Logics For Emerging Applications Of Databases

In this era of heterogeneous and distributed data sources, ranging from semistructured documents to knowledge about coordination processes or workflows, logic provides a rich set of tools and techniques with which to address the questions of how to represent, query and reason about complex data. This book provides a state-of-the-art overview of research on the application of logic-based methods to information systems, covering highly topical and emerging fields: XML programming and querying, intelligent agents, workflow modeling and verification, data integration, temporal and dynamic information, data mining, authorization, and security. It provides both scientists and graduate students with a wealth of material and references for their own research and education.

Time is ubiquitous in information systems. Almost every enterprise faces the problem of its data becoming out of date. However, such data is often valu able, so it should be archived and some means to access it should be provided. Also, some data may be inherently historical, e.g., medical, cadastral, or ju dicial records. Temporal databases provide a uniform and systematic way of dealing with historical data. Many languages have been proposed for tem poral databases, among others temporal logic. Temporal logic combines ab stract, formal semantics with the amenability to efficient implementation. This chapter shows how temporal logic can be used in temporal database applica tions. Rather than presenting new results, we report on recent developments and survey the field in a systematic way using a unified formal framework [GHR94; Ch094]. The handbook [GHR94] is a comprehensive reference on mathematical foundations of temporal logic. In this chapter we study how temporal logic is used as a query and integrity constraint language. Consequently, model-theoretic notions, particularly for mula satisfaction, are of primary interest. Axiomatic systems and proof meth ods for temporal logic [GHR94] have found so far relatively few applications in the context of information systems. Moreover, one needs to bear in mind that for the standard linearly-ordered time domains temporal logic is not re cursively axiomatizable [GHR94]' so recursive axiomatizations are by necessity incomplete.

"This book provides a wide compendium of references to topics in the field of the databases systems and applications"--Provided by publisher.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Logic for Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Reasoning, LPAR 2006, held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in November 2006. The 38 revised full papers presented together with one invited talk were carefully reviewed and selected from 96 submissions.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications, DEXA 2006. The book presents 90 revised full papers together with 1 invited paper. The papers are organized in topical sections on XML, data and information, data mining and data warehouses, database applications, WWW, bioinformatics, process automation and workflow, knowledge management and expert systems, database theory, query processing, and privacy and security.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Logic for Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Reasoning, LPAR 2007, held in Yerevan, Armenia. It contains 36 revised full papers, 15 short papers and three invited talks that were carefully selected from 78 submissions. The papers address all current issues in logic programming, logic-based program manipulation, formal method, automated reasoning, and various kinds of AI logics.

In the past, applied artificial intelligence systems were built with particular emphasis on general reasoning methods intended to function efficiently, even when only relatively little domain-specific knowledge was available. In other words, AI technology aimed at the processing of knowledge stored under comparatively general representation schemes. Nowadays, the focus has been redirected to the role played by specific and detailed knowledge, rather than to the reasoning methods themselves. Many new application systems are centered around knowledge bases, i. e. , they are based on large collections offacts, rules, and heuristics that cap ture knowledge about a specific domain of applications. Experience has shown that when used in combination with rich knowledge bases, even simple reasoning methods can be extremely effective in a wide variety of problem domains. Knowledge base construction and management will thus become the key factor in the development of viable knowledge-based ap plications. Knowledge Base Management Systems (KBMSs) are being proposed that provide user-friendly environments for the construction, retrieval, and manipUlation of large shared knowledge bases. In addition to deductive reasoning, KBMSs require operational characteristics such as concurrent access, integrity maintenance, error recovery, security, and perhaps distribution. For the development ofKBMSs, the need to integrate concepts and technologies from different areas, such as Artificial Intel ligence, Databases, and Logic, has been widely recognized. One of the central issues for KBMSs is the framework used for knowledge representation-semantic networks, frames, rules, and logics are proposed by the AI and logic communities.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Logic Programming and Nonmonotonic Reasoning, LPNMR 2005, held in Diamante, Italy in September 2005. The 25 revised full papers, 16 revised for the system and application tracks presented together with 3 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected for presentation. Among the topics addressed are semantics of new and existing languages; relationships between formalisms; complexity and expressive power; LPNMR systems: development of inference algorithms and search heuristics, updates and other operations, uncertainty, and applications in planning, diagnosis, system descriptions, comparisons and evaluations; software engineering, decision making, and other domains; LPNMR languages: extensions by new logical connectives and new inference capabilities, applications in data integration and exchange systems, and methodology of representing knowledge.

The use of logic in databases started in the late 1960s. In the early 1970s Codd formalized databases in terms of the relational calculus and the relational algebra. A major influence on the use of logic in databases was the development of the field of logic programming. Logic provides a convenient formalism for studying classical database problems and has the important property of being declarative, that is, it allows one to express what she wants rather than how to get it. For a long time, relational calculus and algebra were considered the relational database languages. However, there are simple operations, such as computing the transitive closure of a graph, which cannot be expressed with these languages. Datalog is a declarative query language for relational databases based on the logic programming paradigm. One of the peculiarities that distinguishes Datalog from query languages like relational algebra and calculus is recursion, which gives Datalog the capability to express queries like computing a graph transitive closure. Recent years have witnessed a revival of interest in Datalog in a variety of emerging application domains such as data integration, information extraction, networking, program analysis, security, cloud computing, ontology reasoning, and many others. The aim of this book is to present the basics of Datalog, some of its extensions, and recent applications to different domains.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed joint post-proceedings of five workshops held as part of the 9th International Conference on Extending Database Technology, EDBT 2004, held in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, in March 2004. The 55 revised full papers presented together with 2 invited papers and the summaries of 2 panels were selected from numerous submissions during two rounds of reviewing and revision. In accordance with the topical focus of the respective workshops, the papers are organized in sections on database technology in general (PhD Workshop), database technologies for handling XML information on the Web, pervasive information management, peer-to-peer computing and databases, and clustering information over the Web.