The importance of transformations and normal forms in logic programming, and
generally in computer science, is well documented. This paper investigates
transformations and normal forms in the context of Defeasible Logic, a simple
but efficient formalism for nonmonotonic reasoning based on rules and
priorities. The transformations described in this paper have two main benefits:
on one hand they can be used as a theoretical tool that leads to a deeper
understanding of the formalism, and on the other hand they have been used in
the development of an efficient implementation of defeasible logic.Comment: 30 pages, 1 figur