Studies
From 1993 to 2002 I studied Computer Science at the RWTH Aachen.
There is a mirror of the personal homepage I had as research assistant at the
Chair for Computer Science VII and
Research Group on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science.
Diploma Thesis
The Reliability of Queries
Completed 1998 - Abstract:
The reliability of database queries on databases with uncertain information is studied,
on the basis of a probabilistic model for unreliable databases.
While it was already known that the reliability of quantifier-free queries is computable
in polynomial time, we show here that already for conjunctive queries, the reliability
may become highly intractable. We exhibit a conjunctive query whose reliability problem
is complete for FP^#P. We further show, that FP^#P is the typical complexity level for
the reliability problems of a very large class of queries, including all second-order
queries.
We study approximation algorithms and prove that the reliabilities of all polynomial-time
evaluable queries can be efficiently approximated by randomized algorithms.
Finally we discuss the extension of our approach to the more general metafinite
database model where finite relational structures are endowed with functions into an
infinite interpreted domain; in addition queries may use aggregate functions like in
SQL. Our result that reliability problems of first-order queries have complexity
FP^#P also holds on this extended model.
The German "Diplom" is about equivalent to an M.Sc.
Download Full Text
Dissertation
Guarded Logics: Algorithms and Bisimulation
Completed 2002 - Abstract:
For many practical applications of logic-based methods there is a
requirement to balance expressive power against computational
tractability. Both identifying decidable sub-classes of first-order
logic, and extending modal logic to larger, but nevertheless
efficiently solvable languages has been a preeminent goal of research.
The guarded fragment of first-order logic was a successful attempt to
transfer key tractability properties of modal, temporal, and
description logics to a larger fragment of predicate logic. Besides
decidability, guarded logics inherit the finite model property,
invariance under an appropriate variant of bisimulation, and other
nice model theoretic properties including a decidable fixed-point
extension.
The goal of this this work is to gain greater insight into the
correspondence between the modal world and the guarded world. In this
process, several gaps concerning basic, typically modal, features of
guarded logics are closed. Guarded second order logic and guarded
relational algebra are developed. A recurring key technique consists
of encoding structures and formulae used in the guarded world as their
modal counterparts. This enables the transfer of various results, as
well as giving greater insight into the nature of guarded logics.
Touched subjects include tableau-based decision procedures, mapping
action guarded logics, canonisation of structures and model-theoretic
characterisation theorems.
Download Full Text
|