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Fagin's Theorem
Fagin's theorem is the oldest result of descriptive complexity theory, a branch of computational complexity theory that characterizes complexity classes in terms of logic-based descriptions of their problems rather than by the behavior of algorithms for solving those problems. The theorem states that the set of all properties expressible in existential second-order logic is precisely the complexity class NP. It was proven by Ronald Fagin in 1973 in his doctoral thesis, and appears in his 1974 paper. The arity required by the second-order formula was improved (in one direction) in Lynch's theorem, and several results of Grandjean have provided tighter bounds on nondeterministic ''random-access'' machines. Proof In addition to Fagin's 1974 paper, Immerman 1999 provides a detailed proof of the theorem. It is straightforward to show that every existential second-order formula can be recognized in NP, by nondeterministically choosing the value of all existentially-qualified var ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Descriptive Complexity
''Descriptive Complexity'' is a book in mathematical logic and computational complexity theory by Neil Immerman. It concerns descriptive complexity theory, an area in which the expressibility of mathematical properties using different types of logic is shown to be equivalent to their computability in different types of resource-bounded models of computation. It was published in 1999 by Springer-Verlag in their book series Graduate Texts in Computer Science. Topics The book has 15 chapters, roughly grouped into five chapters on first-order logic, three on second-order logic, and seven independent chapters on advanced topics. The first two chapters provide background material in first-order logic (including first-order arithmetic, the BIT predicate, and the notion of a first-order query) and complexity theory (including formal languages, resource-bounded complexity classes, and complete problems). Chapter three begins the connection between logic and complexity, with a proof that th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computational Complexity Theory
In theoretical computer science and mathematics, computational complexity theory focuses on classifying computational problems according to their resource usage, and relating these classes to each other. A computational problem is a task solved by a computer. A computation problem is solvable by mechanical application of mathematical steps, such as an algorithm. A problem is regarded as inherently difficult if its solution requires significant resources, whatever the algorithm used. The theory formalizes this intuition, by introducing mathematical models of computation to study these problems and quantifying their computational complexity, i.e., the amount of resources needed to solve them, such as time and storage. Other measures of complexity are also used, such as the amount of communication (used in communication complexity), the number of gates in a circuit (used in circuit complexity) and the number of processors (used in parallel computing). One of the roles of computationa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second-order Logic
In logic and mathematics, second-order logic is an extension of first-order logic, which itself is an extension of propositional logic. Second-order logic is in turn extended by higher-order logic and type theory. First-order logic quantifies only variables that range over individuals (elements of the domain of discourse); second-order logic, in addition, also quantifies over relations. For example, the second-order sentence \forall P\,\forall x (Px \lor \neg Px) says that for every formula ''P'', and every individual ''x'', either ''Px'' is true or not(''Px'') is true (this is the law of excluded middle). Second-order logic also includes quantification over sets, functions, and other variables (see section below). Both first-order and second-order logic use the idea of a domain of discourse (often called simply the "domain" or the "universe"). The domain is a set over which individual elements may be quantified. Examples First-order logic can quantify over individuals, bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NP (complexity Class)
In computational complexity theory, NP (nondeterministic polynomial time) is a complexity class used to classify decision problems. NP is the set of decision problems for which the problem instances, where the answer is "yes", have proofs verifiable in polynomial time by a deterministic Turing machine, or alternatively the set of problems that can be solved in polynomial time by a nondeterministic Turing machine.''Polynomial time'' refers to how quickly the number of operations needed by an algorithm, relative to the size of the problem, grows. It is therefore a measure of efficiency of an algorithm. An equivalent definition of NP is the set of decision problems ''solvable'' in polynomial time by a nondeterministic Turing machine. This definition is the basis for the abbreviation NP; " nondeterministic, polynomial time". These two definitions are equivalent because the algorithm based on the Turing machine consists of two phases, the first of which consists of a guess about ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ronald Fagin
Ronald Fagin (born 1945) is an American mathematician and computer scientist, and IBM Fellow at the IBM Almaden Research Center. He is known for his work in database theory, finite model theory, and reasoning about knowledge. Biography Ron Fagin was born and grew up in Oklahoma City, where he attended Northwest Classen High School. He was later elected to the Northwest Classen Hall of Fame. He completed his undergraduate degree at Dartmouth College. Fagin received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1973, where he worked under the supervision of Robert Vaught. He joined the IBM Research Division in 1973, spending two years at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, and then transferred in 1975 to what is now the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. He has served as program committee chair for ACM Symposium on Principles of Database Systems 1984, ACM Symposium on Principles of Database Systems 1984, Theoretical Aspects of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arity
