This paper deals with the notion of direct product in the theory of decision problems.

Elementary mathematical theories are always concerned with certain functions defined in a set I (called the universe of discourse of the theory) and certain relations with the common domain I. The notions of functions and relations are known to be reducible to each other. To avoid duplication of definitions and proofs we shall eliminate the former notion in favor of the latter and consider only theories in which all the primitive terms are of the type of relations (with an arbitrary number of arguments).

It is easy to define for relations the notion of a direct product in the way which is usual in abstract algebra. We are led to this definition in a very natural way when we reflect that relations are but a particular case of functions, and the direct product of an arbitrary number of functions is defined in algebra.

A relation which is representable as a product of an arbitrary number of pairwise identical relations is called the power-relation, and the relations which occur as factors are called the base-relations.

The content of the present paper can now be characterized more precisely as follows.

We shall discuss a theory of which the primitive notions are representable as powers of certain base-relations, and shall try to reduce all the problems concerning this theory (in particular the decision problem) to problems concerning the theory of the base-relations. It will be seen that this reduction is in fact possible, and that several particular cases of the decision problem, the solutions of which are known from the literature, can be included in the general scheme established in the present paper.

The satisfiability problem for the two-variable fragment of first-order logic is investigated over finite and infinite linearly ordered, respectively wellordered domains, as well as over finite and infinite domains in which one or several designated binary predicates are interpreted as arbitrary wellfounded relations.

It is shown that FO2 over ordered, respectively wellordered. domains or in the presence of one well-founded relation, is decidable for satisfiability as well as for finite satisfiability. Actually the complexity of these decision problems is essentially the same as for plain unconstrained FO2. namely non-deterministic exponential time.

In contrast FO2 becomes undecidable for satisfiability and for finite satisfiability, if a sufficiently large number of predicates are required to be interpreted as orderings. wellorderings. or as arbitrary wellfounded relations. This undecidability result also entails the undecidability of the natural common extension of FO2 and computation tree logic CTL.

Cylindric algebras were introduced by Alfred Tarski about 1952 to provide an algebraic analysis of (first-order) predicate logic. With each cylindric algebra one can, in fact, associate a certain, in general infinitary, predicate logic; for locally finite cylindric algebras of infinite dimension the associated predicate logics are finitary. As with Boolean algebras and sentential logic, the algebraic counterpart of completeness is representability. Tarski proved the fundamental result that every locally finite cylindric algebra of infinite dimension is representable.

In Ockhamist branching-time logic [Prior 67], formulas are meant to be evaluated on a specified branch, or history, passing through the moment at hand. The linguistic counterpart of the manifoldness of future is a possibility operator which is read as ‘at some branch, or history (passing through the moment at hand)’. Both the bundled-trees semantics [Burgess 79] and the 〈moment, history〉 semantics [Thomason 84] for the possibility operator involve a quantification over sets of moments. The Ockhamist frames are (3-modal) Kripke structures in which this second-order quantification is represented by a first-order quantification. The aim of the present paper is to investigate the notions of modal definability, validity, and axiomatizability concerning 3-modal frames which can be viewed as generalizations of Ockhamist frames.

It is well known that a decidable theory possesses a recursively presentable model. If a decidable theory also possesses a prime model, it is natural to ask if the prime model has a recursive presentation. This has been answered affirmatively for algebraically closed fields [5], and for real closed fields, Hensel fields and other fields [3]. This paper gives a positive answer for the theory of differentially closed fields, and for any decidable ℵ1-categorical theory.

The language of a theory T is denoted by L(T). All languages will be presumed countable. An x-type of T is a set of formulas with free variables x, which is consistent with T and which is maximal in this property. A formula with free variables x is complete if there is exactly one x-type containing it. A type is principal if it contains a complete formula. A countable model of T is prime if it realizes only principal types. Vaught has shown that a complete countable theory can have at most one prime model up to isomorphism.

If T is a decidable theory, then the decision procedure for T equips L(T) with an effective counting. Thus the formulas of L(T) correspond to integers. The integer a formula φ(x) corresponds to is generally called the Gödel number of φ(x) and is denoted by ⌜φ(x)⌝. The usual recursion theoretic notions defined on the set of integers can be transferred to L(T). In particular a type Γ is recursive with index e if {⌜φ⌝.; φ ∈ Γ} is a recursive set of integers with index e.

C. I. Lewis intended his systems S1–S5 as contributions to the study of “strict implication”, but in his formulation, strict implication is so thoroughly intertwined with other notions, such as possibility and negation, that it remains a problem, to separate out the properties of strict implication itself. I shall solve this problem for S2–5 and von Wright's M. The results for S3–5 are given below, while the implicative parts of S2 and M, which are rather more complicated, are given in §5.

In this presentation, ‘⊃’ stands for strict implication, and missing brackets for ‘⊃’ are restored by association to the right. A strict formula is one of the form A ⊃ B. Axiom schemes are used throughout.

