Publications of Saeed Salehi
Here I list my publications according to their topic, and explain about their contents, background,
and highlights. In order to avoid duplication (and making the list unnecessarily long – contrary
to what is a custom in computer science and engineering), technical reports and conference abstracts that have
appeared in refereed journals are not listed.
Mathematical Logic
Intuitionistic and Constructive Arithmetics
- [ARS03] Mohammad Ardeshir & Wim Ruitenburg & Saeed Salehi,
"Intuitionistic Axiomatizations for Bounded Extension Kripke Models",
Annals of Pure and Applied Logic, Vol. 124, No. 1-3, (2003)
pages 267-285 .
-
As an assistant researcher at IPM, I worked under the guidance of
M. Ardeshir. The problem we started to work together was the completeness of Heyting Arithmetic
HA with respect to its end-extension Kripke models (the models in which the upper node is
and end-extension of the lower one), proposed by K.F. Wehmeier in [W96].
It is a folklore fact that constant-domain Kripke models (of intuitionistic logic) are axiomatized by the
schema
"x
( A(x) Ú B ) Þ
"x A(x) Ú B
where x is not free in B. It turned out that when the language of a predicate theory
contains the symbol £, then the class of Krikp models that are end-extension with
respect to £ can be axiomatized by the schema
"x £ y
( A(x,y) Ú B(y) ) Þ
"x £ y
A(x,y) Ú B(y)
where x is not free in B(y). Later on W. Ruitenburg joined us (in a visit to IPM) and
proved that the above schema is provable in HA. So we solved the problem: HA is sound and (strongly)
complete with respect to its end-extension Kripke models.
In [ARS03] we moreover axiomatized cofinal-extension Kripke models, and
showed that the cofinal-extension Kripke models of HA are
models of classical logic as well (satisfy the principle of excluded middle). The above axiomatizations were
provided in a uniform (and much more general) form.
[W96] Wehmeier, K.F., "Classical and Intuitionistic Models of Arithmetic", Notre
Dame Journal of Formal Logic, Vol. 37, No. 3 (1996)
pages 452-461.
- [S02] Saeed Salehi,
"Decidable Formulas of Intuitionistic Primitive Recursive Arithmetic",
Reports on Mathematical Logic, No. 36 (2002)
pages 55-61 .
-
One way of measuring the strength of theories is characterizing their provably total (or provably
recursive) functions. For intuitionistic theories, provably total
functions reveal a lot about their decidable formulas;
j is called decidable in T if the universal closure of
jÚØj is T-provable. It is well-known that
jÚØj is equivalent to
$y£1
[(y=0 Þ j)
& (y =1 Þ Øj)] in intuitionistic arithmetical theories.
So, j is decidable in T if and only if its characteristic
function [cj(x)=1 when j(x) holds, and
cj(x)=0 when Øj(x) holds]
is provably total in T.
In [S02] I used the already known characterizations of provably total functions
of Heyting Arithmetic HA, Intuitionistic Primitive Recursive Arithmetic iPRA,
and Intuitionistic S1-induction Arithmetic
iS1,
to characterize their decidable formulas. In all the three cases, their decidable formulas are exactly their
(provably) D1-formulas. This gave a syntactic
proof of a (model-theoretically proved)
theorem of Z. Markovic & D. De Jongh in [M93] for HA.
The paper [S02] was accepted as my Mater Thesis with the highest
grade (very good) at the School of Exact Sciences in Warsaw.
[M93] Markovic, Z., "On the Structure of Kripke Models of Heyting Arithmetic",
Mathematical Logic Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 4 (1993) pages 531-538.
- [S03] Saeed Salehi,
"Provably Total Functions of Basic Arithmetic",
Mathematical Logic Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 3 (2003)
pages 316-322.
