Computational Logic Logic Programming And Beyond

Alan Robinson This set of essays pays tribute to Bob Kowalski on his 60th birthday, an anniversary which gives his friends and colleagues an excuse to celebrate his career as an original thinker, a charismatic communicator, and a forceful intellectual leader. The logic programming community hereby and herein conveys its respect and thanks to him for his pivotal role in creating and fostering the conceptual paradigm which is its raison d’Œtre. The diversity of interests covered here reflects the variety of Bob’s concerns. Read on. It is an intellectual feast. Before you begin, permit me to send him a brief personal, but public, message: Bob, how right you were, and how wrong I was. I should explain. When Bob arrived in Edinburgh in 1967 resolution was as yet fairly new, having taken several years to become at all widely known. Research groups to investigate various aspects of resolution sprang up at several institutions, the one organized by Bernard Meltzer at Edinburgh University being among the first. For the half-dozen years that Bob was a leading member of Bernard’s group, I was a frequent visitor to it, and I saw a lot of him. We had many discussions about logic, computation, and language.

Alan Robinson This set of essays pays tribute to Bob Kowalski on his 60th birthday, an anniversary which gives his friends and colleagues an excuse to celebrate his career as an original thinker, a charismatic communicator, and a forceful intellectual leader. The logic programming community hereby and herein conveys its respect and thanks to him for his pivotal role in creating and fostering the conceptual paradigm which is its raison d’Œtre. The diversity of interests covered here reflects the variety of Bob’s concerns. Read on. It is an intellectual feast. Before you begin, permit me to send him a brief personal, but public, message: Bob, how right you were, and how wrong I was. I should explain. When Bob arrived in Edinburgh in 1967 resolution was as yet fairly new, having taken several years to become at all widely known. Research groups to investigate various aspects of resolution sprang up at several institutions, the one organized by Bernard Meltzer at Edinburgh University being among the first. For the half-dozen years that Bob was a leading member of Bernard’s group, I was a frequent visitor to it, and I saw a lot of him. We had many discussions about logic, computation, and language.

This volume spans the whole field of computational logic seen from the point of view of logic programming. The topics addressed range from issues concerning the development of programming languages in logic and the application of computational logic to real-life problems, to philosophical studies of the field at the other end of the spectrum. The articles presented cover the contributions of computational logic to databases and artificial intelligence with particular emphasis on automated reasoning, reasoning about actions and change, natural languages, and learning. Together with its companion volume, LNAI 2408, this book commemorates the 60th birthday of Bob Kowalski as one of the founders of and contributors to computational logic.

This exciting new text reveals both the evolution of this programming paradigm since its inception and the impressively broad scope of current research in the field. The contributors to this book are all leading world experts in Logic Programming, and they deal with both theoretical and practical issues. They address such diverse topics as: computational molecular biology, machine learning, mobile computing, multi-agent systems, planning, numerical computing and dynamical systems, database systems, an alternative to the "formulas as types" approach, program semantics and analysis, and natural language processing. XXXXXXX Neuer Text Logic Programming was founded 25 years ago. This exciting book reveals both the evolution of this programming paradigm and its impressively broad scope of current research. The contributions by leading computer scientists deal with both theoretical and practical issues. They address diverse topics such as: computational molecular biology, machine learning, mobile computing, multi-agent systems, numerical computing and dynamical systems, database systems, program semantics, natural language processing, and promising future directions.

A programming language based on a higher-order logic provides a declarative approach to capturing computations involving types, proofs and other syntactic structures.

