Nicola Leone is an Italian computer scientist who works in the areas of
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
,
knowledge representation and reasoning
Knowledge representation and reasoning (KRR, KR&R, KR²) is the field of artificial intelligence (AI) dedicated to representing information about the world in a form that a computer system can use to solve complex tasks such as Computer-aided diag ...
, and
database theory
Database theory encapsulates a broad range of topics related to the study and research of the theoretical realm of databases and database management systems.
Theoretical aspects of data management include, among other areas, the foundations of q ...
. Leone is currently the
rector
Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to:
Style or title
*Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations
*Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...
of the
University of Calabria
The University of Calabria ( it, Università della Calabria, UNICAL) is a state-run university in Italy. Located in Arcavacata, a hamlet of Rende and a suburb of Cosenza, the university was founded in 1972. Among its founders there were Beniamino ...
and a professor of
Computer Science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
. Previously, he was a professor of
Database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...
Systems at the
TU Wien
TU Wien (TUW; german: Technische Universität Wien; still known in English as the Vienna University of Technology from 1975–2014) is one of the major universities in Vienna, Austria. The university finds high international and domestic recogn ...
.
Research work
Leone has published more than 250 scientific articles in the areas of
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
,
knowledge representation and reasoning
Knowledge representation and reasoning (KRR, KR&R, KR²) is the field of artificial intelligence (AI) dedicated to representing information about the world in a form that a computer system can use to solve complex tasks such as Computer-aided diag ...
, and
database theory
Database theory encapsulates a broad range of topics related to the study and research of the theoretical realm of databases and database management systems.
Theoretical aspects of data management include, among other areas, the foundations of q ...
.
In the area of
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
and
knowledge representation and reasoning
Knowledge representation and reasoning (KRR, KR&R, KR²) is the field of artificial intelligence (AI) dedicated to representing information about the world in a form that a computer system can use to solve complex tasks such as Computer-aided diag ...
, he is best known for his influential early work on
answer set programming
Answer set programming (ASP) is a form of declarative programming oriented towards difficult (primarily NP-hard) search problems. It is based on the stable model (answer set) semantics of logic programming. In ASP, search problems are reduced ...
(ASP)
and for the development of
DLV
The DLV (DataLog with Disjunction, where the
logical disjunction symbol V is used) system is a
disjunctive logic programming system, implementing the
stable model semantics under the answer set programming
paradigm. It extends the Datalog ...
, a pioneering system for
knowledge representation and reasoning
Knowledge representation and reasoning (KRR, KR&R, KR²) is the field of artificial intelligence (AI) dedicated to representing information about the world in a form that a computer system can use to solve complex tasks such as Computer-aided diag ...
, which was the very first successful attempt to fully support disjunction in the
datalog
Datalog is a declarative logic programming language. While it is syntactically a subset of Prolog, Datalog generally uses a bottom-up rather than top-down evaluation model. This difference yields significantly different behavior and properties ...
language, achieving the possibility to compute problems of high
complexity
Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interaction, interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to nonlinearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence.
The term is generall ...
, up to
NP.
To the field of
database theory
Database theory encapsulates a broad range of topics related to the study and research of the theoretical realm of databases and database management systems.
Theoretical aspects of data management include, among other areas, the foundations of q ...
he mainly contributed through the invention of
hypertree decomposition, a framework for obtaining tractable structural classes of
conjunctive queries, and a generalisation of the notion of
tree decomposition
In graph theory, a tree decomposition is a mapping of a graph into a tree that can be used to define the treewidth of the graph and speed up solving certain computational problems on the graph.
Tree decompositions are also called junction trees ...
from
graph theory
In mathematics, graph theory is the study of ''graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of '' vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'') which are conne ...
. This work has also had substantial impact in artificial intelligence, since it is known that the problem of evaluating conjunctive queries on
relational databases
A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relation ...
is equivalent to the
constraint satisfaction problem
Constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) are mathematical questions defined as a set of objects whose state must satisfy a number of constraints or limitations. CSPs represent the entities in a problem as a homogeneous collection of finite constra ...
Awards and honours
*Fellow of the
European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence The European Association for Artificial Intelligence (EurAI) (formerly European Co-ordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence (ECCAI)) is the representative body for the European artificial intelligence community.
EurAI was established in 19 ...
(EurAI).
*Member of the
Academia Europaea
The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences.
The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...
.
*Honorary professor at the
TU Wien
TU Wien (TUW; german: Technische Universität Wien; still known in English as the Vienna University of Technology from 1975–2014) is one of the major universities in Vienna, Austria. The university finds high international and domestic recogn ...
.
* He won many Best-Paper award in
logic programming
Logic programming is a programming paradigm which is largely based on formal logic. Any program written in a logic programming language is a set of sentences in logical form, expressing facts and rules about some problem domain. Major logic prog ...
conferences, and he was awarded two Test-of-Time Awards, by the
Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...
(ACM) (2009), and by the
Association for Logic Programming
The Association for Logic Programming (ALP) was founded in 1986. Its mission is "to contribute to the development of Logic Programming, relate it to other formal and also to humanistic sciences, and to promote its uses in academia and industry al ...
(2018).
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leone, Nicola
Living people
Italian computer scientists
Academic staff of the University of Calabria
Academic staff of TU Wien
1963 births