Belief Revision with Uncertain Inputs in the Possibilistic Setting

This paper discusses belief revision under uncertain inputs in the framework of possibility theory. Revision can be based on two possible definitions of the conditioning operation, one based on min operator which requires a purely ordinal scale only, and another based on product, for which a richer structure is needed, and which is a particular case of Dempster's rule of conditioning. Besides, revision under uncertain inputs can be understood in two different ways depending on whether the input is viewed, or not, as a constraint to enforce. Moreover, it is shown that M.A. Williams' transmutations, originally defined in the setting of Spohn's functions, can be captured in this framework, as well as Boutilier's natural revision.Comment: Appears in Proceedings of the Twelfth Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI1996

Towards the implementation of a preference-and uncertain-aware solver using answer set programming

Logic programs with possibilistic ordered disjunction (or LPPODs) are a recently defined logic-programming framework based on logic programs with ordered disjunction and possibilistic logic. The framework inherits the properties of such formalisms and merging them, it supports a reasoning which is nonmonotonic, preference-and uncertain-aware. The LPPODs syntax allows to specify 1) preferences in a qualitative way, and 2) necessity values about the certainty of program clauses. As a result at semantic level, preferences and necessity values can be used to specify an order among program solutions. This class of program therefore fits well in the representation of decision problems where a best option has to be chosen taking into account both preferences and necessity measures about information. In this paper we study the computation and the complexity of the LPPODs semantics and we describe the algorithm for its implementation following on Answer Set Programming approach. We describe some decision scenarios where the solver can be used to choose the best solutions by checking whether an outcome is possibilistically preferred over another considering preferences and uncertainty at the same time.Postprint (published version

Possibilistic reasoning with partially ordered beliefs

International audienceThis paper presents the extension of results on reasoning with totally ordered belief bases to the partially ordered case. The idea is to reason from logical bases equipped with a partial order expressing relative certainty and to construct a partially ordered deductive closure. The difficult point lies in the fact that equivalent definitions in the totally ordered case are no longer equivalent in the partially ordered one. At the syntactic level we can either use a language expressing pairs of related formulas and axioms describing the properties of the ordering, or use formulas with partially ordered symbolic weights attached to them in the spirit of possibilistic logic. A possible semantics consists in assuming the partial order on formulas stems from a partial order on interpretations. It requires the capability of inducing a partial order on subsets of a set from a partial order on its elements so as to extend possibility theory functions. Among different possible definitions of induced partial order relations, we select the one generalizing necessity orderings (closely related to epistemic entrenchments). We study such a semantic approach inspired from possibilistic logic, and show its limitations when relying on a unique partial order on interpretations. We propose a more general sound and complete approach to relative certainty, inspired by conditional modal logics, in order to get a partial order on the whole propositional language. Some links between several inference systems, namely conditional logic, modal epistemic logic and non-monotonic preferential inference are established. Possibilistic logic with partially ordered symbolic weights is also revisited and a comparison with the relative certainty approach is made via mutual translations

Characterizing and Extending Answer Set Semantics using Possibility Theory

Answer Set Programming (ASP) is a popular framework for modeling combinatorial problems. However, ASP cannot easily be used for reasoning about uncertain information. Possibilistic ASP (PASP) is an extension of ASP that combines possibilistic logic and ASP. In PASP a weight is associated with each rule, where this weight is interpreted as the certainty with which the conclusion can be established when the body is known to hold. As such, it allows us to model and reason about uncertain information in an intuitive way. In this paper we present new semantics for PASP, in which rules are interpreted as constraints on possibility distributions. Special models of these constraints are then identified as possibilistic answer sets. In addition, since ASP is a special case of PASP in which all the rules are entirely certain, we obtain a new characterization of ASP in terms of constraints on possibility distributions. This allows us to uncover a new form of disjunction, called weak disjunction, that has not been previously considered in the literature. In addition to introducing and motivating the semantics of weak disjunction, we also pinpoint its computational complexity. In particular, while the complexity of most reasoning tasks coincides with standard disjunctive ASP, we find that brave reasoning for programs with weak disjunctions is easier.Comment: 39 pages and 16 pages appendix with proofs. This article has been accepted for publication in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming, Copyright Cambridge University Pres

Practical Model-Based Diagnosis with Qualitative Possibilistic Uncertainty

An approach to fault isolation that exploits vastly incomplete models is presented. It relies on separate descriptions of each component behavior, together with the links between them, which enables focusing of the reasoning to the relevant part of the system. As normal observations do not need explanation, the behavior of the components is limited to anomaly propagation. Diagnostic solutions are disorders (fault modes or abnormal signatures) that are consistent with the observations, as well as abductive explanations. An ordinal representation of uncertainty based on possibility theory provides a simple exception-tolerant description of the component behaviors. We can for instance distinguish between effects that are more or less certainly present (or absent) and effects that are more or less certainly present (or absent) when a given anomaly is present. A realistic example illustrates the benefits of this approach.Comment: Appears in Proceedings of the Eleventh Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI1995