Princeton Series in Computer Science – serie

A semantically well-defined programming language widely used in artificial intelligence, Prolog has greatly influenced other programming languages since its introduction in the late 1970s. A user may find Prolog deceptively easy, however, and there are a number of different implementations. In this book Patrice Boizumault draws from his extensive experience in Prolog implementation to describe for students of all levels the concepts, difficulties, and design limits of a Prolog system. Boizumault introduces the specific problems posed by the implementation of Prolog, studies and compares different solutions--notably those of the schools of Marseilles and Edinburgh--and concludes with three examples of implementation. Major points of interest include identifying the important differences in implementing unification and resolution; presenting three features of Prolog II--infinite trees, dif, and freeze--that introduce constraints; thoroughly describing Warren's Abstract Machine (WAM); and detailing a Lisp imple-mentation of Prolog. Originally published in 1993.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book will present the papers delivered at the first U.S. conference devoted exclusively to global optimization and will thus provide valuable insights into the significant research on the topic that has been emerging during recent years. Held at Princeton University in May 1991, the conference brought together an interdisciplinary group of the most active developers of algorithms for global optimization in order to focus the attention of the mathematical programming community on the unsolved problems and diverse applications of this field. The main subjects addressed at the conference were advances in deterministic and stochastic methods for global optimization, parallel algorithms for global optimization problems, and applications of global optimization. Although global optimization is primarily a mathematical problem, it is relevant to several other disciplines, including computer science, applied mathematics, physical chemistry, molecular biology, statistics, physics, engineering, operations research, communication theory, and economics. Global optimization problems originate from a wide variety of mathematical models of real-world systems.Some of its applications are allocation and location problems and VLSI and data-base design problems. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Formal verification increasingly has become recognized as an answer to the problem of how to create ever more complex control systems, which nonetheless are required to behave reliably. To be acceptable in an industrial setting, formal verification must be highly algorithmic; to cope with design complexity, it must support a top-down design methodology that leads from an abstract design to its detailed implementation. That combination of requirements points directly to the widely recognized solution of automata-theoretic verification, on account of its expressiveness, computational complexity, and perhaps general utility as well. This book develops the theory of automata-theoretic verification from its foundations, with a focus on algorithms and heuristics to reduce the computational complexity of analysis. It is suitable as a text for a one-or two-semester graduate course, and is recommended reading for anyone planning to use a verification tool, such as COSPAN or SMV.An extensive bibliography that points to the most recent sources, and extensive discussions of methodology and comparisons with other techniques, make this a useful resource for research or verification tool development, as well. Originally published in 1995. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.