Chapter 9. Preprocessing in SAT Solving

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armin Biere ◽  
Matti Järvisalo ◽  
Benjamin Kiesl
Keyword(s):  
Normal Form ◽  
Conjunctive Normal Form ◽  
Boolean Satisfiability ◽  
Sat Solving ◽  
Speed Up ◽  
Sat Solver ◽  
Main Ideas ◽  
Simplification Techniques

Preprocessing has become a key component of the Boolean satisfiability (SAT) solving workflow. In practice, preprocessing is situated between the encoding phase and the solving phase, with the aim of decreasing the total solving time by applying efficient simplification techniques on SAT instances to speed up the search subsequently performed by a SAT solver. In this chapter, we overview key preprocessing techniques proposed in the literature. While the main focus is on techniques applicable to formulas in conjunctive normal form (CNF), we also selectively cover main ideas for preprocessing structural and higher-level SAT instance representations.

scholarly journals Clause Elimination for SAT and QSAT

2015 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 127-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marijn Heule ◽  
Matti Järvisalo ◽  
Florian Lonsing ◽  
Martina Seidl ◽  
Armin Biere
Keyword(s):  
Normal Form ◽  
Real World ◽  
Practical Importance ◽  
Empirical Evaluation ◽  
Conjunctive Normal Form ◽  
Boolean Satisfiability ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Logical Equivalence ◽  
Hard Problems ◽  
Simplification Techniques

The famous archetypical NP-complete problem of Boolean satisfiability (SAT) and its PSPACE-complete generalization of quantified Boolean satisfiability (QSAT) have become central declarative programming paradigms through which real-world instances of various computationally hard problems can be efficiently solved. This success has been achieved through several breakthroughs in practical implementations of decision procedures for SAT and QSAT, that is, in SAT and QSAT solvers. Here, simplification techniques for conjunctive normal form (CNF) for SAT and for prenex conjunctive normal form (PCNF) for QSAT---the standard input formats of SAT and QSAT solvers---have recently proven very effective in increasing solver efficiency when applied before (i.e., in preprocessing) or during (i.e., in inprocessing) satisfiability search. In this article, we develop and analyze clause elimination procedures for pre- and inprocessing. Clause elimination procedures form a family of (P)CNF formula simplification techniques which remove clauses that have specific (in practice polynomial-time) redundancy properties while maintaining the satisfiability status of the formulas. Extending known procedures such as tautology, subsumption, and blocked clause elimination, we introduce novel elimination procedures based on asymmetric variants of these techniques, and also develop a novel family of so-called covered clause elimination procedures, as well as natural liftings of the CNF-level procedures to PCNF. We analyze the considered clause elimination procedures from various perspectives. Furthermore, for the variants not preserving logical equivalence under clause elimination, we show how to reconstruct solutions to original CNFs from satisfying assignments to simplified CNFs, which is important for practical applications for the procedures. Complementing the more theoretical analysis, we present results on an empirical evaluation on the practical importance of the clause elimination procedures in terms of the effect on solver runtimes on standard real-world application benchmarks. It turns out that the importance of applying the clause elimination procedures developed in this work is empirically emphasized in the context of state-of-the-art QSAT solving.

Chapter 13. Symmetry and Satisfiability

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karem A. Sakallah
Keyword(s):  
Group Theory ◽  
Normal Form ◽  
Boolean Functions ◽  
Search Algorithm ◽  
Conjunctive Normal Form ◽  
Search Space ◽  
Decision Problems ◽  
Mathematical Language ◽  
Sat Solvers ◽  
Speed Up

Symmetry is at once a familiar concept (we recognize it when we see it!) and a profoundly deep mathematical subject. At its most basic, a symmetry is some transformation of an object that leaves the object (or some aspect of the object) unchanged. For example, a square can be transformed in eight different ways that leave it looking exactly the same: the identity “do-nothing” transformation, 3 rotations, and 4 mirror images (or reflections). In the context of decision problems, the presence of symmetries in a problem’s search space can frustrate the hunt for a solution by forcing a search algorithm to fruitlessly explore symmetric subspaces that do not contain solutions. Recognizing that such symmetries exist, we can direct a search algorithm to look for solutions only in non-symmetric parts of the search space. In many cases, this can lead to significant pruning of the search space and yield solutions to problems which are otherwise intractable. This chapter explores the symmetries of Boolean functions, particularly the symmetries of their conjunctive normal form (CNF) representations. Specifically, it examines what those symmetries are, how to model them using the mathematical language of group theory, how to derive them from a CNF formula, and how to utilize them to speed up CNF SAT solvers.

scholarly journals CNF-SAT modelling for banyan-type networks and its application for assessing the rearrangeability

2021 ◽  
Vol 2090 (1) ◽  
pp. 012133
Author(s):  
S Ohta
Keyword(s):  
Normal Form ◽  
Conjunctive Normal Form ◽  
Switching Network ◽  
Theoretical Studies ◽  
Sat Problem ◽  
Sat Solver ◽  
Theoretical Analyses

