Knowledge Representation And Reasoning Under Uncertainty

Knowledge Representation and Reasoning Under Uncertainty

This volume is based on the International Conference Logic at Work, held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in December 1992. The 14 papers in this volume are selected from 86 submissions and 8 invited contributions and are all devoted to knowledge representation and reasoning under uncertainty, which are core issues of formal artificial intelligence. Nowadays, logic is not any longer mainly associated to mathematical and philosophical problems. The term applied logic has a far wider meaning, as numerous applications of logical methods, particularly in computer science, artificial intelligence, or formal linguistics, testify. As demonstrated also in this volume, a variety of non-standard logics gained increased importance for knowledge representation and reasoning under uncertainty.

Uncertainty and Vagueness in Knowledge Based Systems

The primary aim of this monograph is to provide a formal framework for the representation and management of uncertainty and vagueness in the field of artificial intelligence. It puts particular emphasis on a thorough analysis of these phenomena and on the development of sound mathematical modeling approaches. Beyond this theoretical basis the scope of the book includes also implementational aspects and a valuation of existing models and systems. The fundamental ambition of this book is to show that vagueness and un certainty can be handled adequately by using measure-theoretic methods. The presentation of applicable knowledge representation formalisms and reasoning algorithms substantiates the claim that efficiency requirements do not necessar ily require renunciation of an uncompromising mathematical modeling. These results are used to evaluate systems based on probabilistic methods as well as on non-standard concepts such as certainty factors, fuzzy sets or belief functions. The book is intended to be self-contained and addresses researchers and practioneers in the field of knowledge based systems. It is in particular suit able as a textbook for graduate-level students in AI, operations research and applied probability. A solid mathematical background is necessary for reading this book. Essential parts of the material have been the subject of courses given by the first author for students of computer science and mathematics held since 1984 at the University in Braunschweig.

Knowledge Representation and Reasoning Under Uncertainty