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A full first-order constraint solver for decomposable theories

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Abstract

Over the last decade, first-order constraints have been efficiently used in the artificial intelligence world to model many kinds of complex problems such as: scheduling, resource allocation, computer graphics and bio-informatics. Recently, a new property called decomposability has been introduced and many first-order theories have been proved to be decomposable: finite or infinite trees, rational and real numbers, linear dense order,...etc. A decision procedure in the form of five rewriting rules has also been developed. This latter can decide if a first-order formula without free variables is true or not in any decomposable theory. Unfortunately, this decision procedure is not enough when we want to express the solutions of a first-order constraint having free variables. These kind of problems are generally known as first-order constraint satisfaction problems. We present in this paper, not only a decision procedure but a full first-order constraint solver for decomposable theories. Our solver is given in the form of nine rewriting rules which transform any first-order constraint ϕ (which can possibly contain free variables) into an equivalent formula φ which is either the formula true, or the formula false or a simple solved formula having at least one free variable and being equivalent neither to true nor to false. We show the efficiency of our solver by solving complex first-order constraints over finite or infinite trees containing a huge number of imbricated quantifiers and negations and compare the performances with those obtained using the most recent and efficient dedicated solver for finite or infinite trees. This is the first full first-order constraint solver for any decomposable theory.

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  1. LIFO Orleans, Universite d’Orleans, Orléans, France

    Khalil Djelloul

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  1. Khalil Djelloul
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Correspondence to Khalil Djelloul.

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Djelloul, K. A full first-order constraint solver for decomposable theories. Ann Math Artif Intell 56, 43–64 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10472-009-9142-9

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