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Representation, Provenance, and Explanations in Database Theory and Logic (Dagstuhl Seminar 24032)

Authors: Pablo Barcelo, Pierre Bourhis, Stefan Mengel, and Sudeepa Roy

Published in: Dagstuhl Reports, Volume 14, Issue 1 (2024)

Abstract

This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar "Representation, Provenance, and Explanations in Database Theory and Logic" (24032), which was broadly in the area of database theory. Database theory formalizes the theoretical underpinnings of databases and analyzes them with mathematical tools. We focused on questions related to the fundamental problem of efficient query evaluation: compute the answers of a query on a database. This seminar focused on three key aspects of query evaluations. (1) Representation studies the tradeoff between expressivity, compactness, and efficient computation of outputs from the inputs, including circuits and knowledge compilation forms, enumeration, and direct access. (2) Provenance captures the computation process of outputs from the inputs using a compact formula, and has applications to probabilistic databases. (3) Explanations give meaningful insights to responsibilities of different inputs toward an output beyond provenance, e.g., by using Shapley Values from co-operative game theory that has been recently popular in both DB and ML.

Cite as

Pablo Barcelo, Pierre Bourhis, Stefan Mengel, and Sudeepa Roy. Representation, Provenance, and Explanations in Database Theory and Logic (Dagstuhl Seminar 24032). In Dagstuhl Reports, Volume 14, Issue 1, pp. 49-71, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)

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@Article{barcelo_et_al:DagRep.14.1.49,
  author =	{Barcelo, Pablo and Bourhis, Pierre and Mengel, Stefan and Roy, Sudeepa},
  title =	{{Representation, Provenance, and Explanations in Database Theory and Logic (Dagstuhl Seminar 24032)}},
  pages =	{49--71},
  journal =	{Dagstuhl Reports},
  ISSN =	{2192-5283},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{14},
  number =	{1},
  editor =	{Barcelo, Pablo and Bourhis, Pierre and Mengel, Stefan and Roy, Sudeepa},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/DagRep.14.1.49},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-204904},
  doi =		{10.4230/DagRep.14.1.49},
  annote =	{Keywords: Circuits, database theory, factorized databases, provenance, shapley values}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2024.7

Skyline Operators for Document Spanners

Authors: Antoine Amarilli, Benny Kimelfeld, Sébastien Labbé, and Stefan Mengel

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 290, 27th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2024)

Abstract

When extracting a relation of spans (intervals) from a text document, a common practice is to filter out tuples of the relation that are deemed dominated by others. The domination rule is defined as a partial order that varies along different systems and tasks. For example, we may state that a tuple is dominated by tuples that extend it by assigning additional attributes, or assigning larger intervals. The result of filtering the relation would then be the skyline according to this partial order. As this filtering may remove most of the extracted tuples, we study whether we can improve the performance of the extraction by compiling the domination rule into the extractor. To this aim, we introduce the skyline operator for declarative information extraction tasks expressed as document spanners. We show that this operator can be expressed via regular operations when the domination partial order can itself be expressed as a regular spanner, which covers several natural domination rules. Yet, we show that the skyline operator incurs a computational cost (under combined complexity). First, there are cases where the operator requires an exponential blowup on the number of states needed to represent the spanner as a sequential variable-set automaton. Second, the evaluation may become computationally hard. Our analysis more precisely identifies classes of domination rules for which the combined complexity is tractable or intractable.

Cite as

Antoine Amarilli, Benny Kimelfeld, Sébastien Labbé, and Stefan Mengel. Skyline Operators for Document Spanners. In 27th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 290, pp. 7:1-7:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)

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@InProceedings{amarilli_et_al:LIPIcs.ICDT.2024.7,
  author =	{Amarilli, Antoine and Kimelfeld, Benny and Labb\'{e}, S\'{e}bastien and Mengel, Stefan},
  title =	{{Skyline Operators for Document Spanners}},
  booktitle =	{27th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2024)},
  pages =	{7:1--7:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-312-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{290},
  editor =	{Cormode, Graham and Shekelyan, Michael},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2024.7},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-197898},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2024.7},
  annote =	{Keywords: Information Extraction, Document Spanners, Query Evaluation}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2024.13

Direct Access for Conjunctive Queries with Negations

Authors: Florent Capelli and Oliver Irwin

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 290, 27th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2024)

Abstract

Given a conjunctive query Q and a database 𝐃, a direct access to the answers of Q over 𝐃 is the operation of returning, given an index j, the j-th answer for some order on its answers. While this problem is #P-hard in general with respect to combined complexity, many conjunctive queries have an underlying structure that allows for a direct access to their answers for some lexicographical ordering that takes polylogarithmic time in the size of the database after a polynomial time precomputation. Previous work has precisely characterised the tractable classes and given fine-grained lower bounds on the precomputation time needed depending on the structure of the query. In this paper, we generalise these tractability results to the case of signed conjunctive queries, that is, conjunctive queries that may contain negative atoms. Our technique is based on a class of circuits that can represent relational data. We first show that this class supports tractable direct access after a polynomial time preprocessing. We then give bounds on the size of the circuit needed to represent the answer set of signed conjunctive queries depending on their structure. Both results combined together allow us to prove the tractability of direct access for a large class of conjunctive queries. On the one hand, we recover the known tractable classes from the literature in the case of positive conjunctive queries. On the other hand, we generalise and unify known tractability results about negative conjunctive queries - that is, queries having only negated atoms. In particular, we show that the class of β-acyclic negative conjunctive queries and the class of bounded nest set width negative conjunctive queries admit tractable direct access.

Cite as

Florent Capelli and Oliver Irwin. Direct Access for Conjunctive Queries with Negations. In 27th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 290, pp. 13:1-13:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)

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@InProceedings{capelli_et_al:LIPIcs.ICDT.2024.13,
  author =	{Capelli, Florent and Irwin, Oliver},
  title =	{{Direct Access for Conjunctive Queries with Negations}},
  booktitle =	{27th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2024)},
  pages =	{13:1--13:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-312-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{290},
  editor =	{Cormode, Graham and Shekelyan, Michael},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2024.13},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-197958},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2024.13},
  annote =	{Keywords: Conjunctive queries, factorized databases, direct access, hypertree decomposition}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2024.16

Optimally Rewriting Formulas and Database Queries: A Confluence of Term Rewriting, Structural Decomposition, and Complexity

Authors: Hubie Chen and Stefan Mengel

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 290, 27th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2024)

Abstract

A central computational task in database theory, finite model theory, and computer science at large is the evaluation of a first-order sentence on a finite structure. In the context of this task, the width of a sentence, defined as the maximum number of free variables over all subformulas, has been established as a crucial measure, where minimizing width of a sentence (while retaining logical equivalence) is considered highly desirable. An undecidability result rules out the possibility of an algorithm that, given a first-order sentence, returns a logically equivalent sentence of minimum width; this result motivates the study of width minimization via syntactic rewriting rules, which is this article’s focus. For a number of common rewriting rules (which are known to preserve logical equivalence), including rules that allow for the movement of quantifiers, we present an algorithm that, given a positive first-order sentence ϕ, outputs the minimum-width sentence obtainable from ϕ via application of these rules. We thus obtain a complete algorithmic understanding of width minimization up to the studied rules; this result is the first one - of which we are aware - that establishes this type of understanding in such a general setting. Our result builds on the theory of term rewriting and establishes an interface among this theory, query evaluation, and structural decomposition theory.

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Hubie Chen and Stefan Mengel. Optimally Rewriting Formulas and Database Queries: A Confluence of Term Rewriting, Structural Decomposition, and Complexity. In 27th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 290, pp. 16:1-16:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)

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@InProceedings{chen_et_al:LIPIcs.ICDT.2024.16,
  author =	{Chen, Hubie and Mengel, Stefan},
  title =	{{Optimally Rewriting Formulas and Database Queries: A Confluence of Term Rewriting, Structural Decomposition, and Complexity}},
  booktitle =	{27th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2024)},
  pages =	{16:1--16:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-312-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{290},
  editor =	{Cormode, Graham and Shekelyan, Michael},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2024.16},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-197984},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2024.16},
  annote =	{Keywords: width, query rewriting, structural decomposition, term rewriting}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2024.11

