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18th Annual IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS'03)
Homomorphism Closed vs. Existential Positive
Ottawa, Canada
June 22-June 25
ISBN: 0-7695-1884-2
Tom? Feder, Stanford University
Moshe Y. Vardi, Rice University
Preservations theorems, which establish connection between syntactic and semantic properties of formulas, are a major topic of investigation in model theory. In the context of finite-model theory, most, but not all, preservation theorems are known to fail. It is not known, however, whether the ?os-Tarski-Lyndon Theorem, which asserts that a 1st-order sentence is preserved under homomorphisms iff it is equivalent to an existential positive sentence, holds with respect to finite structures. Resolving this is an important open question in finite-model theory.
In this paper we study the relationship between closure under homomorphism and positive syntax for several non-1st-order existential logics that are of interest in computer science. We prove that the ?os-Tarski-Lyndon Theorem holds for these logics. The logics we consider are variable-confined existential infinitary logic, Datalog, and various fragments of second-order logic.
Citation:
Tom? Feder, Moshe Y. Vardi, "Homomorphism Closed vs. Existential Positive," lics, pp.311, 18th Annual IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS'03), 2003
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