Abstract not found

The introduction of negation into logic programming brings the benefit of enhanced syntax and expressibility, but creates some semantical problems. Specifically, certain operators which are monotonic in the absence of negation become non-monotonic when it is introduced, with the result that standard approaches to denotational semantics then become inapplicable. In this paper, we show how generalized metric spaces can be used to obtain fixed-point semantics for several classes of programs relative to the supported model semantics, and investigate relationships between the underlying spaces we employ. Our methods allow the analysis of classes of programs which include the acyclic, locally hierarchical, and acceptable programs, amongst others, and draw on fixed-point theorems which apply to generalized ultrametric spaces and to partial metric spaces.

Generalized metric spaces are a common generalization of preorders and ordinary metric spaces (Lawvere 1973). Combining Lawvere's (1973) enriched-categorical and Smyth' (1988, 1991) topological view on generalized metric spaces, it is shown how to construct 1. completion, 2. topology, and 3. powerdomains for generalized metric spaces. Restricted to the special cases of preorders and ordinary metric spaces, these constructions yield, respectively: 1. chain completion and Cauchy completion; 2. the Alexandroff and the Scott topology, and the ffl-ball topology; 3. lower, upper, and convex powerdomains, and the hyperspace of compact subsets. All constructions are formulated in terms of (a metric version of) the Yoneda (1954) embedding.

Abstract not found

Generalized ultrametric spaces are a common generalization of preorders and ordinary ultrametric spaces (Lawvere 1973, Rutten 1995). Combining Lawvere's (1973) enrichedcategorical and Smyth' (1987, 1991) topological view on generalized (ultra)metric spaces, it is shown how to construct 1. completion, 2. topology, and 3. powerdomains for generalized ultrametric spaces. Restricted to the special cases of preorders and ordinary ultrametric spaces, these constructions yield, respectively: 1. chain completion and Cauchy completion; 2. the Alexandroff and the Scott topology, and the ffl-ball topology; 3. lower, upper, and convex powerdomains, and the powerdomain of compact subsets. Interestingly, all constructions are formulated in terms of (an ultrametric version of) the Yoneda (1954) lemma.

Sibylla Priess-Crampe and Paulo Ribenboim recently established a general fixed-point theorem for multivalued mappings defined on generalized ultrametric spaces, and introduced it to the area of logic programming semantics. We discuss, in this context, the applications which have been made so far of this theorem and of its corollaries. In particular, we will relate these results to Scott-Ershov domains, familiar in programming language semantics, and to the generalized metrics of Khamsi, Kreinovich and Misane which have been applied, by these latter authors, to logic programming. Amongst other things, we will also show that a unified treatment of the fixed-point theory of wide classes of programs can be given by means of the theorems of Priess-Crampe and Ribenboim.

We present the first complete soundness proof of the antiframe rule, a recently proposed proof rule for capturing information hiding in the presence of higher-order store. Our proof involves solving a non-trivial recursive domain equation. It helps identify some of the key ingredients for soundness, and thereby suggests how one might hope to relax some of the restrictions imposed by the rule.

In this paper, we discuss the semantics of disjunctive programs and databases and show how multivalued mappings and their fixed points arise naturally within this context. A number of fixed-point theorems for multivalued mappings are considered, some of which are already known and some of which are new. The notion of a normal derivative of a disjunctive program is introduced. Normal derivatives are normal logic programs which are determined by the disjunctive program. Thus, the well-known single-step operator associated with a normal derivative is single-valued, and its fixed points can be found by well-established means. It is shown how fixed points of the multivalued mapping determined by a disjunctive program relate to the fixed points of the single-step operators coming from its normal derivatives. This procedure has potential for simplifying the construction of models of disjunctive databases, and this point is discussed. Most of the results for multivalued mappings rest on corres...

Many questions concerning the semantics of disjunctive databases and of logic programming systems depend on the fixed points of various multivalued mappings and operators determined by the database or program. We discuss known versions, for multivalued mappings, of the Knaster-Tarski theorem and of the Banach contraction mapping theorem, and formulate a version of the classical fixed-point theorem (sometimes attributed to Kleene) which is new. All these results have applications to the semantics of disjunctive logic programs, and we will describe a class of programs to which the new theorem can be applied. We also show that a unification of the latter two theorems is possible, using quasi-metrics, which parallels the well-known unification of Rutten and Smyth in the case of conventional programming language semantics.

A new method for solving domain equations in categories of metric spaces is studied. The categories CMS ß and KMS ß are introduced, having complete and compact metric spaces as objects and ffl-adjoint pairs as arrows. The existence and uniqueness of fixed points for certain endofunctors on these categories is established. The classes of complete and compact metric spaces are considered as pseudo-metric spaces, and it is shown how to solve domain equations in a non-categorical framework.