Approaches to abductive reasoning : an overview

Abduction is a form of non-monotonic reasoning that has gained increasing interest in the last few years. The key idea behind it can be represented by the following inference rule frac{varphirightarrowomega,}{varphi}omega, i.e., from an occurrence of omega and the rule "varphi implies omega';, infer an occurrence of varphi as a plausible hypothesis or explanation for omega. Thus, in contrast to deduction, abduction is as well as induction a form of "defeasible'; inference, i.e., the formulae sanctioned are plausible and submitted to verification. In this paper, a formal description of current approaches is given. The underlying reasoning process is treated independently and divided into two parts. This includes a description of methods for hypotheses generation and methods for finding the best explanations among a set of possible ones. Furthermore, the complexity of the abductive task is surveyed in connection with its relationship to default reasoning. We conclude with the presentation of applications of the discussed approaches focusing on plan recognition and plan generation

Using Extended Logic Programs to Formalize Commonsense Reasoning

In this dissertation, we investigate how commonsense reasoning can be formalized by using extended logic programs. In this investigation, we first use extended logic programs to formalize inheritance hierarchies with exceptions by adopting McCarthy's simple abnormality formalism to express uncertain knowledge. In our representation, not only credulous reasoning can be performed but also the ambiguity-blocking inheritance and the ambiguity-propagating inheritance in skeptical reasoning are simulated. In response to the anomalous extension problem, we explore and discover that the intuition underlying commonsense reasoning is a kind of forward reasoning. The unidirectional nature of this reasoning is applied by many reformulations of the Yale shooting problem to exclude the undesired conclusion. We then identify defeasible conclusions in our representation based on the syntax of extended logic programs. A similar idea is also applied to other formalizations of commonsense reasoning to achieve such a purpose

