@TechReport{U-SFraser-CMPT-TR:2006-24,
   number =       "TR 2006-24",
   author =       "David Mitchell and Eugenia Ternovska and Faraz Hach and Raheleh Mohebali",
   title =        "Model Expansion as a Framework for Modelling and Solving Search Problems",
   month =        "December",
   year =         "2006",
   org =          "SFU-CMPT",
   institution =  SFU_CS_School,
   pages =        "1-42",
   abstract =     "
We propose a framework for modelling and solving search problems using logic, 
and describe a project whose goal is to produce practically effective, general 
purpose tools for representing and solving search problems based on this 
framework.  The mathematical foundation lies in the areas of finite model theory 
and descriptive complexity, which provide us with many classical results, as 
well as powerful techniques, not available to many other approaches with similar 
goals.  We describe the mathematical foundations; explain an extension to classical 
logic with inductive definitions that we consider central; give a summary of 
complexity and expressiveness properties; describe an approach to implementing 
solvers based on grounding; present grounding algorithms based on an extension of 
the relational algebra; describe an implementation of our framework which includes 
use of inductive definitions, sorts and order; and give experimental results 
comparing the performance of our implementation with ASP solvers and another solver 
based on the same framework."
}