- Realizability is a powerful semantics for intuitionistic theories, in particular for
characterizing their provably total functions. As an interesting open problem we can mention the fact that
the Double Negation Shift
[DNS "xØØf(x)
® ØØ"xf(x)]
is not provable in HA; while we do not have
a concrete Kripke model of HA which does not satisfy DNS.
The only reason we have for the unprovability of DNS in HA is that it is not Kleene realizable, though
HA is. As a matter of fact, the only (non-trivial) Kripke models that we can construct for HA are
the ones described by C. Smorynski (1973);
all of them are on finite frames, and so satisfy DNS.
Though realizability provides a sound semantics for constructive arithmetics, it is not complete. For example
the formalized form of Church's Thesis (which is classically false) is Kleene realizable.
In [S03] I introduced a new (numerical) realizability by primitive recursive
functions, abbreviated by PR-realizability, and showed the soundness of Ruitenburg's Basic Arithmetic
with respect to it. Basic Propositional Logic was invented by A. Visser (1981) and extended to predicates by
W. Ruitenburg (1998); M. Ardeshir's PhD thesis (1995) investigated different aspects of this (predicate) logic.
Basic Arithmetic BA is the counterpart of Heyting Arithmetic
(on intuitionistic logic) and of Peano Arithmetic (on classical logic)
based on basic logic. PR-realizability is very similar to Kleene's (recursive) realizability, only that
recursive functions are restricted to primitive recursives.
This PR-realizability was further studied by D.A. Viter [V02]
and by B.H. Park [P03] in their
PhD dissertations under the supervision of V.A. Plisko.
[V02] Viter, D.A., "Primitive Recursive Realizability
and Constructive Theory of Models" (in Russian), PhD Dissertation, Moscow State University,
2002.
[P03] Park, B.H., "Subrecursive Realizability and Predicate Logic" (in Russian),
PhD Dissertation, Moscow State University, 2003.
- [S05] Saeed Salehi,
"Polynomially Bounded Recursive Realizability",
Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, Vol. 46, No. 4 (2005)
pages 407-417.
-
Two essential facts about the primitive recursive functions that were used in [S03] are
- that those functions can be defined by an arithmetical formula; i.e., there exists a formula
PR in the language of arithmetic such that when
PR(n) holds then
{n}, the recursive function with Gödel code n, is primitive recursive,
and for any primitive recursive f there exists a natural m such that
f={m} and PR(m) holds;
- all the S-m-n functions can be chosen to be primitive recursive.
As a matter of fact, all the polynomially bounded (primitive) recursive functions satisfy these two properties
as well. So, in [S05] I introduced another realizability, this time by polynomially bounded
recursive functions, in notation P-realizability. Basic Arithmetic
BA is not sound with respect to P-realizability, but
a faithful subtheory of it is. This subtheory has the same provably total functions as
BA, and since its own provably total functions are polynomially bounded primitive recursives, then
every function provably total in BA is polynomially bounded primitive recursive too. This sharpens
the earlier result of [S03] where (by the soundness of BA to PR-realizability) those
functions were shown to be primitive recursives.
Incompleteness in Classical Weak Arithmetics
- [Sa02] Saeed Salehi,
"Herbrand Consistency in Arithmetics with Bounded Induction", PhD Dissertation,
Institute of Mathematics, Polish Academy of Sciences, 2002.
[Sa01] Saeed Salehi,
"Unprovability of Herbrand Consistency in Weak Arithmetics" in Striegnitz K. (ed.),
Proceedings of the sixth ESSLLI Student Session, European Summer School for Logic, Language, and
Information (2001) pages 265-274.
-
Gödel's second incompleteness theorem (GST)
was stated originally for sufficiently strong arithmetical theories:
the ones which can carry about enough arithmetic are not able to prove their own consistency. Gödel's proof
applied for all theories that contain (in a sense) primitive recursive arithmetic, PRA.
However, the question as to
whether even weaker theories can (or cannot) prove their own consistency, is interesting and even intriguing.
