Finite Model Theory and Its Applications (Hardcover )

Finite Model Theory and Its Applications Book Description

This book gives a comprehensive overview of central themes of finite model theory a" expressive power, descriptive complexity, and zero-one laws a" together with selected applications relating to database theory and artificial intelligence, especially constraint databases and constraint satisfaction problems. The final chapter provides a concise modern introduction to modal logic, emphasizing the continuity in spirit and technique with finite model theory. This underlying spirit involves the use of various fragments of and hierarchies within first-order, second-order, fixed-point, and infinitary logics to gain insight into phenomena in complexity theory and combinatorics.

The book emphasizes the use of combinatorial games, such as extensions and refinements of the Ehrenfeucht-FraissA(c) pebble game, as a powerful way to analyze the expressive power of such logics, and illustrates how deep notions from model theory and combinatorics, such as o-minimality and treewidth, arise naturally in the application of finite model theory to database theory and AI.

Students of logic and computer science will find here the tools necessary to embark on research into finite model theory, and all readers will experience the excitement of a vibrant area of the application of logic to computer science.

About the Author :

Erich Gradel has contributed to Finite Model Theory and Its Applications as an author. Erich Gradel is Professor for Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science at RWTH Aachen University in Germany.

Leonid Libkin has contributed to Finite Model Theory and Its Applications as an author. The author has been with the department of computer science at the University of Toronto since 2000. Prior to that, he was a researcher at Bell Laboratories, and he spent two years visiting INRIA in France. His research interests are in the areas of database theory and applications of logic in computer science. He is coauthor/editor of: Constraint DatabasesKuper, G., Libkin, L., Paredaens, J. (Eds.), 12.04.2000, ISBN 3-540-66151-4 Finite-Model Theory and Its ApplicationsGrddel, E., Kolaitis, P.G. (et al.), 07.2004, ISBN 3-540-00428-9 Semantics in DatabasesThalheim, B., Libkin, L. (Eds.), Vol.

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