This is Part 1 of a paper on fibred semantics and combination of logics. It aims to present a methodology for combining arbitrary logical systems Li, i ∈ I, to form a new system LI. The methodology ‘fibres’ the semantics i of Li into a semantics for LI, and ‘weaves’ the proof theory (axiomatics) of Li into a proof system of LI. There are various ways of doing this, we distinguish by different names such as ‘fibring’, ‘dovetailing’ etc, yielding different systems, denoted by etc. Once the logics are ‘weaved’, further ‘interaction’ axioms can be geometrically motivated and added, and then systematically studied. The methodology is general and is applied to modal and intuitionistic logics as well as to general algebraic logics. We obtain general results on bulk, in the sense that we develop standard combining techniques and refinements which can be applied to any family of initial logics to obtain further combined logics.

The main results of this paper is a construction for combining arbitrary, (possibly not normal) modal or intermediate logics, each complete for a class of (not necessarily frame) Kripke models. We show transfer of recursive axiomatisability, decidability and finite model property.

Some results on combining logics (normal modal extensions of K) have recently been introduced by Kracht and Wolter, Goranko and Passy and by Fine and Schurz as well as a multitude of special combined systems existing in the literature of the past 20–30 years. We hope our methodology will help organise the field systematically.

By γ, we mean the rule, “From ├ A and ├ Ā V B, infer ├ B”.1 This rule has played an important and a controversial role in a set of relevant logics free of certain well-known paradoxes of implication, like AĀ-→B and A-→(B-→B). Among these logics we count the pioneering systems of strenge Implikation presented by Ackermann in [1],2 as well as the Anderson-Belnap systems E of entail-ment and R of relevant implication.3

The intuitionistic propositional logic I has the following (disjunction) property

.

We are interested in extensions of the intuitionistic logic which are both decidable and have the disjunction property. Systems with the disjunction property are known, for example the Kreisel-Putnam system [1] which is I + (∼ϕ → (ψ ∨ α))→ ((∼ϕ→ψ) ∨ (∼ϕ→α)) and Scott's system I + ((∼ ∼ϕ→ϕ)→(ϕ ∨ ∼ϕ))→ (∼∼ϕ ∨ ∼ϕ). It was shown in [3c] that the first system has the finite-model property.

In this note we shall construct a sequence of intermediate logics Dn with the following properties:

These systems are presented both semantically and syntactically, using the remarkable correspondence between properties of partially ordered sets and axiom schemata of intuitionistic logic. This correspondence, apart from being interesting in itself (for giving geometric meaning to intuitionistic axioms), is also useful in giving independence proofs and obtaining proof theoretic results for intuitionistic systems (see for example, C. Smorynski, Thesis, University of Illinois, 1972, for independence and proof theoretic results in Heyting arithmetic).

We consider Borel sets of finite rank A ⊆ ∧ω where cardinality of Λ is less than some uncountable regular cardinal . We obtain a “normal form” of A, by finding a Borel set Ω, such that A and Ω continuously reduce to each other. In more technical terms: we define simple Borel operations which are homomorphic to ordinal sum, to multiplication by a countable ordinal, and to ordinal exponentiation of base , under the map which sends every Borel set A of finite rank to its Wadge degree.

We present a theory VF of partial truth over Peano arithmetic and we prove that VF and ID1, have the same arithmetical content. The semantics of VF is inspired by van Fraassen's notion of supervaluation.

An important goal of complexity theory, as we see it, is to characterize those partial recursive functions and recursively enumerable sets having some given complexity properties, and to do so in terms which do not involve the notion of complexity.

As a contribution to this goal, we provide characterizations of the effectively speedable, speedable and levelable [2] sets in purely recursive theoretic terms. We introduce the notion of subcreativeness and show that every program for computing a partial recursive function f can be effectively speeded up on infinitely many integers if and only if the graph of f is subcreative.

In addition, in order to cast some light on the concepts of effectively speedable, speedable and levelable sets we show that all maximal sets are levelable (and hence speedable) but not effectively speedable and we exhibit a set which is not levelable in a very strong sense but yet is effectively speedable.

For each n > 0, two alternative axiomatizations of the theory of strings over n alphabetic characters are presented. One class of axiomatizations derives from Tarski's system of the Wahrheitsbegriff and uses the n characters and concatenation as primitives. The other class involves using n character-prefixing operators as primitives and derives from Hermes' Semiotik. All underlying logics are second order. It is shown that, for each n, the two theories are synonymous in the sense of deBouvere. It is further shown that each member of one class is synonymous with each member of the other class; thus that all of the theories are synonymous with each other and with Peano arithmetic. Categoricity of Peano arithmetic then implies categoricity of each of the above theories.

We shall prove the following theorem, which gives a necessary and sufficient condition for an elementary class to be characterized by a set of sentences having a prescribed number of alternations of quantifiers. A finite sequence of relational systems is said to be a sandwich of order n if each is an elementary extension of (i ≦ n—2), and each is an extension of (i ≦ n—2). If K is an elementary class, then the statements (i) and (ii) are equivalent for each fixed natural number n.

