The control part of many concurrent and distributed programs reduces to a set Π = {p1, . . . , pn} of symmetric processes containing mainly assignments and tests on Boolean variables. However, the assignments, the guards and the program invariants can beΠ-quantified, so the corresponding verification conditions also involve Π-quantifications. We propose a systematic procedure allowing the elimi...

Possibilism is the position that it is possible to make a veridical statement about something, which doesn’t exist. Based on this observation, actualism and possibilism can be defined in first-order predicate logic by means of one or more existence predicates. It is argued that an analogous distinction can be made in the realm of first-order modal logic, and that this distinction ought to be ac...

Traditionally, the most imPortant input to the dialogue management component of a natural language system are semantic representations (e.g., formulae of first-order predicate calculus). Only recently, other kinds of information (e.g., phonetic transcriptions of unknown words) has been used. There is, however, room for the utilization of additional knowledge sources. In what follows, we first e...

In our paper we investigate the use of qualitative spatial representations (QSR) about relative direction and distance for shape representation. Our new approach has the advantage that we can generate prototypical shapes from our abstract representation in first-order predicate calculus. Using the conceptual neighborhood which is an established concept in QSR we can directly establish a concept...

Recently a new connection between proof theory and formal language theory was introduced. It was shown that the operation of cut elimination for proofs in first-order predicate logic involving Π1-cuts corresponds to computing the language of a particular class of regular tree grammars. The present paper expands this connection to the level of Π2-cuts. Given a proof π of a Σ1 formula with cuts o...

In this paper we introduce a conception of learning which is a natural extension of economists' representations of learning and which is natural to develop using KBS technology. In the particular form of KBS we use, rule conditions and actions are well formulated formulae of first-order predicate logic (FOPL). As a result, the simulation results obtained from these models are no less analytical...

This is a study on the truth-conditional semantics of propositional attitude attribution statements. It is suggested that attitude contents should be characterized in terms of abstract concepts, which are connected by way of a number of basic logical relations derived from a version of Quinean predicate-functor logic. This allows us to handle all logical relationships definable by first-order p...

Binary decision diagrams (BDDs) are known to be a very efficient technique to handle propositional formulas. We present an extension of BDDs such that they can be used for predicate logic. We define BDDs similar to Bryant [IEEE Trans. Comp. C-35 (1986) 677–691], but with the difference that we allow predicates as labels instead of proposition symbols. We present a sound and complete proof searc...