Answer Set Programming in a Nutshell

Speaker: Torsten Schaub
University of Potsdam, Germany and
Simon Fraser University, Canada

Host: James Delgrande

Tuesday, March 30 @ 2:30pm, MBC 1300

Abstract:

In the late 90s several implementations of algorithms for computing so-called stable models of logic programs were proposed. And, as they were studied, it became clear that they are instantiations of a different programming paradigm than that of standard logic programming. This new paradigm has been formally identified in the late 90s and has since become known as Answer Set Programming (or ASP, for short). Answer Set Programming is a paradigm in which programs are built as theories in some formal system with a well-defined syntax, and with a semantics that assigns to a theory P in the system a collection of subsets of some domain. These subsets are referred to as answer sets of P and specify the results of computation based on P.

In my talk, I will try to give a gentle introduction to this new paradigm of logic programming, sketch its methodology and outline some recent developments.