Abstract A banyan-type network is a switching network, which is constructed by placing unit switches with two inputs and two outputs in s (s > 1) stages. In each stage, 2 n – 1 (n > 1) unit switches are aligned. Past studies conjecture that this network becomes rearrangeable when s ≥ 2n-1. Although a considerable number of theoretical analyses have been done, the rearrangeability of the banyan-type network with 2n – 1 or more stages is not completely proved. As a tool to assess the rearrangeability, this study presents a CNF-SAT (conjunctive normal form - satisfiability) modelling scheme for banyan-type networks. In the proposed scheme, the routing is formulated to a SAT problem represented in CNF. By feeding the problem to a SAT solver, it is found whether the problem is satisfiable or unsatisfiable. If the problem is unsatisfiable for a certain request, the network is not rearrangeable. By contrast, if the problem is satisfiable for any requests, the network is rearrangeable. This study applies the CNF-SAT modelling scheme to various configurations of 2n – 1 stage banyan-type networks. These networks are assessed for rearrangeability by solving the SAT problems. The proposed method will be helpful to conduct future theoretical studies on banyan-type networks.

scholarly journals Duplicates of conflict clauses in CDCL derivation and their usage to invert some cryptographic functions

2019 ◽  
pp. 54-66
Author(s):  
В.С. Кондратьев ◽  
А.А. Семенов ◽  
О.С. Заикин
Keyword(s):  
Hash Functions ◽  
Boolean Satisfiability ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Sat Solving ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Sat Solvers ◽  
Satisfiability Problems ◽  
Clause Learning ◽  
Sat Solver ◽  
Cryptographic Hash Functions

Изучен феномен повторного порождения конфликтных ограничений SAT-решателями в процессе работы с трудными экземплярами задачи о булевой выполнимости. Данный феномен является следствием применения эвристических механизмов чистки конфликтных баз, которые реализованы во всех современных SAT-решателях, основанных на алгоритме CDCL (Conflict Driven Clause Learning). Описана новая техника, которая позволяет отслеживать повторно порождаемые дизъюнкты и запрещать их последующее удаление. На базе предложенных технических решений построен новый многопоточный SAT-решатель (SAT, SATisfiability), который на ряде SAT-задач, кодирующих обращение криптографических хеш-функций, существенно превзошел по эффективности многопоточные решатели, занимавшие в последние годы высокие места на специализированных соревнованиях. A phenomenon of conflict clauses generated repeatedly by SAT solvers is studied. Such clauses may appear during solving hard Boolean satisfiability problems (SAT). This phenomenon is caused by the fact that the modern SAT solvers are based on the CDCL algorithm that generates conflict clauses. A database of such clauses is periodically and partially cleaned. A new approach for practical SAT solving is proposed. According to this approach, the repeatedly generated conflict clauses are tracked, whereas their further generation is prohibited. Based on this approach, a multithreaded SAT solver was developed. This solver was compared with the best multithreaded SAT solvers awarded during the last SAT competitions. According to the experimental results, the developed solver greatly outperforms its competitors on several SAT instances encoding the inversion of some cryptographic hash functions.

METHODS OF REDUCING OF LARGE BOOLEAN FORMULAS REPRESENTED IN A CONJUNCTIVE NORMAL FORM FOR DETERMINING THEIR SATISFIABILITY

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
N.I. Gdansky ◽  
◽  
A.A. Denisov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Normal Form ◽  
Normal Forms ◽  
Conjunctive Normal Form ◽  
Boolean Formulas

The article explores the satisfiability of conjunctive normal forms used in modeling systems.The problems of CNF preprocessing are considered.The analysis of particular methods for reducing this formulas, which have polynomial input complexity is given.

The problem of simplifying logical expressions

1959 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Dunham ◽  
R. Fridshal
Keyword(s):  
Normal Form ◽  
Simplification Techniques

By quite elementary means, one can find “large” examples difficult, if not (for practical purposes) impossible, to be managed by that host of methods, after Quine, for minimizing expressions in alternational normal form. Because the workability rather than existence of an algorithm for minimizing logical formulae is generally critical, it may be pertinent to outline briefly the derivation of these “large” examples. Some more general insight may also be gained about simplification techniques.

A reduction class containing formulas with one monadic predicate and one binary function symbol

1976 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-49
Author(s):  
Charles E. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Normal Form ◽  
Predicate Symbol ◽  
Conjunctive Normal Form ◽  
Function Symbol ◽  
Predicate Calculus ◽  
Binary Function ◽  
First Order ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Reduction Class ◽  
Order Predicate Calculus

AbstractA new reduction class is presented for the satisfiability problem for well-formed formulas of the first-order predicate calculus. The members of this class are closed prenex formulas of the form ∀x∀yC. The matrix C is in conjunctive normal form and has no disjuncts with more than three literals, in fact all but one conjunct is unary. Furthermore C contains but one predicate symbol, that being unary, and one function symbol which symbol is binary.

scholarly journals Dolius: A Distributed Parallel SAT Solving Framework

10.29007/hvqt ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilles Audemard ◽  
Benoît Hoessen ◽  
Saïd Jabbour ◽  
Cédric Piette
Keyword(s):  
Shared Memory ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Divide And Conquer ◽  
Sat Solving ◽  
Sat Solvers ◽  
Sat Solver

Over the years, parallel SAT solving becomes more and more important. However, most of state-of-the-art parallel SAT solvers are portfolio-based ones. They aim at running several times the same solver with different parameters. In this paper, we propose a tool called Dolius, mainly based on the divide and conquer paradigm. In contrast to most current parallel efficient engines, Dolius does not need shared memory, can be distributed, and scales well when a large number of computing units is available. Furthermore, our tool contains an API allowing to plug any SAT solver in a simple way.

Enumerating Prime Implicants of Propositional Formulae in Conjunctive Normal Form

2014 ◽  
pp. 152-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Said Jabbour ◽  
Joao Marques-Silva ◽  
Lakhdar Sais ◽  
Yakoub Salhi
Keyword(s):  
Normal Form ◽  
Conjunctive Normal Form ◽  
Prime Implicants
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