Resolution Rules Research Articles

Dual Erotetic Calculi and the Minimal $${\mathsf{LFI}}$$ LFI

An erotetic calculus for a given logic constitutes a sequent-style proof-theoretical formalization of the logic grounded in Inferential Erotetic Logic (\({\mathsf{IEL}}\)). In this paper, a new erotetic calculus for Classical Propositional Logic (\({\mathsf{CPL}}\)), dual with respect to the existing ones, is given. We modify the calculus to obtain complete proof systems for the propositional part of paraconsistent logic \({\mathsf{CLuN}}\) and its extensions \({\mathsf{CLuNs}}\) and \({\mathsf{mbC}}\). The method is based on dual resolution. Moreover, the resolution rule is non-clausal. According to the authors knowledge, this is the first account of resolution for \({\mathsf{mbC}}\). Last but not least, as the method is grounded in \({\mathsf{IEL}}\), it constitutes an important tool for the so-called question-processing.

Automated Information Transformation for Automated Regulatory Compliance Checking in Construction

To fully automate regulatory compliance checking of construction projects, regulatory requirements need to be automatically extracted from various construction regulatory documents and then transformed into a formalized format that enables automated reasoning. To address this need, the authors propose an approach for automatically extracting information from construction regulatory textual documents and transforming them into logic clauses that could be directly used for automated reasoning. This paper focuses on presenting the proposed information transformation (ITr) methodology and the corresponding algorithms. The proposed ITr methodology utilizes a rule-based, semantic natural language processing (NLP) approach. A set of semantic mapping (SeM) rules and conflict resolution (CoR) rules are used to enable the automation of the transformation process. Several syntactic text features (captured using NLP techniques) and semantic text features (captured using an ontology) are used in the SeM and CoR rules. A bottom-up method is leveraged to handle complex sentence components. A consume and generate mechanism is proposed to implement the bottom-up method and execute the SeM rules. The proposed ITr algorithms were tested in transforming information instances of quantitative requirements, which were automatically extracted from the International Building Code 2009, into logic clauses. The algorithms achieved 98.2 and 99.1% precision and recall, respectively, on the testing data.

Damages Versus Specific Performance: Lessons from Commercial Contracts

Specific performance is a central contractual remedy but, in Anglo‐American law, generally is subordinate to damages. Despite rich theoretical discussions of specific performance, little is known about parties' treatment of the remedy in their contracts. We study 2,347 contracts of public corporations to quantify the presence or absence of specific performance clauses in several types of contracts. Although a majority of contracts do not refer to specific performance, substantial variation exists in the rates of including specific performance clauses. High rates of specific performance use in the area of corporate combinations through merger (53.4 percent) or assets sales (45.1 percent), inclusion of specific performance in some contracts of every type, and much lower use of it in loan agreements suggest that treatment of specific performance in sophisticated corporate contracts is more complex than existing theories of contractual remedies allow. Theories should expressly account for contract type variation. We also present results on the associations among contractual acceptance of five default dispute resolution rules: specific performance clauses, arbitration clauses, jury trial waiver clauses, litigation forum clauses, and attorney fee clauses. Rejecting the default damages rule in favor of specific performance is associated with rejecting each of the four other dispute resolution clauses.

Conflicts in Land Use in Marine Protected Areas: The Case of the Yellow River Delta, China

ABSTRACT Xie, Z.; Ma, Z., and Liu, J., 2014. Conflicts in land use in marine protected areas: The case of the Yellow River Delta, China. Marine protected areas (MPAs) play an important role in ecosystem service and resource management practices. Conflicts in Yellow River Delta protected areas (YRDPA) have arisen as a result of unpredictable natural hazards and unreasonable anthropogenic activities. The study applied remote sensing images and environmental and socioeconomic data to analyze the change of land use and land cover in YRDPA and to identify the driving forces for these changes from 1986 to 2010. The results show that land use has changed significantly over this period. The study analyzed the main conflict types, such as land use conflict, oil field exploration and wetland protection conflict, management conflict, and environmental conflict. The framework of conflict resolution is also presented, and resolution rules of sustainability, effectiveness, and adaptation are provided to mitigate confli...

