Jack Minker

Professor Emeritus Jack Minker is a leading authority in artificial intelligence, deductive databases, logic programming and nonmonotonic reasoning. He is also an internationally recognized leader in the field of human rights for computer scientists.
Minker joined the university in 1967. He was founding chair of the Department of Computer Science from 1974 to 1979. During his tenure as chair, the department ranked among the top 12 computer science departments in the U.S. and the top six state universities. Minker is also among the first members of UMIACS.
He was chair of the Advisory Committee on Computing to the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 1980 to 1982. His committee was instrumental in computer science being represented as its own discipline at NSF.
Minker is editor or co-editor of five books on deductive databases, logic programming, and the use of logic in artificial intelligence. He has authored more than 150 refereed publications consisting of journal articles, conference papers and book chapters.
Minker is a founder of deductive and disjunctive deductive databases. He developed the first result in disjunctive databases, the Generalized Closed World Assumption (GCWA), for negated data. He is a founder of disjunctive logic programming, used in artificial intelligence and knowledge representation and reasoning.
Minker has performed extensive service for the scientific community. Among these activities, he was a member of the NASA Robotics Study Group, which made recommendations to NASA for robotics activities in support of space missions.
He served the ACM in many capacities, notably as national program chair from 1968 to 1970; program chair, 1967 National ACM Conference; and vice-chair, Committee on Scientific Freedom and Human Rights (SFHR) from 1980 to 1989.
Minker is on the editorial board of numerous prestigious journals, and is founding editor-in-chief of the Theory and Practice of Logic Programming. In SFHR, he has been vice-chair, computer science, of the Committee of Concerned Scientists since 1972/1973. As vice-chair, CSFHR, his reports in the Communications of the ACM listed more than 300 computer professionals in the world whose SFHR had been violated.
Minker retired in 1998 and still performs research and service. His book, "Scientific Freedom and Human Rights: Scientists of Conscience During the Cold War," was published in 2012. He was invited to present lectures at international conferences in 2007, 2009 and 2010.
Minker received his doctorate in mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1959.
Go here to view Minker‘s academic publications.
Publications
2012
2012. Scientific Freedom and Human Rights. :564.
2011
2011. Homage to Michael Gelfond on His 65 th Birthday. Logic programming, knowledge representation, and nonmonotonic reasoning. :1-11.
2007
2007. Deductive Databases. Wiley Encyclopedia of Computer Science and EngineeringWiley Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering.
2007. Developing a Computer Science Department at the University of Maryland. Annals of the History of Computing, IEEE. 29(4):64-75.
2007. COMPUTING PERFECT AND STABLE MODELS USING ORDERED MODEL TREES. Computational Intelligence. 11(1):89-112.
2007. Forming a Computer Science Center at the University of Maryland. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. 29(1):49-64.
2003
2003. In Memoriam: Raymond Reiter. AI Magazine. 24(1):13-13.
2002
2002. A logic-based approach to data integration. Theory Pract. Log. Program.. 2(3):323-368.
2002. Disjunctive logic programming: A survey and assessment. Computational Logic: Logic Programming and Beyond. :171-197.
2000
2000. Logic-based query optimization for object databases. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering. 12(4):529-547.
2000. Introduction to logic-based artificial intelligence. Logic-based artificial intelligenceLogic-based artificial intelligence. :3-33.
1999
1999. The Workshop on Logic-Based Artificial Intelligence. AI Magazine. 20(4):97-97.
1999. Logic and databases: a 20 year retrospective-updated in honor of Ray Reiter. Logical Foundations for Cognitive Agents: Contributions in Honor of Ray Reiter. :234-299.
1998
1998. An overview of cooperative answering in databases. Flexible Query Answering Systems. :282-285.
1998. Semantics for Disjunctive and Normal Disjunctive Logic Programs. Handbook of logic in artificial intelligence and logic programming. 5:325-325.
1998. Integrity constraints: Semantics and applications. Logics for databases and information systems. :265-306.
1998. Logic knowledge bases with two default rules. Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence. 22(3):333-361.
1997
1997. Model generation and state generation for disjunctive logic programs. The Journal of Logic Programming. 32(1):49-69.
1997. Semantic query optimization for object databases. Data Engineering, 1997. Proceedings. 13th International Conference on. :444-453.
1997. Combining Closed World Assumptions with Stable Negation. Fundamenta Informaticae. 32(2):163-181.
1997. A characterization of the partial stable models for disjunctive deductive databases. Logic programming: proceedings of the 1997 International Symposium. :245-245.
1997. Logic and Databases Past, Present, and Future. AI Magazine. 18(3):21-21.
1997. Semantic query optimization for object databases. Data Engineering, 1997. Proceedings. 13th International Conference on. :444-453.
1996
1996. Using priorities to combine knowledge bases. International Journal of Cooperative Information Systems. 5(2):333-333.
1996. Mixing a default rule with stable negation. Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics. :122-125.
1996. Logic and databases: A 20 year retrospective. Logic in Databases. :1-57.
1996. Semantic query optimization for bottom-up evaluation. Foundations of Intelligent Systems. :561-571.
1996. Disjunctive deductive databases: Semantics, updates and architecture. Proceedings of the 4th Bar-Ilan Symposium on Foundations of AI. :256-274.
1996. Model theoretic approach to view updates in deductive databases. Journal of Automated Reasoning. 17(2):171-197.
1995
1995. Computing stable and partial stable models of extended disjunctive logic programs. Non-Monotonic Extensions of Logic Programming. :205-229.
1995. Combining databases with prioritized information. Journal of Intelligent Information Systems. 4(3):231-260.
1995. Bottom-up computation of perfect models for disjunctive theories. The Journal of logic programming. 25(1):33-51.
1986
1986. A Parallel Self-Modifying Default Reasoning System. AAAI. :923-927.
1986. Completeness results for circumscription. Artificial Intelligence. 28(1):29-42.
1985
1985. Computing protected circumscription. The Journal of Logic Programming. 2(4):235-249.
1984
1984. Protected circumscription. Proc. Workshop on Non-Monotonic Reasoning. :337-343.