seems that they are handled most naturally in the framework presented here. We consider the analogues of top-down and bottom-up tree transducers. Again, most of their closure propertie…
The Fluted Fragment with Transitivity
2019
We study the satisfiability problem for the fluted fragment extended with transitive relations. We show that the logic enjoys the finite model property when only one transitive relation is available. On the other hand we show that the satisfiability problem is undecidable already for the two-variable fragment of the logic in the presence of three transitive relations.
On the Power of Tree-Walking Automata
2000
Tree-walking automata (TWAs) recently received new attention in the fields of formal languages and databases. Towards a better understanding of their expressiveness, we characterize them in terms of transitive closure logic formulas in normal form. It is conjectured by Engelfriet and Hoogeboom that TWAs cannot define all regular tree languages, or equivalently, all of monadic second-order logic. We prove this conjecture for a restricted, but powerful, class of TWAs. In particular, we show that 1-bounded TWAs, that is TWAs that are only allowed to traverse every edge of the input tree at most once in every direction, cannot define all regular languages. We then extend this result to a class …
Decidability Frontier for Fragments of First-Order Logic with Transitivity
2018
Several decidable fragments of first-order logic have been identified in the past as a generalisation of the standard translation of modal logic. These include: the fluted fragment, the two-variable frag- ment, the guarded fragment and the unary negation fragment; some of them have been recently generalised or combined to yield even more expressive decidable logics (guarded negation fragment or uniform one- dimensional fragment). None of the fragments allows one to express tran- sitivity of a binary relation or related properties like being an equivalence, a linear or a partial order, that naturally appear in specifications or in verification. The question therefore arises what is the impac…
The fluted fragment revisited
2019
AbstractWe study the fluted fragment, a decidable fragment of first-order logic with an unbounded number of variables, motivated by the work of W. V. Quine. We show that the satisfiability problem for this fragment has nonelementary complexity, thus refuting an earlier published claim by W. C. Purdy that it is in NExpTime. More precisely, we consider ${\cal F}{{\cal L}^m}$, the intersection of the fluted fragment and the m-variable fragment of first-order logic, for all $m \ge 1$. We show that, for $m \ge 2$, this subfragment forces $\left\lfloor {m/2} \right\rfloor$-tuply exponentially large models, and that its satisfiability problem is $\left\lfloor {m/2} \right\rfloor$-NExpTime-hard. We…
Two-Variable First-Order Logic with Equivalence Closure
2012
We consider the satisfiability and finite satisfiability problems for extensions of the two-variable fragment of first-order logic in which an equivalence closure operator can be applied to a fixed number of binary predicates. We show that the satisfiability problem for two-variable, first-order logic with equivalence closure applied to two binary predicates is in 2-NExpTime, and we obtain a matching lower bound by showing that the satisfiability problem for two-variable first-order logic in the presence of two equivalence relations is 2-NExpTime-hard. The logics in question lack the finite model property; however, we show that the same complexity bounds hold for the corresponding finite sa…
Local Normal Forms for First-Order Logic with Applications to Games and Automata
1999
Building on work of Gaifman [Gai82] it is shown that every first-order formula is logically equivalent to a formula of the form ∃ x_1,...,x_l, \forall y, φ where φ is r-local around y, i.e. quantification in φ is restricted to elements of the universe of distance at most r from y. \par From this and related normal forms, variants of the Ehrenfeucht game for first-order and existential monadic second-order logic are developed that restrict the possible strategies for the spoiler, one of the two players. This makes proofs of the existence of a winning strategy for the duplicator, the other player, easier and can thus simplify inexpressibility proofs. \par As another application, automata mode…
Two-variable First-Order Logic with Counting in Forests
2018
We consider an extension of two-variable, first-order logic with counting quantifiers and arbitrarily many unary and binary predicates, in which one distinguished predicate is interpreted as the mother-daughter relation in an unranked forest. We show that both the finite satisfiability and the general satisfiability problems for the extended logic are decidable in NExpTime. We also show that the decision procedure for finite satisfiability can be extended to the logic where two distinguished predicates are interpreted as the mother-daughter relations in two independent forests.
Mathematical logic and quantum finite state automata
2009
AbstractThis paper is a review of the connection between formulas of logic and quantum finite-state automata in respect to the language recognition and acceptance probability of quantum finite-state automata. As is well known, logic has had a great impact on classical computation, it is promising to study the relation between quantum finite-state automata and mathematical logic. After a brief introduction to the connection between classical computation and logic, the required background of the logic and quantum finite-state automata is provided and the results of the connection between quantum finite-state automata and logic are presented.
An Ontology Architecture for Standards Integration and Conformance in Manufacturing
2007
Standards reflect consensus on the semantics of terms. When used to communicate, whether between people or software systems, standards ensure the communication is correct. Different standards have different semantics for the same terms and express common concepts using different terms and in different ways. Communication between software systems based on different standards is sometimes difficult to achieve. Standards integration concerns the explicit representation of the overlapping sets of concepts in standards and the differences in their semantics to ensure that these standards are used consistently together. This in turn enables software that is based on integrated standards to intero…