A dynamical communication system on a network

A dynamical system is introduced and investigated. The system contains N vertices. The vertices send messages at discrete time instants according to a given rule. A conflict of two vertices takes place if the vertices try to send messages to each other at the same instant. Each vertex sends a message to another vertex at every step if no conflict takes place. In case of a conflict, only one of the two competing vertices sends a message. Deterministic and stochastic conflict resolution rules are considered. We investigate the average number of messages sent by a vertex per a time unit, called the productivity of this vertex, the total productivity of the system and other characteristics. The productivity of vertices depends on the initial state of the system, and the criterion of efficiency is the expected average productivity of vertices provided all possible initial states of the system are equiprobable. An ergodic version of the system is also considered in which any particle moves with approximately equal to 1 probability provided there is no conflict.

For the airplane refueling problem local precedence implies global precedence

We are given \(n\) airplanes, which can refuel one another during the flight. Each airplane has a specific tank volume and gas consumption rate. The goal of the airplane refueling problem is to find a drop out permutation for the planes that maximizes the distance traveled by the last plane to drop out. This paper studies some structural properties of the problem and proposes pruning rules for an exact resolution.

Catharsis—The real effects of bank insolvency and resolution

This paper analyzes the impact of rules-based bank insolvency resolution on real economic growth. Resolving insolvent banks can positively affect the real economy by overcoming moral hazard problems and improving banks’ credit allocation and monitoring. We propose a new indicator to measure the strength of ‘catharsis’, i.e., how strictly banks are resolved, and use a large firm-level dataset to test its effect. We find that a relatively stronger implementation of bank resolution rules has a statistically and economically significant positive effect on firm growth – particularly with respect to firms that are structurally more dependent on bank financing. Our findings are robust to various specifications. Investigating the transmission channels of this ‘catharsis effect’ reveals that it essentially works by means of benefiting higher quality firms (quality channel) and reallocating credit to firms that need it most (quantity channel). Additional analysis suggests that the ‘catharsis effect’ works best in banking systems that offer access to international financing because such access mitigates the potentially negative credit supply effects of liquidating insolvent banks. Taken together, our findings indicate that more attention should be focused on developing incentive-compatible bank resolution regimes.

A resolution calculus for the branching-time temporal logic CTL

The branching-time temporal logic CTL is useful for specifying systems that change over time and involve quantification over possible futures. Here we present a resolution calculus for CTL that involves the translation of formulae to a normal form and the application of a number of resolution rules. We use indices in the normal form to represent particular paths and the application of the resolution rules is restricted dependent on an ordering and selection function to reduce the search space. We show that the translation preserves satisfiability, the calculus is sound, complete, and terminating, and consider the complexity of the calculus.

Henkin quantifiers and Boolean formulae: A certification perspective of DQBF

Henkin quantifiers, when applied on Boolean formulae, yielding the so-called dependency quantified Boolean formulae (DQBFs), offer succinct descriptive power specifying variable dependencies. Despite their natural applications to games with incomplete information, logic synthesis with constrained input dependencies, etc., DQBFs remain a relatively unexplored subject however. This paper investigates their basic properties, including formula negation and complement, formula expansion, prenex and non-prenex form conversions, and resolution. In particular, the proposed DQBF formulation is established from a synthesis perspective concerned with Skolem-function models and Herbrand-function countermodels. Also a generalized resolution rule is shown to be sound, but incomplete, for DQBF evaluation.

Research on Explosive Formulation Performance Parameter Prediction Method Based on GEP

Definition of homology gene, mutual exclusion gene, formulations gene and compatriots gene set has been given based on the characteristics of the energetic formulation components in this paper. The complex formula chromosome resolution rules have been designed to solve the energetic formulation component burst speed estimate problem combined with the GEP theories and test techniques. The test results showed that the performance prediction error of the detonation velocity is less than 3%.

BUILDING A GLOBAL REDRESS SYSTEM FOR LOW-VALUE CROSS-BORDER DISPUTES

AbstractThis article examines UNCITRAL's draft Rules for Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) and argues that in low-value e-commerce cross-border transactions, the most effective consumer protection policy cannot be based on national laws and domestic courts, but on effective and monitored ODR processes with swift out-of-court enforceable decisions. The draft Rules propose a tiered procedure that culminates in arbitration. Yet, this procedure neither ensures out-of-court enforcement, nor does it guarantee compliance with EU consumer mandatory law. Accordingly, this article argues that the draft Rules may be inconsistent with the European approach to consumer protection.

