this paper we show that nondeterministic space s(n) is closed under complementation, for s(n) greater than or equal to log n. It immediately follows that the context-sensitive languages are closed under complementation, thus settling a question raised by Kuroda in 1964 [9]. See Hartmanis and Hunt [4] for a discussion of the history and importance of this problem, and Hopcroft and Ullman [5] for all relevant background material and definitions. The history behind the proof is as follows. In 1981 we showed that the set of first-order inductive definitions over finite structures is closed under complementation [6]. This holds with or without an ordering relation on the structure. If an ordering is present the resulting class is P. Many people expected that the result was false in the absence of an ordering. In 1983 we studied first-order logic, with ordering, with a transitive closure operator. We showed that NSPACE[log n] is equal to (FO + pos TC), i.e. first-order logic with ordering, plus a transitive closure operation, in which the transitive closure operator does not appear within any negation symbols [7]. Now we have returned to the issue of complementation in the light of recent results on the collapse of the log space hierarchies [10, 2, 14]. We have shown that the class (FO + pos TC) is closed under complementation. Our

In order to study circuit complexity classes within NC¹ in a uniform setting, we need a uniformity condition which is more restrictive than those in common use. Two such conditions, stricter than NC¹ uniformity [Ru81,Co85], have appeared in recent research: Immerman's families of circuits defined by first-order formulas [Im87a,Im87b] and a uniformity corresponding to Buss' deterministic log-time reductions [Bu87]. We show that these two notions are equivalent, leading to a natural notion of uniformity for low-level circuit complexity classes. We show that recent results on the structure of NC¹ [Ba89] still hold true in this very uniform setting. Finally, we investigate a parallel notion of uniformity, still more restrictive, based on the regular languages. Here we give characterizations of subclasses of the regular languages based on their logical expressibility, extending recent work of Straubing, Th'erien, and Thomas [STT88]. A preliminary version of this work appeared as [BIS88].

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In this paper we ask the question, "What must be added to first-order logic plus least-fixed point to obtain exactly the polynomial-time properties of unordered graphs?" We consider the languages Lk consisting of first-order logic restricted to k variables and Ck consisting of Lk plus "counting quantifiers". We give efficient canonization algorithms for graphs characterized by Ck or Lk . It follows from known results that all trees and almost all graphs are characterized by C2 .

We study two important extensions of first-order logic (FO) with iteration, the fixpoint and while queries. The main result of the paper concerns the open problem of the relationship between fixpoint and while: they are the same iff ptime = pspace. These and other expressibility results are obtained using a powerful normal form for while which shows that each while computation over an unordered domain can be reduced to a while computation over an ordered domain via a fixpoint query. The fixpoint query computes an equivalence relation on tuples which is a congruence with respect to the rest of the computation. The same technique is used to show that equivalence of tuples and structures with respect to FO formulas with bounded number of variables is definable in fixpoint. Generalizing fixpoint and while, we consider more powerful languages which model arbitrary computation interacting with a database using a finite set of FO queries. Such computation is modeled by a relational machine...

We establish a general connection between fixpoint logic and complexity. On one side, we have fixpoint logic, parameterized by the choices of 1st-order operators (inflationary or noninflationary) and iteration constructs (deterministic, nondeterministic, or alternating). On the other side, we have the complexity classes between P and EXPTIME. Our parameterized fixpoint logics capture the complexity classes P, NP, PSPACE, and EXPTIME, but equality is achieved only over ordered structures. There is, however, an inherent mismatch between complexity and logic -- while computational devices work on encodings of problems, logic is applied directly to the underlying mathematical structures. To overcome this mismatch, we develop a theory of relational complexity, which bridges tha gap between standard complexity and fixpoint logic. On one hand, we show that questions about containments among standard complexity classes can be translated to questions about containments among relational complex...

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We study the expressive power of inflationary fixed-point logic IFP and inflationary fixed-point logic with counting IFP+C on planar graphs. We prove the following results: (1) IFP captures polynomial time on 3-connected planar graphs, and IFP+C captures polynomial time on arbitrary planar graphs. (2) Planar graphs can be characterized up to isomorphism in a logic with finitely many variables and counting. This answers a question of Immerman [7]. (3) The class of planar graphs is definable in IFP. This answers a question of Dawar and Gr adel [16]. 1. Introduction The basic problem of descriptive complexity theory is to find a logic L for a given complexity class K such that an isomorphism invariant property of finite structures can be defined in L if, and only if, it belongs to K. If this is the case, we say that L captures K. A restricted version of this problem is to capture a complexity class K on a class C of structures. In this case only properties of structures in C have to be...

We show that any p-selective and self-reducible set is in P . As the converse is also true, we obtain a new characterization of the class P . A generalization and several consequences of this theorem are discussed. Among other consequences, we show that under reasonable assumptions auto-reducibility and self-reducibility differ on NP , and that there are non-p-T -mitotic sets in NP . 1 Introduction Separating complexity classes is a very popular, but rarely won game in complexity theory. Frustrated by misfortune, computer scientists have often turned to attempts of characterizing complexity classes in a different way. The hopes are, that the new characterization of the complexity class may provide new insights and a `handle' to force the separation where earlier attempts have failed. Well-known examples of this are the many ways to define the class of sets for which there exist small circuits [Pip79], and the identification of various forms of interactive proof systems with stan...

We present a logical approach to complexity over the real numbers with respect to the model of Blum, Shub and Smale. The logics under consideration are interpreted over a special class of two-sorted structures, called R-structures: They consist of a finite structure together with the ordered field of reals and a finite set of functions from the finite structure into R. They are a special case of the metafinite structures introduced recently by Grädel and Gurevich. We argue that R-structures provide the right class of structures to develop a descriptive complexity theory over R. We substantiate this claim by a number of results that relate logical definability on R-structures with complexity of computations of BSS-machines.