We consider a simple extension of logic programming where variables may range over goals and goals may be arguments of predicates. In this language we can write logic programs which use goals as data. We give practical evidence that, by exploiting this capability when transforming programs, we can improve program efficiency.
We propose a set of program transformation rules which extend the familiar unfolding and folding rules and allow us to manipulate clauses with goals which occur as arguments of predicates. In order to prove the correctness of these transformation rules, we formally define the operational semantics of our extended logic programming language. This semantics is a simple variant of LD-resolution. When suitable conditions are satisfied this semantics agrees with LD-resolution and, thus, the programs written in our extended language can be run by ordinary Prolog systems.
Our transformation rules are shown to preserve the operational semantics and termination.
Termination is an important and well-studied property for logic programs. However, almost all approaches for automated termination analysis focus on definite logic programs, whereas real-world Prolog programs typically use the cut operator. We introduce a novel pre-processing method which automatically transforms Prolog programs into logic programs without cuts, where termination of the cut-free program implies termination of the original program. Hence after this pre-processing, any technique for proving termination of definite logic programs can be applied. We implemented this pre-processing…
Several formal systems, such as resolution and minimal model semantics, provide a framework for logic programming. In this paper, we will survey the use of structural proof theory as an alternative foundation. Researchers have been using this foundation for the past 35 years to elevate logic programming from its roots in first-order classical logic into higher-order versions of intuitionistic and linear logic. These more expressive logic programming languages allow for capturing stateful computations and rich forms of abstractions, including higher-order programming, modularity, and abstract d…
Program transformations are widely used in synthesis, optimization, and maintenance of software. Correctness of program transformations depends on preservation of some important properties of the input program. By regarding programs as Kripke structures, many interesting properties of programs can be expressed in temporal logics. In temporal logic, a formula is interpreted on a single program. However, to prove correctness of transformations, we encounter formulae which contain some subformulae interpreted on the input program and some on the transformed program. An example where such a situat…
In prior work, we showed that logic programming compilation can be given a proof-theoretic justification for generic abstract logic programming languages, and demonstrated this technique in the case of hereditary Harrop formulas and their linear variant. Compiled clauses were themselves logic formulas except for the presence of a second-order abstraction over the atomic goals matching their head. In this paper, we revisit our previous results into a more detailed and fully logical justification that does away with this spurious abstraction. We then refine the resulting technique to support wel…
We extend a technique called Compiling Control. The technique transforms coroutining logic programs into logic programs that, when executed under the standard left-to-right selection rule (and not using any delay features) have the same computational behavior as the coroutining program. In recent work, we revised Compiling Control and reformulated it as an instance of Abstract Conjunctive Partial Deduction. This work was mostly focused on the program analysis performed in Compiling Control. In the current paper, we focus on the synthesis of the transformed program. Instead of synthesizing a ne…
Fuzzy logic programming is a growing declarative paradigm aiming to integrate fuzzy logic into logic programming. One of the most difficult tasks when specifying a fuzzy logic program is determining the right weights for each rule, as well as the most appropriate fuzzy connectives and operators. In this paper, we introduce a symbolic extension of fuzzy logic programs in which some of these parameters can be left unknown, so that the user can easily see the impact of their possible values. Furthermore, given a number of test cases, the most appropriate values for these parameters can be automat…
Program correctness (in imperative and functional programming) splits in logic programming into correctness and completeness. Completeness means that a program produces all the answers required by its specification. Little work has been devoted to reasoning about completeness. This paper presents a few sufficient conditions for completeness of definite programs. We also study preserving completeness under some cases of pruning of SLD-trees (e.g. due to using the cut). We treat logic programming as a declarative paradigm, abstracting from any operational semantics as far as possible. We argue t…
Higher-order logic programming is an interesting extension of traditional logic programming that allows predicates to appear as arguments and variables to be used where predicates typically occur. Higher-order characteristics are indeed desirable but on the other hand they are also usually more expensive to support. In this paper we propose a program specialization technique based on partial evaluation that can be applied to a modest but useful class of higher-order logic programs and can transform them into first-order programs without introducing additional data structures. The resulting fir…
This paper presents an example of formal reasoning about the semantics of a Prolog program of practical importance (the SAT solver of Howe and King). The program is treated as a definite clause logic program with added control. The logic program is constructed by means of stepwise refinement, hand in hand with its correctness and completeness proofs. The proofs are declarative - they do not refer to any operational semantics. Each step of the logic program construction follows a systematic approach to constructing programs which are provably correct and complete. We also prove that correctness…
Since the first conference held in Marseille in 1982, ICLP has been the premier international event for presenting research in logic programming. Contributions are sought in all areas of logic programming, including but not restricted to: Foundations: Semantics, Formalisms, Nonmonotonic reasoning, Knowledge representation. Languages: Concurrency, Objects, Coordination, Mobility, Higher Order, Types, Modes, Assertions, Modules, Meta-programming, Logic-based domain-specific languages, Programming Techniques. Declarative programming: Declarative program development, Analysis, Type and mode infere…
Logic programming is a flexible programming paradigm due to the use of predicates without a fixed data flow. To extend logic languages with the compact notation of functional programming, there are various proposals to map evaluable functions into predicates in order to stay in the logic programming framework. Since amalgamated functional logic languages offer flexible as well as efficient evaluation strategies, we propose an opposite approach in this paper. By mapping logic programs into functional logic programs with a transformation based on inferring functional dependencies, we develop a f…
We survey the landscape of Hoare logics for quantum programs. We review three papers: "Reasoning about imperative quantum programs" by Chadha, Mateus and Sernadas; "A logic for formal verification of quantum programs" by Yoshihiko Kakutani; and "Floyd-hoare logic for quantum programs" by Mingsheng Ying. We compare the mathematical foundations of the logics, their underlying languages, and the expressivity of their assertions. We also use the languages to verify the Deutsch-Jozsa Algorithm, and discuss their relative usability in practice.
