Download or read book Finite Model Theory written by Heinz-Dieter Ebbinghaus and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-29 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finite model theory has its origin in classical model theory, but owes its systematic development to research from complexity theory. The book presents the main results of descriptive complexity theory, that is, the connections between axiomatizability of classes of finite structures and their complexity with respect to time and space bounds. The logics that are important in this context include fixed- point logics, transitive closure logics, and also certain infinitary languages; their model theory is studied in full detail. Other topics include DATALOG languages, quantifiers and oracles, 0-1 laws, and optimization and approximation problems. The book is written in such a way that the resp. parts on model theory and descriptive complexity theory may be read independently.