Damages versus Specific Performance: Lessons from Commercial Contracts

Specific performance is a central contractual remedy but, in Anglo-American law, generally is subordinate to damages. The familiar rule is that courts will not award specific performance when damages provide adequate relief. Despite rich theoretical discussions of the relative merits of specific performance and damages as contract remedies, little is known about parties’ treatment of the remedy in their contracts. We study 2,347 contracts of public corporations to quantify the presence or absence of specific performance clauses in several types of contracts (clauses that convey the parties’ intent that the court award specific performance in the event of breach). Although a majority of contracts do not refer to specific performance, substantial variation exists in the rates of including specific performance clauses. These clauses appear in some contracts of every type, but their incidence varies widely: high rates of specific performance clauses are found in the area of corporate combinations through merger (53.4 percent) and assets sales (45.1 percent) but much lower rates are observed in loan agreements. It appears, therefore, that treatment of specific performance in sophisticated corporate contracts is more complex than existing theories of contractual remedies allow. We also present results on the associations among contractual acceptance of five default dispute resolution rules: specific performance clauses, arbitration clauses, jury trial waiver clauses, litigation forum clauses, and attorney fees clauses. Rejecting the default damages rule in favor of specific performance is associated with rejecting each of the four other dispute resolution clauses.

Sustainable Development in International Law: Nature * and Operation of an Evolutive Legal Norm

The wide dissemination of sustainable development in international law has generated considerable academic interest. However, because of the evasive and flexible content of what has been termed by the ICJ a concept in the Gabc ˇikovo-Nagymaros case, and more recently an objective in the Pulp Mills case, academic commentary has often struggled to ascertain sustainable development’s legal nature, which has proved a notion defying legal classification. One attractive thesis has been Lowe’s analysis of sustainable development as an interstitial or modifying norm which exerts its normative influence as an interpretative tool in the hands of judges. Its interpretative function is certainly very significant. Judicial bodies have used it to legitimize recourse to evolutive treaty interpretation, as a rule of conflict resolution, and even to redefine conventional obligations. However, beyond this convenient hermeneutical function, by laying down an objective to strive for in hundreds of treaties, sustainable development primarily purports to regulate state conduct. As an objective, it lays down not an absolute but a relative obligation to achieve sustainable development. Such obligations are known as obligations of means or of best efforts. Legal subjects are thus ultimately under an obligation to promote sustainable development.

Agent-based Space-time Discrete Simulation of Urban Traffic Including Bicycles

A cellular automata model for mixed motorised and bicycle traffic, with agent-based update rule specification, is applied to a 16-node network of one-way roads. The model is for road sharing based on positional discipline, which is common in old city centres such as Dublin's where dedicated cycling infrastructure is sparse and streets are relatively narrow. A network fundamental diagram is defined and its values derived for a number of simulated scenarios. The fundamental diagram is assessed as a means of network performance quantification. With this aim, the effect on network throughput in the model is compared for different values of infrastructure properties, such as road length and conflict resolution rules, and for different agent behaviours with respect to route choice.

The evolution of rules for conflicts resolution in self-organizing teams

The purpose of the paper is to study the emergency and effects of conflict resolution rules in self-organizing teams. Intelligent agents are used to simulate team members of self-organizing teams. In the virtual self-organizing team, agents adapt the Q-learning algorithm to adjust their actions. Three sets of experiments are manipulated to study the evolution of rules. The results of few experiments show a new rule for conflict resolution emerged from the dynamic interactions of agents. For the other experiments, agents cannot resolve conflicts by themselves.

A Hobbesian derivation of the principle of universalization

In this article, I derive a weak version of Kant’s categorical imperative within an informal game-theoretic framework. More specifically, I argue that Hobbesian agents would choose what I call the weak principle of universalization, if they had to decide on a rule of conflict resolution in an idealized but empirically defensible hypothetical decision situation. The discussion clarifies (i) the rationality requirements imposed on agents, (ii) the empirical conditions assumed to warrant the conclusion, and (iii) the political institutions that are necessary to implement the derived principle. The analysis demonstrates the moral significance of the weak principle of universalization and its epistemic advantage over the categorical imperative.

