Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Portuguese Conference on Artificial Intelligence

EPIA 1997: Progress in Artificial Intelligence pp 361–388Cite as

Reasoning about actions with abductive logic programming

  • Invited Talks
  • Conference paper
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 1323))

Abstract

In order to construct a computer-based system which can reason and act intelligently in the real world, we have to develop a computational but provably correct methodology and its related software system which can reason about actions and changes in dynamic domain. For this purpose we propose to use abductive logic programming paradigm as the computational mechanism. Technically, we make use of a simple, but extensible if needed, action description language to describe the domain in question. Then we use a sound and complete translation algorithm to transform domain descriptions into abductive logic programs. And thus reasoning about actions is reduced to abductive queries against abductive logic programs. In this paper we will only address three important issues: knowledge assimilation, refinement of action theories, and concurrent actions. For the task of knowledge assimilation we will introduce a formal and computational methodology, called the possible causes approach, in contrast to Ginsberg's possible worlds approach and Winslett's possible models approach. For the refinement of a possibly incomplete action theory, we use tests on the domain, and then abductively refine the original domain description to a new one which is closer to the domain in reality. For concurrent actions, we introduce a new semantics by using three-valued fluents to resolve conflicts among atomic actions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. C. Alchorrón, P. Gärdenfors, and D. Makinson. On the logic of theory change: Partial meet contraction and revision functions. Journal of Symbolic Logic, 50(2):510–530, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  2. J. J. Alferes, C. V. Damásio, and L. M. Pereira. SLX — a top-down derivation procedure for programs with explicit negation. In M. Bruynooghe, editor, International Logic Programming Symposium. MIT Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  3. J. J. Alferes, R. Li, and L. M. Pereira. Non-atomic actions in the situation calculus. In N. Mamede and C. Pinto-Ferreira, editors, Progress in Artificial Intelligence, LNAI 990, pages 273–284. Springer, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  4. J. J. Alferes and L.M. Pereira. Reasoning with Logic Programming, LNAI 1111. Springer, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  5. K. R. Apt and M. Bezem. Acyclic programs. In Proc. of ICLP 90, pages 579–597. MIT Press, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  6. A. B. Baker. Nonmonotonic reasoning in the framework of situation calculus. Artificial Intelligence, 49:5–23, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  7. C. Baral and M. Gelfond. Representing concurrent actions in extended logic progranuning. In Proc. of IJCAI'93, pages 866–871. Morgan Kaufmann, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  8. L. Console, D. T. Dupré, and P. Torasso. On the relationship between abduction and deduction. Journal of Logic and Computation, 1(5):661–690, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  9. C. V. Damásio, L.M. Pereira, and W. Nejdl. Revise: An extended logic programming system for revising knowledge bases. In Proc. of KR'94, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  10. M. Denecker. Knowledge representation and reasoning in incomplete logic programming. Ph.D. thesis, Department of Computer Science, K.U.Leuven, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  11. M. Denecker and D. De Schreye. SLDNFA: an abductive procedure for normal abductive programs. In K. R. Apt, editor, Logic Programming: Proc. of 1992 Int'l Joint Conference and Symposium, pages 686–700. MIT Press, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  12. M. Denecker and D. de Schreye. Representing incomplete knowledge in abductive logic programming. In Logic Programming: Proc. of the 1993 Int'l Symposium, pages 147–163. MIT Press, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  13. M. Gelfond and V. Lifschitz. The stable model semantics for logic programming. In R. Kowalski and K. Bowen, editors, Proc. of 5th Logic Programming Symposium, pages 1070–1080. MIT Press, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  14. M. Gelfond and V. Lifschitz. Representing action and change by logic programs. Journal of Logic Programming, 17:301–322, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  15. M. Gelfond, V. Lifschitz, and A. Rabinov. What are the limitations of the situation calculus? In R. Moore, editor, Automated Reasoning: Essays in Honor of Woody Bledsoe, pages 167–179. 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  16. M. Ginsberg. Counterfactuals. Artificial Intelligence, 30(1):35–79, 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  17. A.C. Kakas and P. Mancarella. Generalized stable models: A semantics for abduction. In Proc. of ECAI'90, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  18. G.N. Kartha. Soundness and completeness theorems for three formalizations of action. In Proc. IJCAI93, pages 712–718. MIT Press, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  19. R.A. Kowalski and F. Sadri. The situation calculus and event calculus compared. In Proc. of ILPS 94, pages 539–553. MIT Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  20. R. Li and L.M. Pereira. Knowledge assimilation in domains of actions: A possible causes approach. Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logic, Special issue on Inconsistency Handling in Knowledge Systems (guest editor: G. Wagner), 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  21. R. Li and L.M. Pereira. Knowledge-based situated agents among us. In J. P. Muller, M. J. Wooldridge, and N. R. Jennings, editors, Intelligent Agents III — Proc. of the Third International Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL-96), LNAI 1193, pages 375–389. Springer, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  22. F. Lin and Y. Shoham. Provably correct theories of actions: preliminary report. In Proc. of AAAI-91, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  23. F. Lin and Y. Shoham. Concurrent actions in the situation calculus. In Proc. of AAAI-92, pages 590–595, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  24. J. McCarthy and P.J. Hayes. Some philosophical problems from the stand-point of artificial intelligence. In B. Meltzer and D. Michie, editors, Machine Intelligence, volume 4, pages 463–502, Edinburgh, 1969.

    Google Scholar 

  25. E. P. D. Pednault. Adl: Exploring the middle ground between strips and the situation calculus. In R. J. Brachman, H. Levesque, and R. Reiter, editors, Proc. of KR'89, pages 324–332. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  26. L. M. Pereira and J. J. Alferes. Well-founded semantics for logic programs with explicit negation. In B. Neumann, editor, Proc. of ECAI'92, pages 102–106. John Wiley & Sons, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  27. L. M. Pereira, J. J. Alferes, and J. N. Aparfcio. Nonmonotonic reasoning with well founded semantics. In K. Furukawa, editor, Proc. of 8th ICLP, pages 475–489. MIT Press, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  28. R. Reiter. The frame problem in the situation calculus: A simple solution (sometimes) and a completeness result for goal regression. In V. Lifschitz, editor, Artificial Intelligence and Mathematical Theory of Computation: Papers in Honor of John McCarthy, pages 359–380. Academic Press, San Diego, CA, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  29. E. Sandewall. Features and Fluents: The Representation of Knowledge about Dynamic Systems, Vol. 1. Oxford University Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  30. K. Satoh and N. Iwayama. A query evaluation method for abductive logic programming. In K. R. Apt, editor, Logic Programming: Proc. of 1992 Int'l Joint Conference and Symposium, pages 671–685, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  31. A. Van Gelder, K. Ross, and J.S. Schlipf. The well founded semantics for general logic programs. J. ACM, 38:620–650, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  32. M. Winslett. Reasoning about action using a possible models approach. In AAAI'88, pages 89–93, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro de Inteligência Artificial, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2825, Monte de Caparica, Portugal

    Luís Moniz Pereira & Renwei Li

Authors
  1. Luís Moniz Pereira
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Renwei Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Ernesto Coasta Amilcar Cardoso

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Pereira, L.M., Li, R. (1997). Reasoning about actions with abductive logic programming. In: Coasta, E., Cardoso, A. (eds) Progress in Artificial Intelligence. EPIA 1997. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1323. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0023940

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0023940

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-63586-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-69605-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation