Relevant Links:
Univ. of Évora
Évora (in Portuguese)

APPIA-GULP-PRODE 2001
2001 JOINT CONFERENCE ON DECLARATIVE PROGRAMMING

Invited Talk -- Terrance Swift

Using Tabling to Extend Prolog with Non-Monotonic Constructs

Tabled logic programming extends Prolog's top-down evaluation with the bottom-up evaluation of deductive databases. This combination offers the flexibility of Prolog with the termination and complexity properties of deductive databases. Using tabling systems, such as XSB, Lola, YAP and others, a first generation of applications emerged that depended on using tabling on definite programs, or on programs with low stratification classes. Such applications include model checking, grammar parsing, program analysis, and model-based diagnosis of electronic circuits.

Much of the recent work on the tabled logic programming system XSB has revolved around efficient implementation of non-monotonic constructs, such as non-stratified default negation, explicit negation, preferences, abduction, and annotations. Using these constructs, a second wave of tabling applications has begun to emerge, including applications in data standardization, medical diagnosis, object-oriented deductive databases, and web-site personalization. This talk discusses non-monotonic constructs implemented in XSB through a series of practical applications that make use of these constructs, and considers issues that arise in creating programming environments to support such constructs.