Collision avoidance solution for low-altitude flights

The high density of small aircrafts increasingly threatens flight safety during low-altitude flights. Unlike general air transport aircraft, small aircrafts do not install active detection for collision avoidance. Through available surveillance communication, small aircraft can be monitored and separated on a surveillance dependence basis. A low-altitude collision avoidance system algorithm is introduced to offer the required separation solution to small aircrafts at low altitude. Based on the automatic dependent surveillance concept under the visual flight rule, aircraft traffic alert and collision avoidance system operation can be built on a ground surveillance computer as well as being installed as a airborne electronic flight instrument system (EFIS). Aircraft conflict will be detected and calculated from the surveillance information. Simple traffic resolution rules can be created for collision avoidance after alerts are simultaneously generated on the ground computer and on airborne EFIS. Following the general basic rules, the resolution algorithm could be induced. This article refers to traffic advisory and resolution advisory, and designs a simple avoidance manipulation for small aircrafts. In this development, ultra-light flights are operated to create the actual flight data in a small airspace. Several feasible scenarios are tested in simulations to look into the TCAS performance on ground computer and airborne EFIS. The results offer better flight safety management for low-altitude flights.

Workflow technology as an e‐participation tool to support policy‐making processes

PurposeThis paper aims to gauge the feasibility of workflow technology as a potential solution to facilitating citizen participation in policy‐making processes. The gaps in and future direction of a current workflow models to be used to automate policy‐making processes are to be discussed.Design/methodology/approachA thorough review on the principles and philosophies of policy‐making processes and process models is performed to extract the core constructs of the processes. This follows critical analysis of existing workflow models to identify gaps of the models to be used to support policy‐making processes. An e‐participation perspective is also taken to identify additional modelling constructs that are required when a large number of citizens is involved in a workflow task for opinion gathering.FindingsWhile workflow technology has been adopted in the public sector, the use of the technology is mostly limited to supporting administrative business processes, leaving the potential to automate policy‐making processes. There are some studies that take a life‐cycle approach for policy making and they can be the starting‐point of applying workflow technology to policy‐making process automation. The application of workflow technology to policy‐making processes is expected to facilitate the participation of citizens in these processes through the automatic delivery of relevant policy issues into citizens' lives. A new type of workflow model is required to reflect factors specific to the public sector, including rules for role resolution, considering large‐scale citizen participation and modelling constructs to penetrate into citizens' everyday lives for proactive stimulation for e‐participation.Research limitations/implicationsThe analysis is based on a literature review, and empirical data collection could complement the analysis results of the paper. This is included in the future research agenda.Practical implicationsThe findings provide policy makers with a stimulus for adopting workflow technology in the public sector. Gap analysis and future directions of a workflow model for policy‐making processes are expected to be informative for any practitioners who are intending to develop workflow management systems in the public sector.Originality/valueThis paper is one of the first efforts to gauge the potential of using workflow technology from an e‐participation perspective to engage a wide spectrum of stakeholders, including citizens, in policy‐making processes.

Dealing with Satisfiability and n-ary CSPs in a Logical Framework

We investigate in this work a generalization of the known CNF representation that we call General Normal Form (GNF) and extend the resolution rule of Robinson to design a new sound and complete resolution proof system for the GNF. We show that by using a cardinality operator in the GNF we obtain the new representation CGNF that allows a natural and efficient Boolean encoding for n-ary finite discrete extensional CSPs. We prove that the space complexity of a CSP encoded in the CGNF is identical to its space complexity when it is expressed in the classical CSP representation. We prove that the generalized resolution rule applies for the CGNF encoding and introduce a new inference rule whose application until saturation achieves arc-consistency in a linear time complexity for n-ary CSP expressed in the CGNF encoding. Two enumerative methods for solving CSP instances encoded in this Boolean framework are studied: the first one (equivalent to MAC in CSPs) maintains full arc-consistency at each node of the search tree while the second (equivalent to FC in CSPs) performs partial arc-consistency on each node. Both methods are experimented and compared on some instances of the Ramsey problem, randomly generated 3/4-ary CSPs and promising results are obtained. We also adapted the notion of clause learning defined in SAT for the CGNF encoding. Finally, we show how the proposed inference rule can be used to achieve Path-consistency in the case of binary CSPs encoded in CGNF, and how it can be used to enforce strong path consistency when it is combined with the generalized resolution rule.

The UN General Assembly Resolution on the Rule of Law Resolution: Ambition meets pragmatism

The UN General Assembly Resolution on the Rule of Law Resolution: Ambition meets pragmatism