Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Handling Locally Stratified Inconsistent Knowledge Bases

  • Published:
Studia Logica Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper investigates the idea of reasoning, in a local (or contextual) way, under prioritized and possibly inconsistent knowledge bases. Priorities are not supposed to be given globally between all the beliefs in the knowledge base, but locally inside sets of pieces of information responsible for inconsistencies. This local stratification offers more flexibility for representing priorities between beliefs. Given this local ordering, we discuss five basic definitions of influence relations between conflicts. These elementary notions of influence between two conflicts A and B exhaustively explore the situations where solving A leads to solve B. Then we propose natural approaches to restore the coherence of a knowledge base on the basis of influence relations between locally-stratified conflicts.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Alchourron, C., P. Gärdenfors and D. Makinson. On the logic of theory change: partial meet contraction and revision functions. J. of Symb. Logic, 50, 1985.

  • Amgoud, L., and C. Cayrol. On the acceptability of arguments in preference-based argumentation. Proceedings of 14th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI'98), 1-7, 1998.

  • Amgoud, L., and C. Cayrol. A reasoning model based on the production of acceptable arguments. 8th Int. Workshop on Non-Monotonic Reasoning (NMR'2000), 2000.

  • Benferhat, S., C. Cayrol, D. Dubois, J. Lang and H. Prade. Inconsistency management and prioritized syntax-based entailment. Proceedings of 13th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI'93), 640-645, 1993.

  • Benferhat, S., D. Dubois and H. Prade. Representing default rules in possibilistic logic. Proceedings of 3rd International Conference of Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR'92), 673-684, 1992.

  • Benferhat, S., D. Dubois and H. Prade. How to infer from inconsistent beliefs without revising? Proc. of 14th Int. Joint Conf. on Artif. Intelligence (IJCAI'95), 1995.

  • Benferhat, S., D. Dubois, J. Lang, H. Prade, A. Saffiotti and P. Smets. A general approach for inconsistency handling and merging information in prioritized knowledge bases. Proceedings of 6th International Conference of Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR'98), 466-477, 1998.

  • Benferhat, S., and L. Garcia. A local handling of inconsistent knowledge and default bases. Applications of Uncertainty Formalisms, LNAI State-of-the-Art Survey, LNAI 1455, 325-353, 1998.

  • Besnard, P., and A. Hunter. Quasi-classical logic: non-trivializable classical reasoning from inconsistent information. Proc. of ECSQARU'95, LNAI 946, 44-51, 1995.

  • Brewka, G. Preferred subtheories: an extended logical framework for default reasoning. Proceedings of 11th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI'89), 1043-1048, 1989.

  • Brewka, G. Reasoning about priorities in default logic. Proceedings of National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI'94), 940-945, 1994.

  • Castell, T., C. Cayrol, M. Cayrol and D. Le Berre. Using the Davis and Putnam procedure for an efficient computation of preferred models. Proceedings of 12th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI'96), 1996.

  • Cayrol, C., V. Royer and C. Saurel. Managements of preferences in assumption-based reasoning. Advanced Methods in Artificial Intelligence, LNCS 682, 13-22, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cholvy, L. Automated reasoning with merged contradictory information whose reliability depends on topics. Proceedings of ECSQARU'95, LNAI 946, 1995.

  • Cholvy, L., and T. Hunter. Information fusion in logic: a brief overview. Proc. of Qual. and Quant. Practical Reasoning (ECSQARU'97), LNAI 1244, 86-95, 1997.

  • Da Costa, N. C. A. Calcul propositionnel pour les systèmes formels inconsistants. Compte Rendu Académie des Sciences (Paris), 257:3790-3792, 1963.

    Google Scholar 

  • Damasio, C. V., and L. M. Pereira. A paraconsistent semantics with contradiction support detection. Proceedings of 4th Conference on Logic Programming and NonMonotonic Reasoning (LPNMR'97), LNAI 1265, 224-243, 1997.