If the theory is too weak to recognize any useful property of consistency (or provability) then its consistency
statement is just another complicated sentence in the theory's eyes; and thus its unprovability in the theory
is devoid of any philosophical meaning. Just because the theory is too weak to
recognize anything official about the
consistency statement, and the fact the theory cannot derive the consistency statement goes to say that the
theory is too weak, not that the statement is too strong. But there are some theories
weaker than PRA which are
still able to prove some nice properties of the provability (and
the consistency) predicate. One prominent example is
IΔ0+ Ω1 which can prove all the
derivability conditions of
Hilbert-Bernays-Löb (J.B. Paris & A.J. Wilkie 1987). Indeed,
GST can be proved for all recursively enumerable extensions
of (the very weak) Robinson's Arithmetic Q. In particular, both
IΔ0 and
IΔ0+ Ω1 cannot prove
their own consistency.
Another way of generalizing GST is to weaken the consistency predicate in addition to weakening
the underlying theory. For example, one can consider the provability (or unprovability) of cut-free
consistency in weak arithmetics. Historically, an interest in this line of research came out of the
problem of Π1–separating the hierarchy of bounded arithmetics,
e.g., Π1–separating
IΔ0+exp
over IΔ0
([PW81]). Unprovability of cut-free consistency (Herbrand consistency) of
theories weaker than IΔ0+exp in themselves was
stated as an open problem by P. Pudlák ([P85]).
We note that the cost of cut-elimination
in proof theory is super-exponential, so in weak arithmetics
cut-free provability is not equivalent to the usual (Hilbert
style) provability.
The first demonstration of
the unprovability of cut-free
consistency in weak arithmetics was made by Z. Adamowicz who
proved in an unpublished manuscript in 1999 (later appeared as a
technical report) that the Tableau-consistency of
IΔ0+Ω1
is not provable in itself. Later on with P.
Zbierski ([AZ01]) she proved GST for Herbrand consistency of
IΔ0+Ω2,
and a bit later she gave a model theoretic
proof of it (2002). Extending these results for
IΔ0 was
proposed to me as a topic for my PhD thesis by her at IMPAN.
By modifying the definition of Herbrand consistency, Z. Adamowicz's
model-theoretic proof is generalized to
IΔ0+Ω1
in Chapter 5 of [Sa02] (the result is not
published anywhere else).
Also, it is shown in Chapter 3 (published in [Sa01]) that
the Herbrand Consistency of
IΔ0 is not
IΔ0–provable, where the theory
IΔ0
is axiomatized by a conventional
axiomatization of IΔ0 augmented with
two IΔ0–provable sentences.
Also in Chapter 5 the second of the three questions posed in
[AZ01] is
answered negatively, by elaborating a concrete counter-example.
[AZ01] Adamowicz, Z. & Zbierski, P.,
"On Herbrand Consistency in Weak Arithmetic",
Archive for Mathematical Logic, Vol. 40, No. 6 (2001)
pages 399-413.
[PW81] Paris, J.B. & Wilkie, A.J.,
"Δ0–sets and
Induction", Open Days in Model Theory and Set Theory,
Proceedings of a conference held in 1981 at Jadwisin, Poland
(Leeds University Press 1983) pages 237-248.
[P85] Pudlák, P., "Cuts, Consistency Statements and
Interpretation" Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 50, No. 2 (1985)
pages 423-442.
Theoretical Computer Science
Tree Automata and Tree Languages
- [S05a]
Saeed Salehi, "Varieties of Tree Languages Definable by Syntactic Monoids",
Acta Cybernetica, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2005)
pages 21-41.
- In this paper the long-standing open problem of the defining power of syntactic monoids/semigroups
in tree languages has been solved. It was already known that (syntactic) monoids
or semigroups are not as strong tools for characterizing families of tree languages, as are
syntactic algebras. Some varieties of tree languages (definable by algebras) that
are not definable by monoids had been found; and it was settled that any family of tree languages
definable by monoids is a variety (definable by algebras). But a variety theorem for (varieties of )
monoids and (families of) tree languages was missing; this was mentioned by several authors
such as M. Steinby [S98], Z. Ésik [E99], and
Th. Wilke [W96].
It is also noted in [S05a] that
definite tree languages are not definable by syntactic
monoids (neither by semigroups), which refutes a result of M.
Nivat & A. Podelski for the first time after its publication in
1989 ([NP89]).
Here is a concrete counter-example for Theorem 1 of [NP89]
in the original notation of the paper.
[S98] Steinby, M., "General Varieties of Tree
Languages", Theoretical Computer Science, Vol. 205, No. 1-2 (1998)
pages 1-43.
[E99] Ésik, Z., "A Variety
Theorem for Trees and Theories", Publications Mathematicae Debrecen,
Vol. 54, suppl. (1999) pages 711-762.
[W96] Wilke, T., "An Algebraic Characterization of
Frontier Testable Tree Languages", Theoretical Computer Science, Vol.
154, No. 1 (1996)
pages 85-106.
[NP89] Nivat, M. & Podelski, A., "Definite Tree Languages
(cont'd)", Bulletin of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science,
Vol. 38 (1989) pages 186-190.
- [PS05]
Tatjana Petkovic & Saeed Salehi,
"Positive Varieties of Tree Languages",
Theoretical Computer Science, Vol. 347, No. 1 (2005)
pages 1-35.
- In this long "fundamental study" paper, we have introduced the notions of ordered algebras,
syntactic ordered algebras, and recognizability by ordered algebras (in which the set of final states gives its
place to a downward closed subset of the algebra). A positive variety of tree languages, loosely speaking,
is a family of tree languages that is closed under all the closure properties of varieties (including
intersection and union) except complementation. This was inspired by J.-E. Pin's positive
variety theorem for ordered semigroups and positive varieties of word languages [P95].
Also, the variety theorem for monoids in [S05a] is generalized to a variety
theorem between certain positive families of tree languages (not necessarily closed under complements) and
varieties of ordered monoids.
Two instances of the above variety theorems (and that of [S05a]) are extensively
elaborated.
[P95] Pin, J.-E., "A Variety Theorem without
Complementation", Izvestiya VUZ Matematika Vol. 39 (1995),
pages 80-90. English version, Russian Mathematics (Izv. VUZ Mat.) Vol. 39
(1995), pages 74-83.
- [SS06]
Saeed Salehi & Magnus Steinby,
"Tree Algebras and Varieties of Tree Languages",
submitted for publication.
Technical Report:
TUCS 761 (April 2006).
- Th. Wilke introduced tree algebras in [W96] for characterizing binary tree
languages, and gave a concrete axiomatization for frontier testable (reverse definite) ones. A variety theorem
for tree algebras was called for by some other authors (e.g. M. Steinby and Z. Ésik) and Wilke himself
anticipated a variety theorem for label-generated tree algebras. In [SS06] we started
a thorough study of tree algebras, aiming at a variety theorem.
As tree algebras are many-sorted, along the way, we made a complete survey of
the theory of many-sorted algebras (some old and some new – in [SS04]).
It turned out that there cannot exist any variety theorem for tree algebras
(not even for label-generated ones). We introduced more restricted tree algebras (called "reduced"
tree algebras) and
proved a variety theorem for certain classes of reduced tree algebras and certain families of
binary tree languages. Due to the richness of the signature of tree languages, they have
a more powerful
expressive power (for characterizing varieties of tree languages) than ordinary algebras, though their
defining power is not much stronger than that of algebras.
Finite Universal Algebra
- [Sa03]
Saeed Salehi, "A Completeness Property of Wilke's Tree Algebras",
Proceedings of MFCS 2003, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2747,
Springer-Verlag (2003)
pages 662-670.
