Modular QBF Compilations for Implication, Abduction, and Repair in Team Semantics

Fei Yu1
1College of Information and Intelligent, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, China, 410128
DOI: https://doi.org/10.71448/bcds2564-1
Published: 30/12/2025
Cite this article as: Fei Yu. Modular QBF Compilations for Implication, Abduction, and Repair in Team Semantics. Bulletin of Computer and Data Sciences, Volume 6 Issue 4. Page: 1-21.

Abstract

Recent work has shown that a broad spectrum of reasoning tasks in team semantics—notably model checking, counting, and enumeration—admits modular reductions to satisfiability in carefully controlled propositional fragments, yielding refined tractability frontiers. Building on that compilation paradigm, this paper studies three reasoning tasks that are central in knowledge representation and database practice but are not captured by model checking alone: (i) implication between dependency constraints, (ii) abduction of missing tuples or assignments required to satisfy a constraint, and (iii) repair via minimal modifications under block-aware decompositions. We present a uniform translation of these tasks for a wide class of team-based logics into quantified Boolean formulas (QBF). The translation is modular with respect to team connectives and dependency atoms, mirroring the syntactic modularity of team semantics. It yields immediate complexity upper bounds by landing in low alternation levels and syntactic fragments of QBF, and it isolates new tractable subcases via Horn-like and 2-CNF-like QBF backbones. Conceptually, the results establish QBF as a natural “second compilation target” for team semantics whenever reasoning quantifies over teams, repairs, or explanations rather than merely verifying satisfaction.

Keywords: team semantics, quantified Boolean formulas, implication, abduction, database repair, modular compilation

Abstract

Recent work has shown that a broad spectrum of reasoning tasks in team semantics—notably model checking, counting, and enumeration—admits modular reductions to satisfiability in carefully controlled propositional fragments, yielding refined tractability frontiers. Building on that compilation paradigm, this paper studies three reasoning tasks that are central in knowledge representation and database practice but are not captured by model checking alone: (i) implication between dependency constraints, (ii) abduction of missing tuples or assignments required to satisfy a constraint, and (iii) repair via minimal modifications under block-aware decompositions. We present a uniform translation of these tasks for a wide class of team-based logics into quantified Boolean formulas (QBF). The translation is modular with respect to team connectives and dependency atoms, mirroring the syntactic modularity of team semantics. It yields immediate complexity upper bounds by landing in low alternation levels and syntactic fragments of QBF, and it isolates new tractable subcases via Horn-like and 2-CNF-like QBF backbones. Conceptually, the results establish QBF as a natural “second compilation target” for team semantics whenever reasoning quantifies over teams, repairs, or explanations rather than merely verifying satisfaction.

Keywords: team semantics, quantified Boolean formulas, implication, abduction, database repair, modular compilation
Fei Yu
College of Information and Intelligent, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, China, 410128

DOI

Cite this article as:

Fei Yu. Modular QBF Compilations for Implication, Abduction, and Repair in Team Semantics. Bulletin of Computer and Data Sciences, Volume 6 Issue 4. Page: 1-21.

Publication history

Copyright © 2025 Fei Yu. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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