  • Davis, M., and H. Putnam. A computing procedure for quantification theory. Journal of the Assoc. for Computing Machinery, 7:201-215. 1960.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Kleer, J. Local methods for localizing faults in electronic circuits, MIT AI Memo 394, 1976.

  • De Kleer, J. An assumption-based TMS. Artificial Intelligence, 28:127-162, 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Kleer, J. Using crude probability estimates to guide diagnosis. Artificial Intelligence, 45, 1990.

  • Dubois, D., J. Lang and H. Prade. Possibilistic logic. Handbook of Logic in Artificial Intelligence and Logic Programming, Vol3:439-513, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dung, P. M. On the acceptability of arguments and its fundamental role in non-monotonic reasoning, logic programming and n-person games. Artificial Intelligence, 77:321-357. 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dupin de Saint-Cyr, F., J. Lang and T. Schiex. Penalty logic and its link with Dempster-Shafer theory. Proceedings of the 10th Conf. on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI'94), 204-211, 1994.

  • Garcia, L. Raisonnement local dans les bases de connaissances ordonnées: Applications au traitement des incohérences et au raisonnement plausible, PhD Thesis. Université Paul. Sabatier, Toulouse, France, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gärdenfors, P. Knowledge in flux — Modeling the dynamic of epistemic states, MIT Press, 1988.

  • Lehmann, D. Another perspective on default reasoning. Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence, 15:61-82, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moulin, H. Axioms of cooperative decision making, Wiley, New York, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nebel, B. Base revision operator and schemes: semantics representation and complexity. Proc. of 11th European Conf. on Artif. Intelligence (ECAI'94), 1994.

  • Papini, O. A complete revision function in propositional calculus. Proceedings of 10th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI'92), 1992.

  • Pearl, J. System Z: a natural ordering of defaults with tractable applications to default reasoning. Proceedings of the 3rd Conference on Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about Knowledge (TARK'90), 121-135, 1990.

  • Provan, G. M. The computational complexity of assumption-based truth maintenance systems. Tech. Report, Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reiter, R. A theory of diagnosis from first principles. Artif. Intelligence, 41, 1987.

  • Rescher, N. Plausible reasoning: An introduction to the theory and practice of plausibilistic inference, 1976.

  • Roos, N. A logic for reasoning with inconsistent knowledge. Artif. Intell., 57, 1992.

  • Tessier, C., L. Chaudron and H. J. Müller (eds). Conflicting Agents — Conflict management in multi-agent systems, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000.

  • Toulmin, S. The uses of argument, Cambridge University Press, 1956.

  • Wassermann, R. An Algorithm for Belief Revision. Proc. of 7th International Conf. of Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR'2000), 2000.

  • Williams, M.-A. Transmutations of Knowledge Systems. Proc. of 4th International Conf. of Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR'94), 1994.

  • Williams, M.-A. A practical approach to belief revision: reason-based change. Proceedings of 5th International Conference of Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR'96), 412-421, 1996.

  • Wurbel, E., O. Papini and R. Jeansoulin. Revision: an application in the framework of GIS. Proceedings of 7th International Conference of Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR'2000), 505-515, 2000.

  • Yang, Q. A theory of conflict resolution in planning. Artificial Intelligence, 58:361-392, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse (IRIT), Université Paul Sabatier, 118, route de Narbonne, 31065, Toulouse Cedex, France

    Salem Benferhat

  2. Laboratoire d'Études et de Recherche en Informatique d'Angers (LERIA), Université d'Angers, 2, boulevard Lavoisier, 49045, Angers Cedex 01, France

    Laurent Garcia

Authors
  1. Salem Benferhat
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Laurent Garcia
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Benferhat, S., Garcia, L. Handling Locally Stratified Inconsistent Knowledge Bases. Studia Logica 70, 77–104 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014606325783

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014606325783

Search

Navigation