A Characterization of Efficiently Compilable Constraint Languages

Authors: Christoph Berkholz, Stefan Mengel, and Hermann Wilhelm

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 289, 41st International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2024)

Abstract

A central task in knowledge compilation is to compile a CNF-SAT instance into a succinct representation format that allows efficient operations such as testing satisfiability, counting, or enumerating all solutions. Useful representation formats studied in this area range from ordered binary decision diagrams (OBDDs) to circuits in decomposable negation normal form (DNNFs). While it is known that there exist CNF formulas that require exponential size representations, the situation is less well studied for other types of constraints than Boolean disjunctive clauses. The constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) is a powerful framework that generalizes CNF-SAT by allowing arbitrary sets of constraints over any finite domain. The main goal of our work is to understand for which type of constraints (also called the constraint language) it is possible to efficiently compute representations of polynomial size. We answer this question completely and prove two tight characterizations of efficiently compilable constraint languages, depending on whether target format is structured. We first identify the combinatorial property of "strong blockwise decomposability" and show that if a constraint language has this property, we can compute DNNF representations of linear size. For all other constraint languages we construct families of CSP-instances that provably require DNNFs of exponential size. For a subclass of "strong uniformly blockwise decomposable" constraint languages we obtain a similar dichotomy for structured DNNFs. In fact, strong (uniform) blockwise decomposability even allows efficient compilation into multi-valued analogs of OBDDs and FBDDs, respectively. Thus, we get complete characterizations for all knowledge compilation classes between O(B)DDs and DNNFs.

Cite as

Christoph Berkholz, Stefan Mengel, and Hermann Wilhelm. A Characterization of Efficiently Compilable Constraint Languages. In 41st International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 289, pp. 11:1-11:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)

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@InProceedings{berkholz_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2024.11,
  author =	{Berkholz, Christoph and Mengel, Stefan and Wilhelm, Hermann},
  title =	{{A Characterization of Efficiently Compilable Constraint Languages}},
  booktitle =	{41st International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2024)},
  pages =	{11:1--11:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-311-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{289},
  editor =	{Beyersdorff, Olaf and Kant\'{e}, Mamadou Moustapha and Kupferman, Orna and Lokshtanov, Daniel},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2024.11},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-197214},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2024.11},
  annote =	{Keywords: constraint satisfaction, knowledge compilation, dichotomy, DNNF}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SAT.2023.16

Bounds on BDD-Based Bucket Elimination

Authors: Stefan Mengel

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 271, 26th International Conference on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing (SAT 2023)

Abstract

We study BDD-based bucket elimination, an approach to satisfiability testing using variable elimination which has seen several practical implementations in the past. We prove that it allows solving the standard pigeonhole principle formulas efficiently, when allowing different orders for variable elimination and BDD-representations, a variant of bucket elimination that was recently introduced. Furthermore, we show that this upper bound is somewhat brittle as for formulas which we get from the pigeonhole principle by restriction, i.e., fixing some of the variables, the same approach with the same variable orders has exponential runtime. We also show that the more common implementation of bucket elimination using the same order for variable elimination and the BDDs has exponential runtime for the pigeonhole principle when using either of the two orders from our upper bound, which suggests that the combination of both is the key to efficiency in the setting.

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Stefan Mengel. Bounds on BDD-Based Bucket Elimination. In 26th International Conference on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing (SAT 2023). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 271, pp. 16:1-16:11, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023)

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@InProceedings{mengel:LIPIcs.SAT.2023.16,
  author =	{Mengel, Stefan},
  title =	{{Bounds on BDD-Based Bucket Elimination}},
  booktitle =	{26th International Conference on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing (SAT 2023)},
  pages =	{16:1--16:11},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-286-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2023},
  volume =	{271},
  editor =	{Mahajan, Meena and Slivovsky, Friedrich},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SAT.2023.16},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-184789},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SAT.2023.16},
  annote =	{Keywords: Bucket Elimination, Binary Decision Diagrams, Satisfiability, Complexity}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2023.18

