Acyclic programs

New Generation Computing - Tập 9 - Trang 335-363 - 1991
Krzysztof R. Apt1, Marc Bezem2
1Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2Department of Philosophy, State University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Tóm tắt

We study here a natural subclass of the locally stratified programs which we call acyclic. Acyclic programs enjoy several natural properties. First, they terminate for a large and natural class of general goals, so they could be used as terminating PROLOG programs. Next, their semantics can be defined in several equivalent ways. In particular we show that the immediate consequence operator of an acyclic programP has a unique fixpointM p , which coincides with the perfect model ofP, is the unique Herbrand model of the completion ofP and can be identified with the unique fixpoint of the 3-valued immediate consequence operator associated withP. The completion of an acylic programP is shown to satisfy an even stronger property: addition of a domain closure axiom results in a theory which is complete and decidable with respect to a large class of formulas including the variable-free ones. This implies thatM p is recursive. On the procedural side we show that SLS-resolution and SLDNF-resolution for acyclic programs coincide, are effective, sound and (non-floundering) complete with respect to the declarative semantics. Finally, we show that various forms of temporal reasoning, as exemplified by the so-called Yale Shooting Problem, can be naturally described by means of acyclic programs.

Tài liệu tham khảo

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