LDS - Labelled Deductive Systems: Volume 1 - Foundations

Traditional logics manipulate formulas. The message of this book is to manipulate pairs; formulas and labels. The labels annotate the formulas. This sounds very simple but it turned out to be a big step, which makes a serious difference, like the difference between using one hand only or allowing for the coordinated use of two hands. Of course the idea has to be made precise, and its advantages and limitations clearly demonstrated. `Precise' means a good mathematical definition and `advantages demonstrated' means case studies and applications in pure logic and in AI. To achieve that we need to address the following: \begin{enumerate} \item Define the notion of {\em LDS}, its proof theory and semantics and relate it to traditional logics. \item Explain what form the traditional concepts of cut elimination, deduction theorem, negation, inconsistency, update, etc.\ take in {\em LDS}. \item Formulate major known logics in {\em LDS}. For example, modal and temporal logics, substructural logics, default, nonmonotonic logics, etc. \item Show new results and solve long-standing problems using {\em LDS}. \item Demonstrate practical applications. \end{enumerate} This is what I am trying to do in this book. Part I of the book is an intuitive presentation of {\em LDS} in the context of traditional current views of monotonic and nonmonotonic logics. It is less oriented towards the pure logician and more towards the practical consumer of logic. It has two tasks, addressed in two chapters. These are: \begin{itemlist}{Chapter 1:} \item [Chapter1:] Formally motivate {\em LDS} by starting from the traditional notion of `What is a logical system' and slowly adding features to it until it becomes essentially an {\em LDS}. \item [Chapter 2:] Intuitively motivate {\em LDS} by showing many examples where labels are used, as well as some case studies of familiar logics (e.g.\ modal logic) formulated as an {\em LDS}. \end{itemlist} The second part of the book presents the formal theory of {\em LDS} for the formal logician. I have tried to avoid the style of definition-lemma-theorem and put in some explanations. What is basically needed here is the formulation of the mathematical machinery capable of doing the following. \begin{itemize} \item Define {\em LDS} algebra, proof theory and semantics. \item Show how an arbitrary (or fairly general) logic, presented traditionally, say as a Hilbert system or as a Gentzen system, can be turned into an {\em LDS} formulation. \item Show how to obtain a traditional formulations (e.g.\ Hilbert) for an arbitrary {\em LDS} presented logic. \item Define and study major logical concepts intrinsic to {\em LDS} formalisms. \item Give detailed study of the {\em LDS} formulation of some major known logics (e.g.\ modal logics, resource logics) and demonstrate its advantages. \item Translate {\em LDS} into classical logic (reduce the `new' to the `old'), and explain {\em LDS} in the context of classical logic (two sorted logic, metalevel aspects, etc). \end{itemize} \begin{itemlist}{Chapter 1:} \item [Chapter 3:] Give fairly general definitions of some basic concepts of {\em LDS} theory, mainly to cater for the needs of the practical consumer of logic who may wish to apply it, with a detailed study of the metabox system. The presentation of Chapter 3 is a bit tricky. It may be too formal for the intuitive reader, but not sufficiently clear and elegant for the mathematical logician. I would be very grateful for comments from the readers for the next draft. \item [Chapter 4:] Presents the basic notions of algebraic {\em LDS}. The reader may wonder how come we introduce algebraic {\em LDS} in chapter 3 and then again in chapter 4. Our aim in chapter 3 is to give a general definition and formal machinery for the applied consumer of logic. Chapter 4 on the other hand studies {\em LDS} as formal logics. It turns out that to formulate an arbitrary logic as an {\em LDS} one needs some specific labelling algebras and these need to be studied in detail (chapter 4). For general applications it is more convenient to have general labelling algebras and possibly mathematically redundant formulations (chapter 3). In a sense chapter 4 continues the topic of the second section of chapter 3. \item [Chapter 5:] Present the full theory of {\em LDS} where labels can be databases from possibly another {\em LDS}. It also presents Fibred Semantics for {\em LDS}. \item [Chapter 6:] Presents a theory of quantifers for {\em LDS}. The material for this chapter is still under research. \item [Chapter 7:] Studies structured consequence relations. These are logical system swhere the structure is not described through labels but through some geometry like lists, multisets, trees, etc. Thus the label of a wff $A$ is implicit, given by the place of $A$ in the structure. \item [Chapter 8:] Deals with metalevel features of {\em LDS} and its translation into two sorted classical logic. \end{itemlist} Parts 3 and 4 of the book deals in detail with some specific families of logics. Chapters 9--11 essentailly deal with substructural logics and their variants. \begin{itemlist}{Chapter10:} \item [Chapter 9:] Studies resource and substructural logics in general. \item [Chapter 10:] Develops detailed proof theory for some systems as well as studying particular features such as negation. \item [Chapter 11:] Deals with many valued logics. \item [Chapter 12:] Studies the Curry Howard formula as type view and how it compres with labelling. \item [Chapter 13:] Deals with modal and temporal logics. \end{itemlist} Part 5 of the book deals with {\em LDS} metatheory. \begin{itemlist}{Chapter15:} \item [Chapter 14:] Deals with labelled tableaux. \item [Chapter 15:] Deals with combining logics. \item [Chapter 16:] Deals with abduction. \end{itemlist

Extending negation as failure by abduction: a 3-valued stable model semantics

AbstractIn this paper, we propose a semantics for logic programs with negation as failure, the Finite Failure Stable Model semantics (FF-SM semantics), which is a three-valued extension of Gelfond and Lifschitz' Stable Model semantics. FF-SM semantics is defined in the style of Gelfond and Lifschitz Stable Model semantics, but it builds on an underlying Kripke/Kleene semantics, in which loops causing nonterminating computations are modeled by means of the truth-value undefined. It is different from the eXtended Stable Model (XSM) semantics defined by Przymusinski, since it does not capture infinite failure. We also introduce an abductive proof procedure which is an abductive extension of SLDNF-resolution based on the ideas underlying Eshghi and Kowalski's abductive procedure. We prove that our procedure is sound and complete with respect to FF-SM semantics. We compare the FF-SM semantics with the XSM semantics, and provide a reconstruction for it within the bilattice-based framework proposed by Fitting. In the paper, we deal with the propositional case