Denef and Loeser denned a map from the Grothendieck ring of sets definable in pseudo-finite fields to the Grothendieck ring of Chow motives, thus enabling to apply any cohomological invariant to these sets. We generalize this to perfect, pseudo algebraically closed fields with pro-cyclic Galois group.

In addition, we define some maps between different Grothendieck rings of definable sets which provide additional information, not contained in the associated motive. In particular we infer that the map of Denef-Loeser is not injective.

When restricted to proving formulas, the quantified propositional proof system is closely related to the theorems of Buss's theory . Namely, has polynomial-size proofs of the translations of theorems of , and proves that is sound. However, little is known about when proving more complex formulas. In this paper, we prove a witnessing theorem for similar in style to the KPT witnessing theorem for . This witnessing theorem is then used to show that proves is sound with respect to formulas. Note that unless the polynomial-time hierarchy collapses is the weakest theory in the S2 hierarchy for which this is true. The witnessing theorem is also used to show that is p-equivalent to a quantified version of extended-Frege for prenex formulas. This is followed by a proof that Gi, p-simulates with respect to all quantified propositional formulas. We finish by proving that S2 can be axiomatized by plus axioms stating that the cut-free version of is sound. All together this shows that the connection between and does not extend to more complex formulas.

In this paper we give a new proof of the characterization of the closed fragment of the provability logic of Heyting's Arithmetic. We also provide a characterization of the closed fragment of the provability logic of Heyting's Arithmetic plus Markov's Principle and Heyting's Arithmetic plus Primitive Recursive Markov's Principle.