Using Truth Maintenance Systems to Solve the Data Consistency Problem

Next generation reasoning systems will consist of several domain specific problem solvers that cooperate to solve a general problem. These problem solvers will need to use database systems to retrieve domain specific data and perhaps to communicate with each other. Given the dynamic nature of database systems we need to make sure that the data retrieved by a problem solver remains both consistent with the data in the database and the data retrieved by other problem solvers throughout the problem solving process. The solution we discuss here involves use of Truth-Maintenancebased problem solvers and active database system(s). 1 Introduction Next generation reasoning systems will be based on distributed domain specific problem solvers that cooperate to solve a more general problem. These problem solvers could use one or more database systems to both retrieve somedomain specific data and to communicate with each other. The main problem addressed in this paper is the data consistency prob..