Related papers: On the strictness of the quantifier structure hier…
Ehrenfeucht-Fra\"iss\'e games provide a fundamental method for proving elementary equivalence (and equivalence up to a certain quantifier rank) of relational structures. We investigate the soundness and completeness of this method in the…
We investigate the expressive power of quantifier alternation hierarchy of first-order logic over words. This hierarchy includes the classes ${\Sigma}_i$ (sentences having at most $i$ blocks of quantifiers starting with an $\exists$) and…
We study first-order logic (FO) over the structure consisting of finite words over some alphabet $A$, together with the (non-contiguous) subword ordering. In terms of decidability of quantifier alternation fragments, this logic is…
Concatenation hierarchies are classifications of regular languages. All such hierarchies are built through the same construction process: start from an initial class of languages and build new levels using two generic operations.…
We study the complexity of the model checking problem, for fixed model A, over certain fragments L of first-order logic. These are sometimes known as the expression complexities of L. We obtain various complexity classification theorems for…
We determine, up to the equivalence of first-order interdefinability, all structures which are first-order definable in the random partial order. It turns out that these structures fall into precisely five equivalence classes. We achieve…
Hierarchies of conditional beliefs (Battigalli and Siniscalchi 1999) play a central role for the epistemic analysis of solution concepts in sequential games. They are practically modelled by type structures, which allow the analyst to…
The ordered structures of natural, integer, rational and real numbers are studied here. It is known that the theories of these numbers in the language of order are decidable and finitely axiomatizable. Also, their theories in the language…
At the beginning of a dynamic game, players may have exogenous theories about how the opponents are going to play. Suppose that these theories are commonly known. Then, players will refine their first-order beliefs, and challenge their own…
We study first-order model checking, by which we refer to the problem of deciding whether or not a given first-order sentence is satisfied by a given finite structure. In particular, we aim to understand on which sets of sentences this…
Order-invariant formulas access an ordering on a structure's universe, but the model relation is independent of the used ordering. Order invariance is frequently used for logic-based approaches in computer science. Order-invariant formulas…
We study the model-checking problem for first- and monadic second-order logic on finite relational structures. The problem of verifying whether a formula of these logics is true on a given structure is considered intractable in general, but…
A number of model-comparison games central to (finite) model theory, such as pebble and Ehrenfeucht-Fra\"{i}ss\'{e} games, can be captured as comonads on categories of relational structures. In particular, the coalgebras for these comonads…
Algebraic logic studies algebraic theories related to proposition and first-order logic. A new algebraic approach to first-order logic is sketched in this paper. We introduce the notion of a quantifier theory, which is a functor from the…
Let $k$ be a differential field of characteristic zero with an algebraically closed field of constants. In this article, we provide a classification of first order differential equations over $k$ and study the algebraic dependence of…
We show that each level of the quantifier alternation hierarchy within FO^2[<] -- the 2-variable fragment of the first order logic of order on words -- is a variety of languages. We then use the notion of condensed rankers, a refinement of…
First-order logic is typically presented as the study of deduction in a setting with elementary quantification. In this paper, we take another vantage point and conceptualize first-order logic as a linear space that encodes "plausibility".…
It is a well-known empirical phenomenon that natural axiomatic theories are pre-well-ordered by consistency strength. Without a precise mathematical definition of "natural," it is unclear how to study this phenomenon mathematically. We will…
A new class of noncommutative $k$-algebras (for $k$ an algebraically closed field) is defined and shown to contain some important examples of quantum groups. To each such algebra, a first order theory is assigned describing models of a…
We give a construction of a large first-order definable family of subrings of finitely generated fields $K$ of any characteristic. We deduce that for any such $K$ there exists a first-order sentence $\varphi_K$ characterising $K$ in the…