Abductive reasoning

About: Abductive reasoning is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1917 publications have been published within this topic receiving 44645 citations. The topic is also known as: abduction & abductive inference.

Extending expressivity and flexibility of abductive logic programming

Abstract: Real-world problems often require purely deductive reasoning to be supported by other techniques that can cope with noise in the form of incomplete and uncertain data. Abductive inference tackles incompleteness by guessing unknown information, provided that it is compliant with given constraints. Probabilistic reasoning tackles uncertainty by weakening the sharp logical approach. This work aims at bringing both together and at further extending the expressive power of the resulting framework, called Probabilistic Expressive Abductive Logic Programming (PEALP). It adopts a Logic Programming perspective, introducing several kinds of constraints and allowing to set a degree of strength on their validity. Procedures to handle both extensions, compatibly with standard abductive and probabilistic frameworks, are also provided.

Robust Design Review Conversations

Abstract: Design reviews and executive conversations at the point of strategic decision-making share an important outcome: they both result in the (nearly) irrevocable allocation of resources to pursue a design concept or strategic option Our study aims to contribute to the strategic decision- making scholarship by investigating the robustness of these conversations We define a robust design review conversation as one in which the participants discuss evidence in favor of and against the option and at the same time propose new hypotheses to explain or resolve the evidence in favor of and against the option, hypotheses that can eventually be tested We describe this second process as generative sensing Whereas the first process is likely to rely on deductive reasoning from established rules to a definitive conclusion, the second is likely to rely on abductive reasoning, a form of reasoning that generates new hypotheses that are candidate parsimonious explanations for the evidence We analyze and compare the design review conversations from a junior-level undergraduate course in industrial design and an entrepreneurship course We find more instances of generative sensing in the industrial design review sessions than in the entrepreneurship project presentations We believe that generative sensing serves three instrumental purposes: to resolve problems; to provide signals on option quality; and, to test the commitment to the present design concept

OPENLOG: A Logic Programming Language Based on Abduction

Abstract: In this paper, we introduce a programming language for an abductive reasoner. We propose the syntax for an imperative language in the usual manner and its semantics as a mapping from the language statements to an abductive logic program. The design is such that any semantics for abductive logic programs could be taken as the basic semantics for the programming language that we propose. In this way, we build upon existing formalizations of abductive reasoning and abductive logic programming. One innovative aspect of this work is that the agent processing and executing OPENLOG programs will stay open to the environment and will allow for changes in its environment and assimilation of new information generated by these changes.

On a generalization of variable precision logic

Abstract: Variable-precision logic was introduced by R.S. Michalski and P.H. Winston (Artif. Intell., vol.29, p.121-46, 1986) as a means for representing reasoning in the face of exceptions. Using the framework of belief structures, some of their ideas are extended. In particular, a general framework that easily allows the representation of different types of rules in a unified manner is provided. This approach also allows for a lack of specificity in the associated qualifying probabilities. >