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...

The theory of computability, or basic recursive function theory as it is often called, is usually motivated and developed using Church's Thesis. Here we show that there is an alternative computability theory in which some of the basic results on unsolvability become more absolute, results on completeness become simpler, and many of the central concepts become more abstract. In this approach computations are viewed as mathematical objects, and the major theorems in recursion theory may be classified according to which axioms about computation are needed to prove them. The theory is a typed theory of functions over the natural numbers, and there are unsolvable problems in this setting independent of the existence of indexings. The unsolvability results are interpreted to show that the partial function concept, so important in computer science, serves to distinguish between classical and constructive type theories (in a different way than does the decidability concept as expressed in the ...

S. All local authors can be reached viae-mail at theaddress last-name@cs.unibo.it. Written requests and comments should be addressed to tr-admin@cs.unibo.it. UBLCS Technical Report Series 93-20 An Information Flow Security Property for CCS, R. Focardi, R. Gorrieri, October 1993. 93-21 A Classification of Security Properties, R. Focardi, R. Gorrieri, October 1993. 93-22 Real Time Systems: A Tutorial, F. Panzieri, R. Davoli, October 1993. 93-23 A Scalable Architecture for Reliable Distributed Multimedia Applications, F. Panzieri, M. Roccetti, October 1993. 93-24 Wide-Area Distribution Issues in Hypertext Systems, C. Maioli, S. Sola, F. Vitali, October 1993. 93-25 On Relating Some Models for Concurrency, P. Degano, R. Gorrieri, S. Vigna, October 1993. 93-26 Axiomatising ST Bisimulation Equivalence, N. Busi, R. van Glabbeek, R. Gorrieri, December 1993. 93-27 A Theory of Processeswith Durational Actions, R. Gorrieri, M. Roccetti, E. Stancampiano, December1993. 94-1 Further Modifications t...

Smullyan's notion of effectively inseparable pairs of sets is not the best effective /constructive analog of Kleene's notion of pairs of sets inseparable by a recursive set. We present a corrected notion of effectively inseparable pairs of sets, prove a characterization of our notion, and show that the pairs of index sets effectively inseparable in Smullyan's sense are the same as those effectively inseparable in ours. In fact we characterize the pairs of index sets effectively inseparable in either sense thereby generalizing Rice's Theorem. For subrecursive index sets we have sufficient conditions for various inseparabilities to hold. For inseparability by sets in the same subrecursive class we have a characterization. The latter essentially generalizes Kozen's (and Royer's later) Subrecursive Rice Theorem, and the proof of each result about subrecursive index sets is presented "Rogers style" with care to observe subrecursive restrictions. There are pairs of sets effectively inseparab...

A Partial Combinatory Algebra is completable if it can be extended to a total one. Klop [11, 12] gave a sufficient condition for completability of a PCA M = (M,·,K,S) in the form of ten axioms (inequalities) on terms of M. We prove that Klop’s sufficient condition is equivalent to the existence of an injective s-m-n function over M (that in turns is equivalent to the Padding Lemma). This is proved by working with an alternative characterization of PCA’s, recently introduced by the authors (Effective Applicative Structures). As a corollary, we show that nine of Klop’s ten axioms are actually redundant (the so called Barendregt’s axiom is enough to guarantee completability). Moreover, we prove that any Uniformly Reflexive Structure [17, 18, 16] is completable. 1