John N. Crossley

Jeffrey B. Remmel

Richard Shore

Moss E. Sweedler

The twenty-six papers in this volume reflect the wide and still expanding range of Anil Nerode's work. A conference on Logical Methods was held in honor of Nerode's sixtieth birthday (4 June 1992) at the Mathematical Sciences Institute, Cornell University, 1-3 June 1992. Some of the conference papers are here, but others are from students, co-workers and other colleagues. The intention of the conference was to look forward, and to see the directions currently being pursued, in the development of work by, or with, Nerode. Here is a brief summary of the contents of this book. We give a retrospective view of Nerode's work. A number of specific areas are readily discerned: recursive equivalence types, recursive algebra and model theory, the theory of Turing degrees and r.e. sets, polynomial-time computability and computer science. Nerode began with automata theory and has also taken a keen interest in the history of mathematics. All these areas are represented. The one area missing is Nerode's applied mathematical work relating to the environment. Kozen's paper builds on Nerode's early work on automata. Recursive equivalence types are covered by Dekker and Barback, the latter using directly a fundamental metatheorem of Nerode. Recursive algebra is treated by Ge & Richards (group representations). Recursive model theory is the subject of papers by Hird, Moses, and Khoussainov & Dadajanov, while a combinatorial problem in recursive model theory is discussed in Cherlin & Martin's paper. Cenzer presents a paper on recursive dynamics.

In Honor of Anil Nerode’s Sixtieth Birthday

Logical Methods

Peter Clote

Perspicuity is part of proof. If the process by means of which I get a result were not surveyable, I might indeed make a note that this number is what comes out - but what fact is this supposed to confirm for me? I don't know 'what is supposed to come out' . . . . 1 -L. Wittgenstein A feasible computation uses small resources on an abstract computa tion device, such as a 'lUring machine or boolean circuit. Feasible math ematics concerns the study of feasible computations, using combinatorics and logic, as well as the study of feasibly presented mathematical structures such as groups, algebras, and so on. This volume contains contributions to feasible mathematics in three areas: computational complexity theory, proof theory and algebra, with substantial overlap between different fields. In computational complexity theory, the polynomial time hierarchy is characterized without the introduction of runtime bounds by the closure of certain initial functions under safe composition, predicative recursion on notation, and unbounded minimization (S. Bellantoni); an alternative way of looking at NP problems is introduced which focuses on which pa rameters of the problem are the cause of its computational complexity and completeness, density and separation/collapse results are given for a struc ture theory for parametrized problems (R. Downey and M. Fellows); new characterizations of PTIME and LINEAR SPACE are given using predicative recurrence over all finite tiers of certain stratified free algebras (D.

Jeffrey B. Remmel

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