Geometric Amortization of Enumeration Algorithms

Authors: Florent Capelli and Yann Strozecki

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 254, 40th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2023)

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a technique we call geometric amortization for enumeration algorithms, which can be used to make the delay of enumeration algorithms more regular with little overhead on the space it uses. More precisely, we consider enumeration algorithms having incremental linear delay, that is, algorithms enumerating, on input x, a set A(x) such that for every t ≤ ♯ A(x), it outputs at least t solutions in time O(t⋅p(|x|)), where p is a polynomial. We call p the incremental delay of the algorithm. While it is folklore that one can transform such an algorithm into an algorithm with maximal delay O(p(|x|)), the naive transformation may use exponential space. We show that, using geometric amortization, such an algorithm can be transformed into an algorithm with delay O(p(|x|)log(♯A(x))) and space O(s log(♯A(x))) where s is the space used by the original algorithm. In terms of complexity, we prove that classes DelayP and IncP₁ with polynomial space coincide. We apply geometric amortization to show that one can trade the delay of flashlight search algorithms for their average delay up to a factor of O(log(♯A(x))). We illustrate how this tradeoff is advantageous for the enumeration of solutions of DNF formulas.

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Florent Capelli and Yann Strozecki. Geometric Amortization of Enumeration Algorithms. In 40th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2023). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 254, pp. 18:1-18:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023)

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@InProceedings{capelli_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2023.18,
  author =	{Capelli, Florent and Strozecki, Yann},
  title =	{{Geometric Amortization of Enumeration Algorithms}},
  booktitle =	{40th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2023)},
  pages =	{18:1--18:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-266-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2023},
  volume =	{254},
  editor =	{Berenbrink, Petra and Bouyer, Patricia and Dawar, Anuj and Kant\'{e}, Mamadou Moustapha},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2023.18},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-176703},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2023.18},
  annote =	{Keywords: Enumeration, Polynomial Delay, Incremental Delay, Amortization}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SAT.2022.17

Changing Partitions in Rectangle Decision Lists

Authors: Stefan Mengel

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 236, 25th International Conference on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing (SAT 2022)

Abstract

Rectangle decision lists are a form of decision lists that were recently shown to have applications in the proof complexity of certain OBDD-based QBF-solvers. We consider a version of rectangle decision lists with changing partitions, which corresponds to QBF-solvers that may change the variable order of the OBDDs they produce. We show that even allowing one single partition change generally leads to exponentially more succinct decision lists. More generally, we show that there is a succinctness hierarchy: for every k ∈ ℕ, when going from k partition changes to k+1, there are functions that can be represented exponentially more succinctly. As an application, we show a similar hierarchy for OBDD-based QBF-solvers.

Cite as

Stefan Mengel. Changing Partitions in Rectangle Decision Lists. In 25th International Conference on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing (SAT 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 236, pp. 17:1-17:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)

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@InProceedings{mengel:LIPIcs.SAT.2022.17,
  author =	{Mengel, Stefan},
  title =	{{Changing Partitions in Rectangle Decision Lists}},
  booktitle =	{25th International Conference on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing (SAT 2022)},
  pages =	{17:1--17:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-242-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{236},
  editor =	{Meel, Kuldeep S. and Strichman, Ofer},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SAT.2022.17},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-166913},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SAT.2022.17},
  annote =	{Keywords: rectangle decision lists, QBF proof complexity, OBDD}
}

Document

Track B: Automata, Logic, Semantics, and Theory of Programming

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2019.113

Counting Answers to Existential Questions (Track B: Automata, Logic, Semantics, and Theory of Programming)

Authors: Holger Dell, Marc Roth, and Philip Wellnitz

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 132, 46th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2019)