Arity () is the number of arguments or operands taken by a function, operation or relation in logic, mathematics, and computer science. In mathematics, arity may also be named ''rank'', but this word can have many other meanings in mathematics. In logic and philosophy, it is also called adicity and degree. In linguistics, it is usually named valency. Examples The term "arity" is rarely employed in everyday usage. For example, rather than saying "the arity of the addition operation is 2" or "addition is an operation of arity 2" one usually says "addition is a binary operation". In general, the naming of functions or operators with a given arity follows a convention similar to the one used for ''n''-based numeral systems such as binary and hexadecimal. One combines a Latin prefix with the -ary ending; for example: * A nullary function takes no arguments. ** Example: f()=2 * A unary function takes one argument. ** Example: f(x)=2x * A binary function takes two arguments. ** Examp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Étienne Grandjean
Étienne, a French analog of Stephen or Steven, is a masculine given name. An archaic variant of the name, prevalent up to the mid-17th century, is Estienne. Étienne, Etienne, Ettiene or Ettienne may refer to: People Scientists and inventors *Étienne Bézout (1730–1783), French mathematician *Étienne Louis Geoffroy (1725–1810), French entomologist and pharmacist *Étienne Laspeyres (1834–1913), German professor of economics and statistics *Étienne Lenoir (1822–1900), Belgian engineer who invented the first internal combustion engine to be produced in numbers *Étienne Lenoir (instrument maker) (1744–1832), French scientific instrument maker and inventor of the repeating circle surveying instrument *Étienne Mulsant (1797–1880), French entomologist and ornithologist *Étienne Pascal (1588–1651), French lawyer, scientist and mathematician best known as the father of Blaise Pascal *Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844), French naturalist *Étienne Pierre V ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-deterministic Turing Machine
In theoretical computer science, a nondeterministic Turing machine (NTM) is a theoretical model of computation whose governing rules specify more than one possible action when in some given situations. That is, an NTM's next state is ''not'' completely determined by its action and the current symbol it sees, unlike a deterministic Turing machine. NTMs are sometimes used in thought experiments to examine the abilities and limits of computers. One of the most important open problems in theoretical computer science is the P versus NP problem, which (among other equivalent formulations) concerns the question of how difficult it is to simulate nondeterministic computation with a deterministic computer. Background In essence, a Turing machine is imagined to be a simple computer that reads and writes symbols one at a time on an endless tape by strictly following a set of rules. It determines what action it should perform next according to its internal ''state'' and ''what symbol it cur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First-order Logic
First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantified variables over non-logical objects, and allows the use of sentences that contain variables, so that rather than propositions such as "Socrates is a man", one can have expressions in the form "there exists x such that x is Socrates and x is a man", where "there exists''"'' is a quantifier, while ''x'' is a variable. This distinguishes it from propositional logic, which does not use quantifiers or relations; in this sense, propositional logic is the foundation of first-order logic. A theory about a topic is usually a first-order logic together with a specified domain of discourse (over which the quantified variables range), finitely many functions from that domain to itself, finitely many predicates defined on that domain, and a set of ax ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lexicographical Order
In mathematics, the lexicographic or lexicographical order (also known as lexical order, or dictionary order) is a generalization of the alphabetical order of the dictionaries to sequences of ordered symbols or, more generally, of elements of a totally ordered set. There are several variants and generalizations of the lexicographical ordering. One variant applies to sequences of different lengths by comparing the lengths of the sequences before considering their elements. Another variant, widely used in combinatorics, orders subsets of a given finite set by assigning a total order to the finite set, and converting subsets into increasing sequences, to which the lexicographical order is applied. A generalization defines an order on a Cartesian product of partially ordered sets; this order is a total order if and only if all factors of the Cartesian product are totally ordered. Motivation and definition The words in a lexicon (the set of words used in some language) have a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spectrum Of A Sentence
In mathematical logic, the spectrum of a sentence is the set of natural numbers occurring as the size of a finite model in which a given sentence is true. Definition Let ''ψ'' be a sentence in first-order logic. The ''spectrum'' of ''ψ'' is the set of natural numbers ''n'' such that there is a finite model for ''ψ'' with ''n'' elements. If the vocabulary for ''ψ'' consists only of relational symbols, then ''ψ'' can be regarded as a sentence in existential second-order logic (ESOL) quantified over the relations, over the empty vocabulary. A ''generalised spectrum'' is the set of models of a general ESOL sentence. Examples * The spectrum of the first-order formula \exists z,o ~ \forall a,b,c ~ \exists d,e :a+z=a=z+a ~ \land~ a\cdot z=z=z\cdot a ~ \land~ a+d = z :\land~ a+b = b+a ~ \land~ a\cdot(b+c) = a\cdot b+a\cdot c ~ \land~(a+b)+c=a+(b+c) :\land~ a \cdot o=a=o \cdot a ~ \land~ a\cdot e=o ~\land~ (a\cdot b)\cdot c=a\cdot (b\cdot c) is \, the set of powers of a prime nu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