- While trying to understand the choice of Wilke's functions as the signature of (many-sorted) tree languages,
I came up with the idea that those functions generate exactly the congruence-preserving functions. An
m-ary function
f : Am® A over an algebra A
is called congruence-preserving, if for any congruence relation θ on A and any elements
a1,...,am,
b1,...,bm of A, if
ajθbj holds for all
jÎ{1,...,m}, then
f (a1,...,am)
θ f (b1,...,bm) holds too.
Trivial examples of congruence-preserving functions are term functions on A (with parameters from
A). In fact, a relation is called "congruence" just in case is preserved by all term functions.
An algebra is called hemiprimal if its every congruence-preserving function is a term function. This
is a useful and well-studied notion in Universal Algebra (see e.g. the book [KP01]).
In [Sa03] I have shown that term algebras, which are free algebras over the class
of all algebras, generated by at least seven elements are hemiprimal. This is not true for term algebras generated
by one element (a counter-example is constructed in [Sa03]
for one-generated term algebra where the signature
contains a unary function symbol only), and we do not yet know if
n-generated term algebras, where
2£ n £6, are hemiprimal or not.
[KP01] Kaarli, K. & Pixley, A.F., Polynomial Completeness
in Algebraic Systems, Chapman & Hall / CRC, Boca Raton, FL, 2001.
- [Sa05]
Saeed Salehi, "Congruence Preserving Functions of Wilke's Tree Algebras",
Algebra Universalis, Vol. 53, No. 4 (2005)
pages 451-470 .
- It is proved in [Sa05] that free tree algebras over alphabets which contain at
least seven letters are hemi-primal. Note that free tree algebras are not (many-sorted) term algebras;
so the results of [Sa05] are not the many-sorted version of the results of
[Sa03]. Translating this result into the language of tree automata, it means that
all the functions that preserve congruences of binary tree languages are generated by Wilke's functions,
for sufficiently large alphabets (with at least seven letters). This is not true for two-letter alphabets
(a counter-example is constructed in [Sa05]) and is unknown for alphabets
with 3,4,5 or 6 letters.
- [SS04]
Saeed Salehi & Magnus Steinby,
"Varieties of Many-Sorted Recognizable Sets",
submitted for publication.
Technical Report:
TUCS 629
(September 2004).
- In this paper, we have developed a variety theory for many-sorted algebras, recognizable subsets of
many-sorted algebras, and congruences of free many-sorted algebras. Informally speaking, the theories developed
in [A90] and [S92] are generalized to the many-sorted case.
The notions introduced and the tools developed in [SS04] were used in
the variety theory of Wilke's tree algebras in [SS06].
[A90] Almeida, J.,
"On Pseudovarieties, Varieties of Languages, Filters of
Congruences, Pseudoidentities and Related Topics", Algebra
Universalis, Vol. 27, No. 3 (1990)
pages 333-350.
[S92] Steinby, M., "A Theory of Tree Language
Varieties", in: Nivat, M. & Podelski, A. (eds.), Tree Automata
and Languages (Le Touquet, 1990), Elsevier, Amsterdam (1992), pages 57-81.
- [Sa05a] Saeed Salehi,
"Varieties of Tree Languages", PhD Dissertation,
Department of Mathematics, University of Turku, TUCS Dissertations
64, 2005.
- This thesis, written under the supervision of M. Steinby at
TUCS, is a monograph
that contains the results of the papers [SS04] (Chapter 2), [PS05]
(Chapters 3 and 5), [S05a] (Chapter 4), and [SS06] (Chapter 6).
The results of the papers [Sa03] and [Sa05]
are only briefed in Chapter 6
(the last section) without going to further details (to keep the thesis in a reasonable space).
The paper [SS06] is completed after finishing up the thesis,
so not only it covers the first
two sections of Chapter 6 of [Sa05a] but also contains more and new results.
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