Specification and Implementation of Programs for Updating Incomplete Information Databases (Preliminary Report)
Summary: Frames updates of incomplete-information (logical) databases as a programming problem and introduces BLU (a five-primitive core) plus HLU (a user-level language), with formal denotational semantics. Develops possible-worlds and clausal semantics, proves clausal correct as an implementation of possible-worlds, establishes BLU as a semantically complete primitive layer for update-language implementation, and identifies masking as a necessary primitive, implying inherent complexity in updating logical databases. (summarized by gpt-5-mini on Feb 09 2026)
Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time
Authors
- 1. Stephen J Hegner (University of Vermont)
BibTeX Citation
@inproceedings{hegner_pods87,
address = {New York, NY, USA},
series = {{PODS} '87},
title = {{Specification and Implementation of Programs for Updating Incomplete Information Databases (Preliminary Report)}},
url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/28659.28675},
doi = {10.1145/28659.28675},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the {ACM} {SIGMOD} Symposium on {Principles} of {Database} {Systems}},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
author = {Hegner, Stephen J},
year = {1987}
}Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)
Showing 1 of 1 citing papers.
| Rank | Citing Paper | Year | Venue | Pagerank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13,439 | A Framework for Comparison of Update Semantics (Extended Abstract) | 1988 | PODS | 4.9793485e-05 |
Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)
Showing 2 of 2 cited papers.
Citations counted here include only citations to other VLDB/SIGMOD/CIDR/PODS papers in this database.
| Rank | Cited Paper | Year | Venue | Pagerank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2,459 | Update Semantics for Incomplete Databases | 1985 | VLDB | 8.4353518e-05 |
| 6,857 | A Model-Theoretic Approach to Updating Logical Databases (Extended Abstract) | 1986 | PODS | 5.6640089e-05 |
Semantically Similar Papers
| # | Overall Rank | Paper | Year | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3,185 | Language Constructs for Programming Active Databases | 1991 | VLDB |
| 2 | 1,767 | A Transaction Language Complete for Database Update and Specification | 1987 | PODS |
| 3 | 13,421 | Declarative Expression of Deductive Database Updates | 1989 | PODS |
| 4 | 13,342 | A Logical Semantics for Object-Oriented Databases | 1993 | SIGMOD |
| 5 | 13,382 | Updates in a Rule-Based Language for Objects | 1992 | VLDB |
| 6 | 7,682 | Database Updates in Logic Programming | 1988 | PODS |
| 7 | 619 | On the Semantics of Updates in Databases | 1983 | PODS |
| 8 | 13,439 | A Framework for Comparison of Update Semantics (Extended Abstract) | 1988 | PODS |
| 9 | 6,857 | A Model-Theoretic Approach to Updating Logical Databases (Extended Abstract) | 1986 | PODS |
| 10 | 2,459 | Update Semantics for Incomplete Databases | 1985 | VLDB |