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A negative rule premise interpreted through a specified rule semantics rather than as an independently asserted classical negative fact. Stable model semantics evaluates such premises through a candidate interpretation and its stable model reduct.

A Herbrand interpretation $I$ is a stable model when it is the least Herbrand model of its stable model reduct ${\mathcal{K}}^I$. To form the reduct, ground the rules, delete each rule with a premise $\mathrm{not}A$ for which $A\in I$, and remove the remaining occurrences of not and their atoms.

For ${\mathcal{I}}_1$, the rules concerning $N$ in the reduct aretogether with $Year(N)$. No rule has a divisibility atom in its head, so forward chaining produces no divisibility facts and no leap fact. Ground rules for the other constants cannot fire because their year premises are absent. ThusTherefore $\boxed{{\mathcal{I}}_1\text{ is stable}}$.

For ${\mathcal{I}}_2$, the rule using $\mathrm{not}DivisibleBy(N,100)$ is deleted. The common-year rule is retained without its negative premise, since $Leap(N)$ is absent. Crucially, the reduct does not convert atoms already in ${\mathcal{I}}_2$ into facts. Its least Herbrand model is again $\{Year(N),Common(N)\}$. The two divisibility atoms in ${\mathcal{I}}_2$ have no support. Hence

Inspecting these two interpretations alone is not sufficient for skeptical entailment. That requires every stable model to contain $Common(N)$. Here we can finish the argument: every reduct has no rule deriving divisibility atoms, so every stable model has empty divisibility relation. Its leap relation must then be empty as well. The common-year rule consequently derives $Common(N)$, and the only year fact is $Year(N)$. Thus ${\mathcal{I}}_1$ is the unique stable model, andThis final uniqueness argument, rather than the examination of just two candidate interpretations, establishes the required universal claim.

A semantics in which an interpretation must equal the least Herbrand model of its own stable model reduct. Some programs have no stable model, and others have several.