Craig interpolation for networks of sentences

The Craig Interpolation Theorem can be viewed as saying that in first order logic, two agents who can only communicate in their common language can cooperate in building proofs. We obtain generalizations of the Craig Interpolation Theorem for finite sets of agents with the following properties. (1) The agents are vertices of a directed graph. (2) The agents have knowledge bases with overlapping signatures. (3) The agents can only communicate by sending to neighboring agents sentences that they know and that are in the common language of the two agents

Connecting big data with big decisions: Ideas for synthesizing analytics and decision analysis

This paper describes an approach to connect decision analysis models with outputs of analytic methods applied to various types of big data. Decision analysis models focus on issues of concern to a decision maker and incorporate use of a range of methods and axioms to develop insights about what the decision maker should do. In particular, decision analysis models typically use subjective judgments from the decision maker to describe beliefs about the likelihood of events and the desirability of outcomes. In order for human judgments to be improved by the availability of large amounts of data and processing power, it is necessary to define the right variables to interpolate between the data source and the decision model. Several applications are reviewed and suggest a more general approach

Observing, reporting, and deciding in networks of sentences

In prior work we considered networks of agents who prove facts from their knowledge bases and report them to their neighbors in their common languages in order to help a decider verify a single sentence. In report complete networks, the signatures of the agents and the links between agents are rich enough to verify any decider\u27s sentence that can be proved from the combined knowledge base. This paper introduces a more general setting where new observations may be added to knowledge bases and the decider must choose a sentence from a set of alternatives. We consider the question of when it is possible to prepare in advance a finite plan to generate reports within the network. We obtain conditions under which such a plan exists and is guaranteed to produce the right choice under any new observations