We would like to announce the presentation

    Computing as Model Generation:

    Programming in Logic without Logic Programming

by

    Robert KOWALSKI  (joint work with Fariba SADRI)

    Imperial College London


on Tuesday, May 27, 2014, 1.15 PM, in room INF E005.



Abstract

Logic programs. production systems, BDI agent systems, active
databases and many other languages express programs by means of
rules of the form if antecedent then consequent. However, despite
the seemingly logical character of these rules, only logic
programming and MetaTem give such rules a logical
interpretation. In this talk, I will argue that the MetaTem
interpretation is more fundamental than the logic programming
interpretation, but that MetaTem is limited by its use of modal
temporal logic for representing change of state and of frame
axioms for generating state transitions.

As a practical alternative to MetaTem, I will propose
a logic-based language in which rules are represented in
classical, non-modal logic with explicit time, state transitions
are performed by destructive updates, and (as in MetaTem)
computation is the task of generating a model that makes all of
the rules true.  I will illustrate the language with examples of
programs that have the form if a complex event occurs then
a complex transaction (or plan of actions) is performed. I will
also argue that logic programming has a useful (but only
subordinate) role to play in the language.


Short CV of Robert KOWALSKI:

Robert Kowalski was educated at the University of Chicago,
University of Bridgeport (BA in mathematics, 1963), Stanford
University (MSc in mathematics, 1966), University of Warsaw and
the University of Edinburgh (PhD in computer science, 1970). He
was a Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh (1970-75)
and has been at Imperial College London since 1975, attaining
a chair in Computational Logic in 1982 and becoming Emeritus
Professor in 1999. He began his research in the field of
automated theorem-proving, developing both SL-resolution with
Donald Kuehner and the connection graph proof procedure. However,
he is best known for his contributions to the development of
logic programming, starting with the procedural interpretation of
Horn clauses. He also developed the minimal model and the
fixpoint semantics of Horn clauses with Maarten van Emden.
With Marek Sergot, he developed both the event calculus and the
application of logic programming to legal reasoning. With Fariba
Sadri, he developed an agent model in which beliefs are
represented by logic programs and goals are represented by
integrity constraints. He has also worked on the application of
argumentation applied to default reasoning with Phan Minh Dung
and Francesca Toni.