Computational Logic - Logic Programming and Beyond II - A. Kakas, F. Sadri (Springer, 2002) WW.pdf - Discrete Mathematics - Yohoho25

Antonis C. Kakas Fariba Sadri (Eds.)

Computational Logic:

Logic Programming

and Beyond

Essays in Honour of Robert A. Kowalski

Part II

Series Editors

Jaime G. Carbonell,Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Jorg Siekmann, University of Saarland, Saarbrucken, Germany

Volume Editors

Antonis C. Kakas

University of Cyprus, Department of Computer Science

75 Kallipoleos St., 1678 Nicosia, Cyprus

E-mail:antonis@ucy.ac.cy

Fariba Sadri

Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine

Department of Computing, 180 Queen’s Gate

London SW7 2BZ, United Kingdom

E-mail: fs@doc.ic.ac.uk

Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme

Computational logic: logig programming and beyond : essays in honour of Robert

A. Kowalski / Antonis C. Kakas ; Fariba Sadri (ed.). - Berlin ; Heidelberg ; New

York ; Barcelona ; Hong Kong ; London ; Milan ; Paris ; Tokyo : Springer Pt.2.-

(2002) (Lecture notes in computer science ; Vol. 2408 : Lecture notes in artiﬁcial

intelligence) ISBN 3-540-43960-9

CR Subject Classiﬁcation (1998): I.2.3, D.1.6, I.2, F.4, I.1

ISSN 0302-9743

ISBN 3-540-43960-9 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York

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concerned, speciﬁcally the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting,

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or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965,

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liable for prosecution under the German Copyright Law.

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SPIN 10873683

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543210

Foreword

Alan Robinson

This set of essays pays tribute to Bob Kowalski on his 60th birthday, an anniversary

which gives his friends and colleagues an excuse to celebrate his career as an original

thinker, a charismatic communicator, and a forceful intellectual leader. The logic

programming community hereby and herein conveys its respect and thanks to him for

his pivotal role in creating and fostering the conceptual paradigm which is its raison

d'tre.

The diversity of interests covered here reflects the variety of Bob's concerns. Read

on. It is an intellectual feast. Before you begin, permit me to send him a brief

personal, but public, message: Bob, how right you were, and how wrong I was .

I should explain. When Bob arrived in Edinburgh in 1967 resolution was as yet fairly

new, having taken several years to become at all widely known. Research groups to

investigate various aspects of resolution sprang up at several institutions, the one

organized by Bernard Meltzer at Edinburgh University being among the first. For the

half-dozen years that Bob was a leading member of Bernard's group, I was a frequent

visitor to it, and I saw a lot of him. We had many discussions about logic,

computation, and language. By 1970, the group had zeroed in on three ideas which

were soon to help make logic programming possible: the specialized inference rule of

linear resolution using a selection function, together with the plan of restricting it to

Horn clauses ("LUSH resolution"); the adoption of an operational semantics for Horn

clauses; and a marvellously fast implementation technique for linear resolution,

based on structure-sharing of syntactic expressions. Bob believed that this work now

made it possible to use the predicate calculus as a programming language. I was

sceptical. My focus was still on the original motivation for resolution, to build better

theorem provers.

I worried that Bob had been sidetracked by an enticing illusion. In particular because

of my intellectual investment in the classical semantics of predicate logic I was quite

put off by the proposed operational semantics for Horn clauses. This seemed to me

nothing but an adoption of MIT's notorious "Planner" ideology of computational

inference. I did try, briefly, to persuade Bob to see things my way, but there was no

stopping him. Thank goodness I could not change his mind, for I soon had to change

mine.

In 1971, Bob and Alain Colmerauer first got together. They pooled their thinking.

The rest is history. The idea of using predicate logic as a programming language then

really boomed, propelled by the rush of creative energy generated by the ensuing

Marseilles-Edinburgh synergy. The merger of Bob's and Alain's independent insights

launched a new era. Bob's dream came true, confirmed by the spectacular practical

success of Alain's Prolog. My own doubts were swept away. In the thirty years since

then, logic programming has developed into a jewel of computer science, known all

over the world.

Happy 60th birthday, Bob, from all of us.

Preface

Bob Kowalski together with Alain Colmerauer opened up the new field of Logic

Programming back in the early 1970s. Since then the field has expanded in various

directions and has contributed to the development of many other areas in Computer

Science. Logic Programming has helped to place logic firmly as an integral part of the

foundations of Computing and Artificial Intelligence. In particular, over the last two

decades a new discipline has emerged under the name of Computational Logic which

aims to promote logic as a unifying basis for problem solving. This broad role of logic

was at the heart of Bob KowalskiÓs work from the very beginning as expounded in his

seminal book ÐLogic for Problem Solving.Ñ He has been instrumental both in shaping

this broader scientific field and in setting up the Computational Logic community.

This volume commemorates the 60 th birthday of Bob Kowalski as one of the founders

of and contributors to Computational Logic. It aspires to provide a landmark of the

main developments in the field and to chart out its possible future directions. The

authors were encouraged to provide a critical view of the main developments of the

field together with an outlook on the important emerging problems and the possible

contribution of Computational Logic to the future development of its related areas.

The articles in this volume span the whole field of Computational Logic seen from the

point of view of Logic Programming. They range from papers addressing problems

concerning the development of programming languages in logic and the application

of Computational Logic to real-life problems, to philosophical studies of the field at

the other end of the spectrum. Articles cover the contribution of CL to Databases and

Artificial Intelligence with particular interest in Automated Reasoning, Reasoning

about Actions and Change, Natural Language, and Learning.

It has been a great pleasure to help to put this volume together. We were delighted

(but not surprised) to find that everyone we asked to contribute responded positively

and with great enthusiasm, expressing their desire to honour Bob Kowalski. This

enthusiasm remained throughout the long process of reviewing (in some cases a third

reviewing process was necessary) that the invited papers had to go through in order

for the decision to be made, whether they could be accepted for the volume. We thank

all the authors very much for their patience and we hope that we have done justice to

their efforts. We also thank all the reviewers, many of whom were authors

themselves, who exhibited the same kind of zeal towards the making of this book. A

special thanks goes out to Bob himself for his tolerance with our continuous stream of

questions and for his own contribution to the book Î his personal statement on the

future of Logic Programming.

Bob has had a major impact on our lives, as he has had on many others. I, Fariba, first

met Bob when I visited Imperial College for an interview as a PhD applicant. I had

not even applied for logic programming, but, somehow, I ended up being interviewed

by Bob. In that very first meeting his enormous enthusiasm and energy for his subject

was fully evident, and soon afterwards I found myself registered to do a PhD in logic

VIII Preface

programming under his supervision. Since then, throughout all the years, Bob has

been a constant source of inspiration, guidance, friendship, and humour. For me,

Antonis, Bob did not supervise my PhD as this was not in Computer Science. I met

Bob well after my PhD and I became a student again. I was extremely fortunate to

have Bob as a new teacher at this stage. I already had some background in research

and thus I was better equipped to learn from his wonderful and quite unique way of

thought and scientific endeavour. I was also very fortunate to find in Bob a new good

friend.

Finally, on a more personal note the first editor wishes to thank Kim for her patient

understanding and support with all the rest of lifeÓs necessities thus allowing him the

selfish pleasure of concentrating on research and other academic matters such as

putting this book together.

Antonis Kakas and Fariba Sadri

Computational Logic - Logic Programming and Beyond II - A. Kakas, F. Sadri (Springer, 2002) WW.pdf

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