Abstract

Conjunctive queries select and are expected to return certain tuples from a relational database. We study the potentially easier problem of counting all selected tuples, rather than enumerating them. In particular, we are interested in the problem’s parameterized and data complexity, where the query is considered to be small or even fixed, and the database is considered to be large. We identify two structural parameters for conjunctive queries that capture their inherent complexity: The dominating star size and the linked matching number. If the dominating star size of a conjunctive query is large, then we show that counting solution tuples to the query is at least as hard as counting dominating sets, which yields a fine-grained complexity lower bound under the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis (SETH) as well as a #W[2]-hardness result in parameterized complexity. Moreover, if the linked matching number of a conjunctive query is large, then we show that the structure of the query is so rich that arbitrary queries up to a certain size can be encoded into it; in the language of parameterized complexity, this essentially establishes a #A[2]-completeness result. Using ideas stemming from Lovász (1967), we lift complexity results from the class of conjunctive queries to arbitrary existential or universal formulas that might contain inequalities and negations on constraints over the free variables. As a consequence, we obtain a complexity classification that refines and generalizes previous results of Chen, Durand, and Mengel (ToCS 2015; ICDT 2015; PODS 2016) for conjunctive queries and of Curticapean and Marx (FOCS 2014) for the subgraph counting problem. Our proof also relies on graph minors, and we show a strengthening of the Excluded-Grid-Theorem which might be of independent interest: If the linked matching number (and thus the treewidth) is large, then not only can we find a large grid somewhere in the graph, but we can find a large grid whose diagonal has disjoint paths leading into an assumed node-well-linked set.

Cite as

Holger Dell, Marc Roth, and Philip Wellnitz. Counting Answers to Existential Questions (Track B: Automata, Logic, Semantics, and Theory of Programming). In 46th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2019). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 132, pp. 113:1-113:15, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2019)

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@InProceedings{dell_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2019.113,
  author =	{Dell, Holger and Roth, Marc and Wellnitz, Philip},
  title =	{{Counting Answers to Existential Questions}},
  booktitle =	{46th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2019)},
  pages =	{113:1--113:15},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-109-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2019},
  volume =	{132},
  editor =	{Baier, Christel and Chatzigiannakis, Ioannis and Flocchini, Paola and Leonardi, Stefano},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2019.113},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-106894},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2019.113},
  annote =	{Keywords: Conjunctive queries, graph homomorphisms, counting complexity, parameterized complexity, fine-grained complexity}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2019.20

Characterizing Tractability of Simple Well-Designed Pattern Trees with Projection

Authors: Stefan Mengel and Sebastian Skritek

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 127, 22nd International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2019)

Abstract

We study the complexity of evaluating well-designed pattern trees, a query language extending conjunctive queries with the possibility to define parts of the query to be optional. This possibility of optional parts is important for obtaining meaningful results over incomplete data sources as it is common in semantic web settings. Recently, a structural characterization of the classes of well-designed pattern trees that can be evaluated in polynomial time was shown. However, projection - a central feature of many query languages - was not considered in this study. We work towards closing this gap by giving a characterization of all tractable classes of simple well-designed pattern trees with projection (under some common complexity theoretic assumptions). Since well-designed pattern trees correspond to the fragment of well-designed {AND, OPTIONAL}-SPARQL queries this gives a complete description of the tractable classes of queries with projections in this fragment that can be characterized by the underlying graph structures of the queries.

Cite as

Stefan Mengel and Sebastian Skritek. Characterizing Tractability of Simple Well-Designed Pattern Trees with Projection. In 22nd International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2019). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 127, pp. 20:1-20:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2019)

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@InProceedings{mengel_et_al:LIPIcs.ICDT.2019.20,
  author =	{Mengel, Stefan and Skritek, Sebastian},
  title =	{{Characterizing Tractability of Simple Well-Designed Pattern Trees with Projection}},
  booktitle =	{22nd International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2019)},
  pages =	{20:1--20:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-101-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2019},
  volume =	{127},
  editor =	{Barcelo, Pablo and Calautti, Marco},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2019.20},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-103220},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2019.20},
  annote =	{Keywords: SPARQL, well-designed pattern trees, query evaluation, FPT, characterizing tractable classes}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2019.22

Constant-Delay Enumeration for Nondeterministic Document Spanners

Authors: Antoine Amarilli, Pierre Bourhis, Stefan Mengel, and Matthias Niewerth

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 127, 22nd International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2019)

