Skip to main content

From Pebble Games to Tractability: An Ambidextrous Consistency Algorithm for Quantified Constraint Satisfaction

  • Conference paper
Computer Science Logic (CSL 2005)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 3634))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

The constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) and quantified constraint satisfaction problem (QCSP) are common frameworks for the modelling of computational problems. Although they are intractable in general, a rich line of research has identified restricted cases of these problems that are tractable in polynomial time. Remarkably, many tractable cases of the CSP that have been identified are solvable by a single algorithm, which we call here the consistency algorithm. In this paper, we give a natural extension of the consistency algorithm to the QCSP setting, by making use of connections between the consistency algorithm and certain two-person pebble games. Surprisingly, we demonstrate a variety of tractability results using the algorithm, revealing unified structure among apparently different cases of the QCSP.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Bulatov, A.: Combinatorial problems raised from 2-semilattices (Manuscript)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bulatov, A.: A dichotomy theorem for constraints on a three-element set. In: Proceedings of 43rd IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, pp. 649–658 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bulatov, A.: Tractable conservative constraint satisfaction problems. In: Proceedings of 18th IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS 2003), pp. 321–330 (2003); Extended version appears as Oxford University technical report PRG-RR–03-01

    Google Scholar 

  4. Bulatov, A.: A graph of a relational structure and constraint satisfaction problems. In: Proceedings of 19th IEEE Annual Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, LICS 2004 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Chandra, A., Merlin, P.: Optimal implementation of conjunctive queries in relational data bases. In: STOC (1977)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Chen, H.: The Computational Complexity of Quantified Constraint Satisfaction. PhD thesis, Cornell University (August 2004)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Chen, H.: Quantified constraint satisfaction and bounded treewidth. In: ECAI (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Chen, H.: Quantified constraint satisfaction, maximal constraint languages, and symmetric polymorphisms. In: STACS (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Dalmau, V., Kolaitis, P.G., Vardi, M.Y.: Constraint satisfaction, bounded treewidth, and finite-variable logics. In: Van Hentenryck, P. (ed.) CP 2002. LNCS, vol. 2470, p. 310. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  10. Dalmau, V., Pearson, J.: Closure functions and width 1 problems. In: Jaffar, J. (ed.) CP 1999. LNCS, vol. 1713, pp. 159–173. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Dechter, R., Pearl, J.: Tree clustering for constraint networks. Artificial Intelligence, pp. 353–366 (1989)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Flum, J., Frick, M., Grohe, M.: Query evaluation via tree-decompositions. JACM (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Freuder, E.: Complexity of k-tree structured constraint satisfaction problems. In: AAAI 1990 (1990)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Gottlob, G., Greco, G., Scarcello, F.: The complexity of quantified constraint satisfaction problems under structural restrictions. In: IJCAI (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Gottlob, G., Leone, N., Scarcello, F.: A comparison of structural csp decomposition methods. Artif. Intell. 124(2), 243–282 (2000)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  16. Grohe, M.: The complexity of homomorphism and constraint satisfaction problems seen from the other side. In: FOCS 2003, pp. 552–561 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Jeavons, P., Cohen, D., Cooper, M.: Constraints, consistency, and closure. Articial Intelligence 101(1-2), 251–265 (1998)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  18. Kolaitis, P.G., Vardi, M.Y.: On the expressive power of Datalog: tools and a case study. Journal of Computer and System Sciences 51(1), 110–134 (1995)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  19. Kolaitis, P.G., Vardi, M.Y.: Conjunctive-query containment and constraint satisfaction. Journal of Computer and System Sciences 61, 302–332 (2000)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  20. Kolaitis, P.G., Vardi, M.Y.: A game-theoretic approach to constraint satisfaction. In: Proceedings 17th National (US) Conference on Artificial Intellignece, AAAI 2000, pp. 175–181 (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Schaefer, T.J.: The complexity of satisfiability problems. In: Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC), pp. 216–226 (1978)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Chen, H., Dalmau, V. (2005). From Pebble Games to Tractability: An Ambidextrous Consistency Algorithm for Quantified Constraint Satisfaction. In: Ong, L. (eds) Computer Science Logic. CSL 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3634. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11538363_17

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11538363_17

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-28231-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-31897-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics