Logic began as the science of valid inference and related topics. It gradually underwent profound changes, widening its initial scope and transforming itself into a mathematical discipline. Today it is a basic science, full of significant concepts and involved results (Goedel's theorems, the theory of forcing, forking, the mathematics of Solovay, etc.) but its main value has always been theoretical.

However, in the twentieth century, logic finally found a number of important applications and originated various new areas of research, especially after the development of computing and the progress of the correlated domains of knowledge (artificial intelligence, robotics, automata, logical programming, hyper-computation, etc.). This happened not only in the field of classical logics, but also in the general field of non classical logics. This reveals an interesting trait of the history of logic: despite its theoretical character, it constitutes, at present, an extraordinarily important tool in all domains of knowledge, in the same way as philosophy, mathematics, natural science, the humanities and technology. Moreover, certain new logics were inspired by the needs of specific areas of knowledge, and various new techniques and methods have been created, in part influenced and guided by logical views.

This book contains papers on relevant technological applications of logical methods and some of their extensions, including: annotated logic and expert systems, fuzzy dynamical models, adaptive devices, intelligent automaton vehicles, cellular automata, information systems and temporal logic, paraconsistent robotics, dynamic virtual environments and multiobjective evolutionary search, cable routing problems, and reinforcement of learning. All papers are well summarized in their abstracts.

This collection of papers gives a clear idea of some current applications of logical (and similar) methods to numerous problems, including relevant new concepts and results, in particular those related to paraconsistent logic. It will be of interest to a wide audience: pure logicians, applied logicians, mathematicians, philosophers and engineers.

September, 2008

Newton C.A. da Costa