Links' Seminars and Public Events | ![]() ![]() |
Fri, December 4, 2020 10:00 am 11:00 am | Seminar: Pierre Pradic Title: Extracting nested relational queries from implicit definitions Abstract: arxiv.org/pdf/2005.06503.pdf In this talk, I will present results obtained jointly with Michael Benedikt establishing a connection between the Nested Relational Calculus (NRC) and sets implicitly definable using Δ₀ formulas. Call a formula φ(I,O) an implicit definition of the relation O(x,...) in terms of I(y,...) if O is functionally determined by I: for every I, O, O', if both φ(I,O) and φ(I,O') hold, then we have O ≡ O'. When φ is first-order and I and O are relations over base sorts, then Beth's definability theorem states that there is a first-order formula ψ(I,x,...) corresponding to O whenever φ(I,O) holds. Further, this explicit definition ψ can be effectively be computed from a sequent calculus proof witnessing that φ is functional. This allows for practical use of implicit definitions in the context of database programming, as there is a well-established link between fragments of explicitly FO definable relations and relational calculi. NRC is a conservative extension of relational calculi from database theory with limited powerset types in addition to tupling and anonymous base types. NRC expressions thus not only encompass flat relations over primitive datatypes like SQL but also nested collections, while remaining useful in practice. We extend the above correspondence between first-order logic and flat relational queries to NRC and implicit definitions using set-theoretical Δ₀ formulas over (typed) nested collection. Our proof of the equivalence goes through a notion of Δ₀-interpretation and a generalization of Beth definability for multi-sorted structures. This proof is non-constructive and thus does not yield any useful algorithm for converting implicit definitions into NRC terms. Using an approach more closely related to proof-theoretic interpolation, we give a constructive proof of the result restricted to intuitionistic provability, i.e, when the input functionality proof π of φ(I,O) is carried out in intuitionistic logic. Further, if π is cut-free, this can be done efficiently. Whether or not there exists a polynomial-time procedure working with classical proofs of functionality is still an open problem. I will focus on the effective result for the talk, and if time allows, discuss the difficulties with extending it to classical logic. I will not assume any background in either database or model theory. |
Fri, November 27, 2020 10:00 am 11:30 am | Seminar: Charles Paperman Title: Stackless processing of streamed trees Abstract: In this talk, I will first present the state of the art of efficiency implementation of streaming-text algorithms on modern architecture. Then some recent results on the extraction of information on streamed of structured documents without stack overhead. For more info: paperman.name/data/pub.....d.pdf |
Fri, November 13, 2020 10:00 am 12:00 pm | Seminar: Mikaël Monet Title: The Complexity of Counting Problems over Incomplete Databases Abstract: In this presentation, I will talk about various counting problems that naturally arise in the context of query evaluation over incomplete databases. Incomplete databases are relational databases that can contain unknown values in the form of labeled nulls. We will assume that the domains of these unknown values are finite and, for a Boolean query $q$, we will consider the following two problems: given as input an incomplete database $D$, (a) return the number of completions of $D$ that satisfy $q$; or (b) return or the number of valuations of the nulls of $D$ yielding a completion that satisfies $q$. We will study the computational complexity of these problems when $q$ is a self-join--free conjunctive query, and study the impact on the complexity of the following two restrictions: (1) every null occurs at most once in $D$ (what is called *Codd tables*); and (2) the domain of each null is the same. Roughly speaking, we will see that counting completions is much harder than counting valuations, and that both (1) and (2) can reduce the complexity of our problems. I will also talk about the approximability of these problems and prove that, while counting valuations can efficiently be approximated, in most cases counting completions cannot. On our way, we will encounter the counting complexity classes #P, Span-P and Span-L. The presentation will be based on joint work with Marcelo Arenas and Pablo Barcelo; see arxiv.org/abs/1912.11064 |