Abstract

We consider the information extraction framework known as document spanners, and study the problem of efficiently computing the results of the extraction from an input document, where the extraction task is described as a sequential variable-set automaton (VA). We pose this problem in the setting of enumeration algorithms, where we can first run a preprocessing phase and must then produce the results with a small delay between any two consecutive results. Our goal is to have an algorithm which is tractable in combined complexity, i.e., in the sizes of the input document and the VA; while ensuring the best possible data complexity bounds in the input document size, i.e., constant delay in the document size. Several recent works at PODS'18 proposed such algorithms but with linear delay in the document size or with an exponential dependency in size of the (generally nondeterministic) input VA. In particular, Florenzano et al. suggest that our desired runtime guarantees cannot be met for general sequential VAs. We refute this and show that, given a nondeterministic sequential VA and an input document, we can enumerate the mappings of the VA on the document with the following bounds: the preprocessing is linear in the document size and polynomial in the size of the VA, and the delay is independent of the document and polynomial in the size of the VA. The resulting algorithm thus achieves tractability in combined complexity and the best possible data complexity bounds. Moreover, it is rather easy to describe, in particular for the restricted case of so-called extended VAs.

Cite as

Antoine Amarilli, Pierre Bourhis, Stefan Mengel, and Matthias Niewerth. Constant-Delay Enumeration for Nondeterministic Document Spanners. In 22nd International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2019). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 127, pp. 22:1-22:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2019)

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@InProceedings{amarilli_et_al:LIPIcs.ICDT.2019.22,
  author =	{Amarilli, Antoine and Bourhis, Pierre and Mengel, Stefan and Niewerth, Matthias},
  title =	{{Constant-Delay Enumeration for Nondeterministic Document Spanners}},
  booktitle =	{22nd International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2019)},
  pages =	{22:1--22:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-101-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2019},
  volume =	{127},
  editor =	{Barcelo, Pablo and Calautti, Marco},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2019.22},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-103246},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2019.22},
  annote =	{Keywords: enumeration, spanners, automata}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2019.18

Tractable QBF by Knowledge Compilation

Authors: Florent Capelli and Stefan Mengel

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 126, 36th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2019)

Abstract

We generalize several tractability results concerning the tractability of Quantified Boolean Formulas (QBF) with restricted underlying structure. To this end, we introduce a notion of width for structured DNNF which are a class of Boolean circuits heavily studied in knowledge compilation, a subarea of artificial intelligence. We then show that structured DNNF allow quantifier elimination with a size blow-up depending only on the width of the DNNF and not its size. Using known algorithms transforming restricted CNF-formulas into deterministic DNNF, we apply this result to generalize several results for counting and decision on QBF. We also complement these results with lower bounds that show that our definitions and results are essentially optimal in several senses.

Cite as

Florent Capelli and Stefan Mengel. Tractable QBF by Knowledge Compilation. In 36th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2019). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 126, pp. 18:1-18:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2019)

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@InProceedings{capelli_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2019.18,
  author =	{Capelli, Florent and Mengel, Stefan},
  title =	{{Tractable QBF by Knowledge Compilation}},
  booktitle =	{36th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2019)},
  pages =	{18:1--18:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-100-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2019},
  volume =	{126},
  editor =	{Niedermeier, Rolf and Paul, Christophe},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2019.18},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-102571},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2019.18},
  annote =	{Keywords: QBF, knowledge compilation, parameterized algorithms}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2018.5

Enumeration on Trees under Relabelings

Authors: Antoine Amarilli, Pierre Bourhis, and Stefan Mengel

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 98, 21st International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2018)

Abstract

We study how to evaluate MSO queries with free variables on trees, within the framework of enumeration algorithms. Previous work has shown how to enumerate answers with linear-time preprocessing and delay linear in the size of each output, i.e., constant-delay for free first-order variables. We extend this result to support relabelings, a restricted kind of update operations on trees which allows us to change the node labels. Our main result shows that we can enumerate the answers of MSO queries on trees with linear-time preprocessing and delay linear in each answer, while supporting node relabelings in logarithmic time. To prove this, we reuse the circuit-based enumeration structure from our earlier work, and develop techniques to maintain its index under node relabelings. We also show how enumeration under relabelings can be applied to evaluate practical query languages, such as aggregate, group-by, and parameterized queries.

