Analysing inconsistent information using distance-based measures

There have been a number of proposals for measuring inconsistency in a knowledgebase (i.e. a set of logical formulae). These include measures that consider the minimally inconsistent subsets of the knowledgebase, and measures that consider the paraconsistent models (3 or 4 valued models) of the knowledgebase. In this paper, we present a new approach that considers the amount by which each formula has to be weakened in order for the knowledgebase to be consistent. This approach is based on ideas of knowledge merging by Konienczny and Pino-Perez. We show that this approach gives us measures that are different from existing measures, that have desirable properties, and that can take the significance of inconsistencies into account. The latter is useful when we want to differentiate between inconsistencies that have minor significance from inconsistencies that have major significance. We also show how our measures are potentially useful in applications such as evaluating violations of integrity constraints in databases and for deciding how to act on inconsistency

Logical preference representation and combinatorial vote,

We introduce the notion of combinatorial vote, where a group of agents (or voters) is supposed to express preferences and come to a common decision concerning a set of nonindependent variables to assign. We study two key issues pertaining to combinatorial vote, namely preference representation and the automated choice of an optimal decision. For each of these issues, we briefly review the state of the art, we try to define the main problems to be solved and identify their computational complexity

Computational aspects of voting: a literature survey

Preference aggregation is a topic of study in different fields such as philosophy, mathematics, economics and political science. Recently, computational aspects of preference aggregation have gained especial attention and “computational politics” has emerged as a marked line of research in computer science with a clear concentration on voting protocols. The field of voting systems, rooted in social choice theory, has expanded notably in both depth and breadth in the last few decades. A significant amount of this growth comes from studies concerning the computational aspects of voting systems. This thesis comprehensively reviews the work on voting systems (from a computing perspective) by listing, classifying and comparing the results obtained by different researchers in the field. This survey covers a wide range of new and historical results yet provides a profound commentary on related work as individual studies and in relation to other related work and to the field in general. The deliverables serve as an overview where students and novice researchers in the field can start and also as a depository that can be referred to when searching for specific results. A comprehensive literature survey of the computational aspects of voting is a task that has not been undertaken yet and is initially realized here. Part of this research was dedicated to creating a web-depository that contains material and references related to the topic based on the survey. The purpose was to create a dynamic version of the survey that can be updated with latest findings and as an online practical reference