Integrating search and optimisation technology for formal modelling languages.

Several research fields share the goal of developing domain independent languages and techniques for search and optimisation. Main-stream areas are operations research, constraint programming and satisfiability checking of propositional logic. A new development is the emergence of search systems based on expressive logics with origins in the area of knowledge representation that prove well-suited in knowledge-intense domains. This approach was pioneered by Answer Set Programming; now also systems based on extensions of first order logic (FO) are available. This project aims at contributing to the convergence between these fields by developing an expressive, principled and pragmatically convenient modelling logic that extends first order logic while also developing separate more solver dependent high level languages for specifying heuristic information. Furthermore it aims at developing a platform from where different solver technologies can be accessed and integrated with each other and at supporting the heuristic selection of the best solver technology for a given problem.