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Thirteen Definitions of a Stable Model

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Fields of Logic and Computation

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 6300))

Abstract

Stable models of logic programs have been studied by many researchers, mainly because of their role in the foundations of answer set programming. This is a review of some of the definitions of the concept of a stable model that have been proposed in the literature. These definitions are equivalent to each other, at least when applied to traditional Prolog-style programs, but there are reasons why each of them is valuable and interesting. A new characterization of stable models can suggest an alternative picture of the intuitive meaning of logic programs; or it can lead to new algorithms for generating stable models; or it can work better than others when we turn to generalizations of the traditional syntax that are important from the perspective of answer set programming; or it can be more convenient for use in proofs; or it can be interesting simply because it demonstrates a relationship between seemingly unrelated ideas.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, USA

    Vladimir Lifschitz

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  1. Vladimir Lifschitz
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Mathematics Department, University of Michigan, 48109-1043, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Andreas Blass

  2. School of Computer Science, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, 69978, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Nachum Dershowitz

  3. Institut für Informatik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099, Berlin, Germany

    Wolfgang Reisig

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Lifschitz, V. (2010). Thirteen Definitions of a Stable Model. In: Blass, A., Dershowitz, N., Reisig, W. (eds) Fields of Logic and Computation. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6300. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15025-8_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15025-8_24

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-15024-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-15025-8

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