Structures of opposition induced by relations:the Boolean and the gradual cases

International audienceThe paper shows that a cube of opposition, a structure that generalizes the square of opposition invented in ancient logic, can be generated from the composition of a binary relation with a subset, by the effect of set complementation on the subset, on the relation, or on the result of the composition. Since the composition of relations is encountered in many areas, the structure of opposition exhibited by the cube of opposition has a universal flavor. In particular, it applies to information processing-oriented settings such as rough set theory, possibility theory, or formal concept analysis. We then discuss how this structure extends to a fuzzy relation and a fuzzy subset, and the graded cube of opposition thus obtained provides an organized view of the different existing compositions of fuzzy relations. The paper concludes by pointing out areas of research where the cube of opposition, or its graded version are of interest

Representations of Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence: Probability and Possibility

International audienceDue to its major focus on knowledge representation and reasoning, artificial intelligence was bound to deal with various frameworks for the handling of uncertainty: probability theory, but more recent approaches as well: possibility theory, evidence theory, and imprecise probabilities. The aim of this chapter is to provide an introductive survey that lays bare specific features of two basic frameworks for representing uncertainty: probability theory and possibility theory, while highlighting the main issues that the task of representing uncertainty is faced with. This purpose also provides the opportunity to position related topics, such as rough sets and fuzzy sets, respectively motivated by the need to account for the granularity of representations as induced by the choice of a language, and the gradual nature of natural language predicates. Moreover, this overview includes concise presentations of yet other theoretical representation frameworks such as formal concept analysis, conditional events and ranking functions, and also possibilistic logic, in connection with the uncertainty frameworks addressed here. The next chapter in this volume is devoted to more complex frameworks: belief functions and imprecise probabilities