Constraint Satisfaction Problems in Clausal Form I: Autarkies and Deficiency
We consider the problem of generalising boolean formulas in conjunctive normal form by allowing non-boolean variables, with the goal of maintaining combinatorial properties. Requiring that a literal involves only a single variable, the most general form of literals are the well-known "signed literals", corresponding to unary constraints in CSP. However we argue that only the restricted form of "negative monosigned literals" and the resulting generalised clause-sets, corresponding to "sets of no-goods" in the AI literature, maintain the essential properties of boolean conjunctive normal forms. In this first part of a mini-series of two articles, we build up a solid foundation for (generalised) clause-sets, including the notion of autarky systems, the interplay between autarkies and resolution, and basic notions of (DP-)reductions. As a basic combinatorial parameter of generalised clause-sets we introduce the (generalised) notion of deficiency, which in the boolean case is the difference between the number of clauses and the number of variables. Autarky theory plays a fundamental role here, and we concentrate especially on matching autarkies (based on matching theory). A natural task is to determine the structure of (matching) lean clause-sets, which do not admit non-trivial (matching) autarkies. A central result is the computation of the lean kernel (the largest lean subset) of a (generalised) clause-set in polynomial time for bounded maximal deficiency.
constraint satisfaction problem autarkies deficiency non-boolean variables generalised clause-sets matching autarkies polynomial time satisfiability problem signed formulas lean clause-sets