Cite as

Antoine Amarilli, Pierre Bourhis, and Stefan Mengel. Enumeration on Trees under Relabelings. In 21st International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2018). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 98, pp. 5:1-5:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2018)

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@InProceedings{amarilli_et_al:LIPIcs.ICDT.2018.5,
  author =	{Amarilli, Antoine and Bourhis, Pierre and Mengel, Stefan},
  title =	{{Enumeration on Trees under Relabelings}},
  booktitle =	{21st International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2018)},
  pages =	{5:1--5:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-063-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2018},
  volume =	{98},
  editor =	{Kimelfeld, Benny and Amsterdamer, Yael},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2018.5},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-86060},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2018.5},
  annote =	{Keywords: enumeration, trees, updates, MSO, circuits, knowledge compilation}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.111

A Circuit-Based Approach to Efficient Enumeration

Authors: Antoine Amarilli, Pierre Bourhis, Louis Jachiet, and Stefan Mengel

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 80, 44th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2017)

Abstract

We study the problem of enumerating the satisfying valuations of a circuit while bounding the delay, i.e., the time needed to compute each successive valuation. We focus on the class of structured d-DNNF circuits originally introduced in knowledge compilation, a sub-area of artificial intelligence. We propose an algorithm for these circuits that enumerates valuations with linear preprocessing and delay linear in the Hamming weight of each valuation. Moreover, valuations of constant Hamming weight can be enumerated with linear preprocessing and constant delay. Our results yield a framework for efficient enumeration that applies to all problems whose solutions can be compiled to structured d-DNNFs. In particular, we use it to recapture classical results in database theory, for factorized database representations and for MSO evaluation. This gives an independent proof of constant-delay enumeration for MSO formulae with first-order free variables on bounded-treewidth structures.

Cite as

Antoine Amarilli, Pierre Bourhis, Louis Jachiet, and Stefan Mengel. A Circuit-Based Approach to Efficient Enumeration. In 44th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2017). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 80, pp. 111:1-111:15, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2017)

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@InProceedings{amarilli_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.111,
  author =	{Amarilli, Antoine and Bourhis, Pierre and Jachiet, Louis and Mengel, Stefan},
  title =	{{A Circuit-Based Approach to Efficient Enumeration}},
  booktitle =	{44th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2017)},
  pages =	{111:1--111:15},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-041-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2017},
  volume =	{80},
  editor =	{Chatzigiannakis, Ioannis and Indyk, Piotr and Kuhn, Fabian and Muscholl, Anca},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.111},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-74626},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.111},
  annote =	{Keywords: circuits, constant-delay, enumeration, d-DNNFs, MSO}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2015.110

A Trichotomy in the Complexity of Counting Answers to Conjunctive Queries

Authors: Hubie Chen and Stefan Mengel

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 31, 18th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2015)

Abstract

Conjunctive queries are basic and heavily studied database queries; in relational algebra, they are the select-project-join queries. In this article, we study the fundamental problem of counting, given a conjunctive query and a relational database, the number of answers to the query on the database. In particular, we study the complexity of this problem relative to sets of conjunctive queries. We present a trichotomy theorem, which shows essentially that this problem on a set of conjunctive queries is either tractable, equivalent to the parameterized CLIQUE problem, or as hard as the parameterized counting CLIQUE problem; the criteria describing which of these situations occurs is simply stated, in terms of graph-theoretic conditions.

Cite as

Hubie Chen and Stefan Mengel. A Trichotomy in the Complexity of Counting Answers to Conjunctive Queries. In 18th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2015). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 31, pp. 110-126, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2015)

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@InProceedings{chen_et_al:LIPIcs.ICDT.2015.110,
  author =	{Chen, Hubie and Mengel, Stefan},
  title =	{{A Trichotomy in the Complexity of Counting Answers to Conjunctive Queries}},
  booktitle =	{18th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2015)},
  pages =	{110--126},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-939897-79-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2015},
  volume =	{31},
  editor =	{Arenas, Marcelo and Ugarte, Mart{\'\i}n},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2015.110},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-49804},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2015.110},
  annote =	{Keywords: database theory, query answering, conjunctive queries, counting complexity}
}

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