The study of graph structure has advanced in recent years with great strides: finite graphs can be described algebraically, enabling them to be constructed out of more basic elements. Separately the properties of graphs can be studied in a logical language called monadic second-order logic. In this book, these two features of graph structure are brought together for the first time in a presentation that unifies and synthesizes research over the last 25 years. The authors not only provide a thorough description of the theory, but also detail its applications, on the one hand to the construction of graph algorithms, and, on the other to the extension of formal language theory to finite graphs. Consequently the book will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in graph theory, finite model theory, formal language theory, and complexity theory.

The study of graph structure has advanced in recent years with great strides: finite graphs can be described algebraically, enabling them to be constructed out of more basic elements. Separately the properties of graphs can be studied in a logical language called monadic second-order logic. In this book, these two features of graph structure are brought together for the first time in a presentation that unifies and synthesizes research over the last 25 years. The authors not only provide a thorough description of the theory, but also detail its applications, on the one hand to the construction of graph algorithms, and, on the other to the extension of formal language theory to finite graphs. Consequently the book will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in graph theory, finite model theory, formal language theory, and complexity theory.

"The study of graph structure has advanced in recent years with great strides: finite graphs can be described algebraically, enabling them to be constructed out of more basic elements. Separately the properties of graphs can be studied in a logical language called monadic second-order logic. In this book, these two features of graph structure are brought together for the first time in a presentation that unifies and synthesizes research over the last 25 years. The author not only provides a thorough description of the theory, but also details its applications, on the one hand to the construction of graph algorithms, and, on the other to the extension of formal language theory to finite graphs. Consequently the book will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in graph theory, finite model theory, formal language theory, and complexity theory"--

Emphasizes the computer science aspects of the subject. Details applications in databases, complexity theory, and formal languages, as well as other branches of computer science.

Mathematical logic and automata theory are two scientific disciplines with a fundamentally close relationship. The authors of Logic and Automata take the occasion of the sixtieth birthday of Wolfgang Thomas to present a tour d’horizon of automata theory and logic. The twenty papers in this volume cover many different facets of logic and automata theory, emphasizing the connections to other disciplines such as games, algorithms, and semigroup theory, as well as discussing current challenges in the field.

The papers in this volume address central issues in the study of Plurality and Quantification from three different perspectives: • Algebraic approaches to Plurals and Quantification • Distributivity and Collectivity: Theoretical Foundations • Distributivity and Collectivity: Empirical Investigations Algebraic approaches to the semantics of natural languages were in dependently introduced for the study of generalized quantification, pred ication, intensionality, mass terms and plurality. The most prominent modern advocate for an algebraic theory of plurality (and mass terms) is certainly Godehard Link. It is indicative of the Wirkungsgeschichte of Link's work that most of the contributions in this volume take the logic of plurals proposed by Godehard Link (Link 1983, 1987) as their foundation or, at the very least, as their point of reference. Link's own paper in this volume provides a concise summary of many of the central research issues that have engaged semanticists during the last decade. Link's paper also contains an extensive bibliography that provides an excellent resource for scholars interested in the semantics of plurals. Since we can refer readers to Link's paper for an excellent survey of the subject matter of this book, we will limit our attention in this in troduction to summarizing the individual contributions in this volume. The book is organized into three main sections; within each section the papers are ordered alphabetically. However, as in much of linguistic the orizing, there is an exception: for reasons pointed out above, Godehard Link's article appears as Chapter 1.