Since the first conference held in Marseille in 1982, ICLP has been the premier international event for presenting research in logic programming. Contributions are solicited in all areas of logic programming and related areas, including but not restricted to: - Foundations: Semantics, Formalisms, Answer-Set Programming, Non-monotonic Reasoning, Knowledge Representation. - Declarative Programming: Inference engines, Analysis, Type and mode inference, Partial evaluation, Abstract interpretation, Transformation, Validation, Verification, Debugging, Profiling, Testing, Logic-based domain-specific …
University of Athens（雅典大学）；University of Szeged（塞格德大学）
Extensional higher-order logic programming has been introduced as a generalization of classical logic programming. An important characteristic of this paradigm is that it preserves all the well-known properties of traditional logic programming. In this paper we consider the semantics of negation in the context of the new paradigm. Using some recent results from non-monotonic fixed-point theory, we demonstrate that every higher-order logic program with negation has a unique minimum infinite-valued model. In this way we obtain the first purely model-theoretic semantics for negation in extensiona…
We present a parallel implementation of Coalgebraic Logic Programming (CoALP) in the programming language Go. CoALP was initially introduced to reflect coalgebraic semantics of logic programming, with coalgebraic derivation algorithm featuring both corecursion and parallelism. Here, we discuss how the coalgebraic semantics influenced our parallel implementation of logic programming.
Logic program transformation by the unfold/fold method ad- vocates the writing of correct logic programs via the application of some rules to a naive program. This work focuses on how to overcome subgoal- introduction difficulties in synthesizing efficient sorting algorithms from an naive sorting algorithm, through logic program transformation and abductive reasoning.
University of Athens（雅典大学）；University of Victoria（维多利亚大学）
We propose a purely extensional semantics for higher-order logic programming. In this semantics program predicates denote sets of ordered tuples, and two predicates are equal iff they are equal as sets. Moreover, every program has a unique minimum Herbrand model which is the greatest lower bound of all Herbrand models of the program and the least fixed-point of an immediate consequence operator. We also propose an SLD-resolution proof procedure which is proven sound and complete with respect to the minimum model semantics. In other words, we provide a purely extensional theoretical framework f…
We have designed a new logic programming language called LM (Linear Meld) for programming graph-based algorithms in a declarative fashion. Our language is based on linear logic, an expressive logical system where logical facts can be consumed. Because LM integrates both classical and linear logic, LM tends to be more expressive than other logic programming languages. LM programs are naturally concurrent because facts are partitioned by nodes of a graph data structure. Computation is performed at the node level while communication happens between connected nodes. In this paper, we present the s…
A Proof Theoretic Approach to Failure in Functional Logic Programming
如何从程序中提取负信息是逻辑程序设计中的一个重要问题。在这里，我们解决问题的功能逻辑程序，从证明理论的角度来看。我们工作的出发点是CRWL（Constructor based ReWriting Logic），它是一个成熟的函数逻辑编程理论框架，其基本概念是非严格非确定函数。我们提出了一个证明演算，CRWLF，这是能够推导出否定信息的CRWL程序。特别是，CRWLF能够证明CRWL内的复位有限失败。
Adding versatile interactions to goals and queries in logic programming is an essential task. Unfortunately, existing logic languages can take input from the user only via the $read$ construct. We propose to add a new interactive goal to allow for more controlled and more guided participation from the user. We illustrate our idea via \muprolog, an extension of Prolog with bounded choice goals.
{\em Computability logic} (CoL) is a powerful computational model which views computational problems as games played by a machine and its environment. In this paper, we show that CoL naturally supports multiagent programming models with distributed control. To be specific, we discuss a distributed logic programming model based on CoL (CL1 to be exact), which we call CL1^Ω. The key feature of this model is that it supports $dynamic/evolving$ knowledgebase of an agent. This model turns out to be a promising approach to reaching both general AI and future computing model.
