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Coinduction refers to both a technique for the definition of infinite streams, so-called codata, and a technique for proving the equality of coinductively specified codata. This article first reviews coinduction in declarative programming. Second, it reviews and slightly extends the formalism commonly used for specifying codata. Third, it generalizes the coinduction proof principle, which has been originally specified for the equality predicate only, to other predicates. This generalization makes the coinduction proof principle more intuitive and stresses its closeness with structural induction. The article finally suggests in its conclusion extensions of functional and logic programming with limited and decidable forms of the generalized coinduction proof principle.

Von analogen und digitalen Zugängen zur Kunst

Computing Art Reader

The field of declarative AI programming is briefly characterized. Its recent developments in Germany are reflected by a workshop as part of the scientific congress KI-93 at the Berlin Humboldt University. Three tutorials introduce to the state of the art in deductive databases, the programming language Gödel, and the evolution of knowledge bases. Eleven contributed papers treat knowledge revision/program transformation, types, constraints, and type-constraint combinations.

The model theory of a first-order logic called N^4 is introduced. N^4 does not eliminate double negations, as classical logic does, but instead reduces fourfold negations. N^4 is very close to classical logic: N^4 has two truth values; implications in N^4 are material, like in classical logic; and negation distributes over compound formulas in N^4 as it does in classical logic. Results suggest that the semantics of normal logic programs is conveniently formalized in N^4: Classical logic Herbrand interpretations generalize straightforwardly to N^4; the classical minimal Herbrand model of a positive logic program coincides with its unique minimal N^4 Herbrand model; the stable models of a normal logic program and its so-called complete minimal N^4 Herbrand models coincide., Comment: 16 pages. Originally published in proc. PCL 2002, a FLoC workshop; eds. Hendrik Decker, Dina Goldin, Jorgen Villadsen, Toshiharu Waragai (http://floc02.diku.dk/PCL/)