In this paper we describe generalizations of several approaches to the hyperarithmetic hierarchy, show how they are related to the Kripke-Platek theory of admissible ordinals and sets, and study conditions under which the various approaches remain equivalent.

To put matters in some perspective, let us first review various approaches to the theory of hyperarithmetic sets. For most purposes, it is convenient to first define the semi-hyperarithmetic (semi-HA) subsets of N. A set is then said to be hyperarithmetic (HA) if both it and its complement are semi-HA. A total number-theoretic function is HA if its graph is HA.

It is shown that if and are sets of degrees uniformly recursive in 0′ with 0 ∈ then there is a degree b with b′ = 0′, b ∪ c = 0′ for every c ∈ , and a ≰ b for every a ∈ ˜ {0}. The proof is given as an oracle construction recursive in 0′. It follows that any nonrecursive degree below 0′ can be joined to 0′ by a degree strictly below 0′. Also, if a < 0′ and a″ = 0″ then there is a degree b such that a ∪ b = 0′ and a ∩ b = 0.

We investigate the provability or nonprovability of certain ordinary mathematical theorems within certain weak subsystems of second order arithmetic. Specifically, we consider the Cauchy/Peano existence theorem for solutions of ordinary differential equations, in the context of the formal system RCA0 whose principal axioms are comprehension and induction. Our main result is that, over RCA0, the Cauchy/Peano Theorem is provably equivalent to weak König's lemma, i.e. the statement that every infinite {0, 1}-tree has a path. We also show that, over RCA0, the Ascoli lemma is provably equivalent to arithmetical comprehension, as is Osgood's theorem on the existence of maximum solutions. At the end of the paper we digress to relate our results to degrees of unsolvability and to computable analysis.

One of the most interesting aspects of the theory of computational complexity is the speed-up phenomenon such as the theorem of Blum [6, p. 326] which asserts the existence of a 0, 1-valued total recursive function with arbitrarily large speed-up. Blum and Marques [10] extended the speed-up definitions from total to partial recursive functions, or equivalently, to recursively enumerable (r.e.) sets, and introduced speedable and levelable sets. They classified the effectively speedable sets as the subcreative sets but remarked that “the characterizations we provided for speedable and levelable sets do not seem to bear a close relationship to any already well-studied class of recursively enumerable sets.” The purpose of this paper is to give an “information theoretic” characterization of speedable and levelable sets in terms of index sets resembling the jump operator. From these characterizations we derive numerous consequences about the degrees and structure of speedable and levelable sets.

La communauté mathématique doit être reconnaissante à Saharon Shelah pour une invention d'une ingénieuse simplicité, celle d'avoir associé à chaque structure M une structure Meq comprenant, outre les éléments de M, des “éléments imaginaires” qui sont virtuellement présents dans M. La finalité de cette construction est de pourvoir toute formule à paramètres dans M, et même dans Meq, d'un ensemble de définition minimum; tout cela est rappelé dans la première section du présent article.

On peut a priori douter de l'utilité d'une construction si innocente, dont la propriété fondamentale est pratiquement évidente; et pourtant elle a été abondamment montrée par son auteur, à qui elle a permis, dans les théorèmes de classification des modèles, une décomposition des types en éléments simples, qu'on ne voit pas dans M.

Cette construction d'un plus petit ensemble de définition pour une formule en rappelle une autre, qui est bien connue des algébristes, celle du corps de définition d'un idéal. Et comme la théorie des corps algébriquement clos de caractéristique donnée élimine les quanteurs, on a le sentiment que l'adjonction d'imaginaires aux modèles de cette théorie est inutile, en un mot qu'elle “élimine les imaginaires”; pour vérifier le bien-fondé de ce sentiment, il convient d'abord de préciser ce qu'on entend par là, ce qui est fait dans la deuxième section.

One of the more significant achievements of twentieth century mathematics, especially from the viewpoints of logic and computer science, was the work of Church, Gödel and Turing in the 1930's which provided a precise and robust definition of what it means for a problem to be computationally solvable, or decidable, and which showed that there are undecidable problems which arise naturally in logic and computer science. Indeed, when one is faced with a new computational problem, one of the first questions to be answered is whether the problem is decidable or undecidable. A problem is usually defined to be decidable if and only if it can be solved by some Turing machine, and the class of decidable problems defined in this way remains unchanged if “Turing machine” is replaced by any of a variety of other formal models of computation. The division of all problems into two classes, decidable or undecidable, is very coarse, and refinements have been made on both sides of the boundary. On the undecidable side, work in recursive function theory, using tools such as effective reducibility, has exposed much additional structure such as degrees of unsolvability. The main purpose of this survey article is to describe a branch of computational complexity theory which attempts to expose more structure within the decidable side of the boundary.

Motivated in part by practical considerations, the additional structure is obtained by placing upper bounds on the amounts of computational resources which are needed to solve the problem. Two common measures of the computational resources used by an algorithm are time, the number of steps executed by the algorithm, and space, the amount of memory used by the algorithm.