Alasdair Urquhart on Nonclassical and Algebraic Logic and Complexity of Proofs


Book Description

This book is dedicated to the work of Alasdair Urquhart. The book starts out with an introduction to and an overview of Urquhart’s work, and an autobiographical essay by Urquhart. This introductory section is followed by papers on algebraic logic and lattice theory, papers on the complexity of proofs, and papers on philosophical logic and history of logic. The final section of the book contains a response to the papers by Urquhart. Alasdair Urquhart has made extremely important contributions to a variety of fields in logic. He produced some of the earliest work on the semantics of relevant logic. He provided the undecidability of the logics R (of relevant implication) and E (of relevant entailment), as well as some of their close neighbors. He proved that interpolation fails in some of those systems. Urquhart has done very important work in complexity theory, both about the complexity of proofs in classical and some nonclassical logics. In pure algebra, he has produced a representation theorem for lattices and some rather beautiful duality theorems. In addition, he has done important work in the history of logic, especially on Bertrand Russell, including editing Volume four of Russell’s Collected Papers.




Relational and Algebraic Methods in Computer Science


Book Description

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Relational and Algebraic Methods in Computer Science, RAMiCS 2021, which took place in Marseille, France, during November 2-5, 2021. The 29 papers presented in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 35 submissions. They deal with the development and dissemination of relation algebras, Kleene algebras, and similar algebraic formalisms. Topics covered range from mathematical foundations to applications as conceptual and methodological tools in computer science and beyond.




Relational and Algebraic Methods in Computer Science


Book Description

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Relational and Algebraic Methods in Computer Science, RAMiCS 2023, which took place in Augsburg, Germany, during April 3–6, 2023. The 17 papers presented in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 26 submissions. They deal with the development and dissemination of relation algebras, Kleene algebras, and similar algebraic formalisms. Topics covered range from mathematical foundations to applications as conceptual and methodological tools in computer science and beyond. Apart from the submitted articles, this volume features the abstracts of the presentations of the three invited speakers.




Ockham Algebras


Book Description

An Ockham algebra is a natural generalization of a well known and important notion of a boolean algebra. Regarding the latter as a bounded distributive lattice with complementation (a dual automorphism of period 2) by a dual endomorphism that satisfies the de Morgan laws, this seeminglymodest generalization turns out to be extemely wide. The variety of Ockham algebras has infinitely many subvarieties including those of de Morgan algebras, Stone algebras, and Kleene algebras. Folowing pioneering work by Berman in 1977, many papers have appeared in this area oflattice theory towhich several important results in the theory of universal algebra are highly applicable. This is the first unified account of some of this research. Particular emphasis is placed on Priestly's topological duality, which invloves working with ordered sets and order-reversing maps, hereby involvingmany problems of a combinatorial nature. Written with the graduate student in mind, this book provides an ideal overview of this are of increasing interest.




Proof Complexity


Book Description

Proof complexity is a rich subject drawing on methods from logic, combinatorics, algebra and computer science. This self-contained book presents the basic concepts, classical results, current state of the art and possible future directions in the field. It stresses a view of proof complexity as a whole entity rather than a collection of various topics held together loosely by a few notions, and it favors more generalizable statements. Lower bounds for lengths of proofs, often regarded as the key issue in proof complexity, are of course covered in detail. However, upper bounds are not neglected: this book also explores the relations between bounded arithmetic theories and proof systems and how they can be used to prove upper bounds on lengths of proofs and simulations among proof systems. It goes on to discuss topics that transcend specific proof systems, allowing for deeper understanding of the fundamental problems of the subject.




Communication Complexity


Book Description

Communication complexity is the mathematical study of scenarios where several parties need to communicate to achieve a common goal, a situation that naturally appears during computation. This introduction presents the most recent developments in an accessible form, providing the language to unify several disjoint research subareas. Written as a guide for a graduate course on communication complexity, it will interest a broad audience in computer science, from advanced undergraduates to researchers in areas ranging from theory to algorithm design to distributed computing. The first part presents basic theory in a clear and illustrative way, offering beginners an entry into the field. The second part describes applications including circuit complexity, proof complexity, streaming algorithms, extension complexity of polytopes, and distributed computing. Proofs throughout the text use ideas from a wide range of mathematics, including geometry, algebra, and probability. Each chapter contains numerous examples, figures, and exercises to aid understanding.




Proof Theory


Book Description

Although sequent calculi constitute an important category of proof systems, they are not as well known as axiomatic and natural deduction systems. Addressing this deficiency, Proof Theory: Sequent Calculi and Related Formalisms presents a comprehensive treatment of sequent calculi, including a wide range of variations. It focuses on sequent calculi




Neighborhood Semantics for Modal Logic


Book Description

This book offers a state-of-the-art introduction to the basic techniques and results of neighborhood semantics for modal logic. In addition to presenting the relevant technical background, it highlights both the pitfalls and potential uses of neighborhood models – an interesting class of mathematical structures that were originally introduced to provide a semantics for weak systems of modal logic (the so-called non-normal modal logics). In addition, the book discusses a broad range of topics, including standard modal logic results (i.e., completeness, decidability and definability); bisimulations for neighborhood models and other model-theoretic constructions; comparisons with other semantics for modal logic (e.g., relational models, topological models, plausibility models); neighborhood semantics for first-order modal logic, applications in game theory (coalitional logic and game logic); applications in epistemic logic (logics of evidence and belief); and non-normal modal logics with dynamic modalities. The book can be used as the primary text for seminars on philosophical logic focused on non-normal modal logics; as a supplemental text for courses on modal logic, logic in AI, or philosophical logic (either at the undergraduate or graduate level); or as the primary source for researchers interested in learning about the uses of neighborhood semantics in philosophical logic and game theory.




Theory Building


Book Description




Conceptions of Set and the Foundations of Mathematics


Book Description

Presents a detailed and critical examination of the available conceptions of set and proposes a novel version.