The agent expressions of the π-calculus can be translated into a theory of linear logic in such a way that the reflective and transitive closure of π-calculus (unlabeled) reduction is identified with “entailed-by”. Under this translation, parallel composition is mapped to the multiplicative disjunct (“par”) and restriction is mapped to universal quantification. Prefixing, non-deterministic choice (+), replication (!), and the match guard are all represented using non-logical constants, which are specified using a simple form of axiom, called here a process clause. These process clauses resemble Horn clauses except that they may have multiple conclusions; that is, their heads may be the par of atomic formulas. Such multiple conclusion clauses are used to axiomatize communications among agents. Given this translation, it is nature to ask to what extent proof theory can be used to understand the meta-theory of the π-calculus. We present some preliminary results along this line for π0, the “propositional ” fragment of the π-calculus, which lacks restriction and value passing (π0 is a subset of CCS). Using ideas from proof-theory, we introduce co-agents and show that they can specify some testing equivalences for π0. If negation-as-failure-to-prove is permitted as a co-agent combinator, then testing equivalence based on co-agents yields observational equivalence for π0. This latter result follows from observing that co-agents directly represent formulas in the Hennessy-Milner modal logic. 1

The theory of cut-free sequent proofs has been used to motivate and justify the design of a number of logic programming languages. Two such languages, λProlog and its linear logic refinement, Lolli [12], provide data types, higher-order programming) but lack primitives for concurrency. The logic programming language, LO (Linear Objects) [2] provides for concurrency but lacks abstraction mechanisms. In this paper we present Forum, a logic programming presentation of all of linear logic that modularly extends the languages λProlog, Lolli, and LO. Forum, therefore, allows specifications to incorporate both abstractions and concurrency. As a meta-language, Forum greatly extends the expressiveness of these other logic programming languages. To illustrate its expressive strength, we specify in Forum a sequent calculus proof system and the operational semantics of a functional programming language that incorporates such nonfunctional features as counters and references. 1

The theory of cut-free sequent proofs has been used to motivate and justify the design of a number of logic programming languages. Two such languages, λProlog and its linear logic refinement, Lolli [15], provide for various forms of abstraction (modules, abstract data types, and higher-order programming) but lack primitives for concurrency. The logic programming language, LO (Linear Objects) [2] provides some primitives for concurrency but lacks abstraction mechanisms. In this paper we present Forum, a logic programming presentation of all of linear logic that modularly extends λProlog, Lolli, and LO. Forum, therefore, allows specifications to incorporate both abstractions and concurrency. To illustrate the new expressive strengths of Forum, we specify in it a sequent calculus proof system and the operational semantics of a programming language that incorporates references and concurrency. We also show that the meta theory of linear logic can be used to prove properties of the objectlanguages specified in Forum.

In this paper we consider the problem of identifying logic programming languages for linear logic. Our analysis builds on a notion of goal-directed provability, characterized by the so-called uniform proofs, previously introduced for minimal and intuitionistic logic. A class of uniform proofs in linear logic is identified by an analysis of the permutability of inferences in the linear sequent calculus. We show that this class of proofs is complete (for logical consequence) for a certain (quite large) fragment of linear logic, which thus forms a logic programming language. We obtain a notion of resolution proof, in which only one left rule, of clause-directed resolution, is required. We also consider a translation, resembling those of Girard, of the hereditary Harrop fragment of intuitionistic logic into our framework. We show that goal-directed provability is preserved under this translation. 1 Introduction An interesting recent development in logic of some significance for theoretica...

We describe a sequent calculus, based on work of Herbelin, of which the cut-free derivations are in 1-1 correspondence with the normal natural deduction proofs of intuitionistic logic. We present a simple proof of Herbelin's strong cutelimination theorem for the calculus, using the recursive path ordering theorem of Dershowitz.

Natural language generation (NLG) is first and foremost a reasoning task. In this reasoning, a system plans a communicative act that will signal key facts about the domain to the hearer. In generating action descriptions, this reasoning draws on characterizations both of the causal properties of the domain and the states of knowledge of the participants in the conversation. This dissertation shows how such characterizations can be specified declaratively and accessed efficiently in NLG. The heart of this dissertation is a study of logical statements about knowledge and action in modal logic. By investigating the proof-theory of modal logic from a logic programming point of view, I show how many kinds of modal statements can be seen as straightforward instructions for computationally manageable search, just as Prolog clauses can. These modal statements provide sufficient expressive resources for an NLG system to represent the effects of actions in the world or to model an addressee whose knowledge in some respects exceeds and in other respects falls short of its own. To illustrate the use of such statements, I describe how the SPUD sentence planner exploits a modal knowledge base to

It is shown that permutative conversions terminate for the cut-free intuitionistic Gentzen (i.e. sequent) calculus; this proves a conjecture by Dyckhoff and Pinto. The main technical tool is a term notation for derivations in Gentzen calculi. These terms may be seen as -terms with explicit substitution, where the latter corresponds to the left introduction rules.

) J.A. Harland y D.J. Pym z University of Melbourne University of Edinburgh Australia Scotland, U.K. Abstract We present a proof-theoretic foundation for logic programming in Girard's linear logic. We exploit the permutability properties of two-sided linear sequent calculus to identify appropriate notions of uniform proof, definite formula, goal formula, clause and resolution proof for fragments of linear logic. The analysis of this paper extends earlier work by the present authors to include negative occurrences of z (par) and positive occurrences of ! (of course !) and ? (why not ?). These connectives introduce considerable difficulty. We consider briefly some of the issues related to the mechanical implementation of our resolution proofs. 1 Introduction An interesting recent development in logic of some significance for theoretical computer science is linear logic [3], [4], a relevance logic lacking the both structural rules of weakening and contraction, except via the expo...

Abstract The sequent calculus admits many proofs of the same conclusion that differ only by trivial permutations of inference rules. In order to eliminate this “bureaucracy” from sequent proofs, deductive formalisms such as proof nets or natural deduction are usually used instead of the sequent calculus, for they identify proofs more abstractly and geometrically. In this paper we recover permutative canonicity directly in the cut-free sequent calculus by generalizing focused sequent proofs to admit multiple foci, and then considering the restricted class of maximally multifocused proofs. We validate this definition by proving a bijection to the well-known proof-nets for the unit-free multiplicative linear logic, and discuss the possibility of a similar correspondence for larger fragments. 1

this paper every formula is equivalent to a formula in negation normal form