Computing Strongest Necessary and Weakest Sufficient Conditions of First-Order Formulas

A technique is proposed for computing the weakest sufficient (wsc) and strongest necessary (snc) conditions for formulas in an expressive fragment of first-order logic using quantifier elimination techniques. The efficacy of the approach is demonstrated by using the techniques to compute snc's and wsc's for use in agent communication applications, theory approximation and generation of abductive hypotheses. Additionally, we generalize recent results involving the generation of successor state axioms in the propositional situation calculus via snc's to the first-order case. Subsumption results for existing approaches to this problem and a re-interpretation of the concept of forgetting as a process of quantifier elimination are also provided.