4 research outputs found
Metatheory of actions: beyond consistency
Consistency check has been the only criterion for theory evaluation in
logic-based approaches to reasoning about actions. This work goes beyond that
and contributes to the metatheory of actions by investigating what other
properties a good domain description in reasoning about actions should have. We
state some metatheoretical postulates concerning this sore spot. When all
postulates are satisfied together we have a modular action theory. Besides
being easier to understand and more elaboration tolerant in McCarthy's sense,
modular theories have interesting properties. We point out the problems that
arise when the postulates about modularity are violated and propose algorithmic
checks that can help the designer of an action theory to overcome them
What Is a Good Domain Description? Evaluating & Revising Action Theories in Dynamic Logic
Traditionally, consistency is the only criterion for the quality of a theory in logic-based approaches to reasoning about actions. This work goes beyond that and contributes to the meta-theory of actions by investigating what other properties a good domain description should satisfy. Having Propositional Dynamic Logic (PDL) as background, we state some meta-theoretical postulates concerning this sore spot. When all postulates are satisfied, we call the action theory modular. We point out the problems that arise when the postulates about modularity are violated, and propose algorithmic checks that can help the designer of an action theory to overcome them. Besides being easier to understand and more elaboration tolerant in McCarthy's sense, modular theorieshave interesting computational properties. Moreover, we also propose a framework for updating domain descriptions and show the importance modularity has in action theory change
Consistency of Action Descriptions
As a contribution to the metatheory of reasoning about actions, we present some characteristics of the consistency of action theories. Three levels of consistency are investigated for the evaluation of action descriptions: uniform consistency, consistency of formulas and regional consistency. The first two provide an intuitive resolution of problems of explanation conflicts and fluent dependency