This book provides the definitive documentation for one of the most well-known and highly regarded theorem-proving programs ever written. The program described is one of the more significant, enduring, and prize-awarded accomplishments in the fields of artificial intelligence, formal methods, and applied logic. The book provides an exact statement of the logic for which the program is a prover, a complete description of the user's commands, installation instructions, and much tutorial information, including references to thousands of pages of examples. Among the examples is a formally verified microprocessor and a formally verified compiler targeting that microprocessor. The second edition of A Computational Logic handbook provides all the information necessry for using the most recently releases version of Nqthm, the freely available"Boyer-Moore"theorem-proving program. The second edition includes a precise description of all recent changes to the logic in the past nine years, including many enhanced syntactic features and rules of inference, which were added to support work on large scale projects in formal methods. Thousands of pages of fascinating, exemplary, mathematically-checked input are described, examples that deal with very difficult questions in formal mehtods and mathematics. New material includes: Description of the new syntax, including COND, CASE, LET, LIST*, and backquote; describes some higher order inference procedures, including"constrained functions"and"functional instantiation"; documents more sophisticated control machinery for manipulating very large theories; introduces a secure proof-checking environment; describes thousands of pages of fascinating example input dealing with very difficult questions in formal methods and mathematics; provides a formal parserfor the syntax; compares the proof complexity of many interesting checked examples; includes much new tutorial help, especially for the many new features. A computational logic is a mathematical logic that is both oriented towards discussion of computation and mechanised so that proofs can be checked by computation. The computational logic discussed in the handbook is that developed by Boyer & Moore. The first edition, published in 1988, is an acknowledged classic in the field of formal methods and computational logic. However it no longer reflects existing technology. The second edition provides a complete overview of the Boyer/Moore theorem proving approach (Nqthm) and provides examples. It includes several significant new features that have been aded to the Nquthm system since 1988. The book is structured in thefollowing way: Part 1 discusses logic without regard for its mechanisation and answers the question what are the axioms and rules of inference? Part 2 discusses its mechanisation and answers the question how does one use the Boyer/Moore theorem prover to prove theorems?

This book gives an account oC the mathematical Coundations oC logic programming. I have attempted to make the book selC-contained by including prooCs of almost all the results needed. The only prerequisites are some Camiliarity with a logic programming language, such as PROLOG, and a certain mathematical maturity. For example, the reader should be Camiliar with induction arguments and be comCortable manipulating logical expressions. Also the last chapter assumes some acquaintance with the elementary aspects of metric spaces, especially properties oC continuous mappings and compact spaces. Chapter 1 presents the declarative aspects of logic programming. This chapter contains the basic material Crom first order logic and fixpoint theory which will be required. The main concepts discussed here are those oC a logic program, model, correct answer substitution and fixpoint. Also the unification algorithm is discussed in some detail. Chapter 2 is concerned with the procedural semantics oC logic programs. The declarative concepts are implemented by means oC a specialized Corm oC resolution, called SLD-resolution. The main results of this chapter concern the soundness and completeness oC SLD-resolution and the independence oC the computation rule. We also discuss the implications of omitting the occur check from PROLOG implementations. Chapter 3 discusses negation. Current PROLOG systems implement a form of negation by means of the negation as failure rule. The main results of this chapter are the soundness and completeness oC the negation as failure rule.

ACM Monograph Series: A Computational Logic focuses on the use of induction in proving theorems, including the use of lemmas and axioms, free variables, equalities, and generalization. The publication first elaborates on a sketch of the theory and two simple examples, a precise definition of the theory, and correctness of a tautology-checker. Topics include mechanical proofs, informal development, formal specification of the problem, well-founded relations, natural numbers, and literal atoms. The book then examines the use of type information to simplify formulas, use of axioms and lemmas as rewrite rules, and the use of definitions. Topics include nonrecursive functions, computing values, free variables in hypothesis, infinite backwards chaining, infinite looping, computing type sets, and type prescriptions. The manuscript takes a look at rewriting terms and simplifying clauses, eliminating destructors and irrelevance, using equalities, and generalization. Concerns include reasons for eliminating isolated hypotheses, precise statement of the generalization heuristic, restricting generalizations, precise use of equalities, and multiple destructors and infinite looping. The publication is a vital source of data for researchers interested in computational logic.