Marc Denecker's Home Page

Address: Department of Computing, Celestijnenlaan 200 A, B-3001 Heverlee, Belgium.

Phone: +32-(0)16-32 75 57

Fax: +32-(0)16-32 79 96

Email: Marc Denecker

(Photo courtesy of Eugenia Ternovska)

Since 1/10/2002, I am an associate research professor, head of the Knowledge Representation and Reasoning research group, a subgroup of the Declarative Languages and Artificial Intelligence group of the Department of Computing of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven .

Here you find my Curriculum Vitae and on line publications (via lirias).

The groups main work is currently on the the IDP system, a knowledge base system providing multiple forms of inference and a declarative programming environment for the logic FO(.)^IDP, an extension of first order logic.

I teach two courses: Knowledge Representation and Formal Modeling of complex systems.

An aim in both courses is to teach classical first order logic (FO). I want to go beyond the purely theoretical approach that is most commonly followed in introductory courses on FO and give students hands-on experience in how using FO (and extensions of it) for modelling practical problems and domains. For this aim, I find that computer exercises are not less mandatory than, say, computer exercises for teaching a programming language. I use the finite model generator the IDP system for FO (which was developed in my group) and apply it to solve a range of finite domain problems (quering, planning, scheduling, configuration, diagnosis, verification, light weight verification, etc.). If you are interested in my experience or in my course material, want to use IDP in your course, or want to share your own experiences, please let me to know.

Recent or ongoing scientific events of which I and my group are involved in the organization:

• LaSh12 : Logic and Search, ECAI workshop, 27 August 2012, Montpellier.
• DP@NMR'10: NMR'10 Special session on Declarative Programming Paradigms and Systems, organized by Marina De Vos and myself.
• ASP-competition 2009 : a competition for ASP, SAT, SMT and CP solvers, organised by KRR in Leuven in the spring of 2009.
• LaSh08 : an integrated ASP, SAT, SMT and CP workshop, held in Leuven in 6-7 November, 2008.

Invited and position talks:

• At ASPOCP 2012: The FO(.) Knowledge Base System project: an integration project (abstract).
• Symposium on Constructive Mathematics in Computer Science in honor of Michael Gelfond, 2010: Answer Set Programming's Contributions to Classical Logic -- An analysis of ASP methodology (abstract, paper).
• At NonMon@30 (and also at NMR-10): On the informal and formal semantics of Default and Autoepistemic logic -- Default logic is not a logic of defaults (abstract,paper).
• A position talk at LPNMR09 (with Joost Vennekens): Using lightweight inference to solve lightweight problems.
• A position talk at ICLP09 (with Joost Vennekens): A Knowledge Base System project for FO(.).
• Invited talk at ICLP08: Building a Knowledge Base System for an Integration of Logic Programming and Classical Logic .

Research: My research domain is the formal empirical science of knowledge and its use for solving problems. Some things we did or do:

• Study of the semantics of Logic Programming (LP) ("What does a logic program mean? What does negation as failure mean?"). In a number of papers, I have elaborated the view that a logic program is an inductive definition.
• Development of expressive, user-friendly KR-languages.
  • Classical first order logic (FO) is our base KR-language. To clarify the KR contributions of Logic Programming, to integrate them with FO, we proposed FO(ID), an extension of FO with inductive definitions and an integration of FO and LP.
  • We continue to extend this language with other useful language constructs. The resulting language(s) is FO(.), FO extended with ... inductive and coinductive definitions, aggregates, types, partial functions, bounded arithmetic, ...
  • Other work is on CP-logic, a causal probabilistic logic.
• Development of finite domain inference engines for FO(.). The IDP system is a finite domain model generation and model expansion system for FO(.). Scored amongst the best in the last ASP competitions (2009-2011). Other forms of inference for FO(.) in development are interactive configuration, approximate reasoning and revision inference.

Some "extra-professional" activities:

• Pictures of my family
• A trip to Iceland including a 5-days trekking from Landmannalaughar to Skogar, August 2011, pictures by Maarten,, Alvaro, Fabian and Viviana and myself
• In June 2011, Maarten Marien, Alvaro Cortes and myself did the first 5-days of the GR20 in Corsica. Proof is found in Alvaro's pictures here, and there.
• In June 2010, Maarten Marien, Alvaro Cortes and myself went for a 6-day trekking in Norway in the area of Jotunheimen. It was too early yet to do the famous Besseggen hike -- we tried -- we failed -- we enjoyed nevertheless. These are Maarten's and Alvaro's pictures.
• In July 2008, I climbed the Mont Blanc in the company of Koen Heselmans, Joris Beckers and Bruno Christiaen. A four day hike, over the Mer de Glace, Glacier Geant, Col du Midi, via Mont Blanc de Tacul and Mont Maudit to the top, and back down via the normal route. A great experience for me! Of the same trip, here are the pictures taken by Joris and Bruno and myself.
• In May 2008, we had a fabulous rock climbing holiday in the Calanques, together with KRR and DTAI (ex-)PhD-students Maarten, Daan and Anneleen, and fanatic former climber Dirk Van Campenhout. There are pictures taken by Maarten and Anneleen.
• Around christmas 2006, with some of DTAI (Alvaro, Maarten, Anneleen), we made a splendid trip to Patagonia including an 8-day hike around the Torres del Paine. Pictures by Alvaro and Maarten.

Some useful information for PhD-students of the KRR-group:

• A literature list for PhD-students of KRR
• A plea to write gentle proofs and some tips how to do it.
• The researchers bible, due to Bundy et al.
• Departementele gegevensbank
• Use of GIT in KRR
• Use of CVS in KRR

Practical stuff:

• Departementele gegevensbank en hoe nieuwe entries eraan toe te voegen
• K.U.Loket
• Toledo
• Draaiboek promotoren
• Arenberg Doctoral School
• Lokalen reserveren voor nieuwkomers