Course Description
Course DescriptionThe tutorial will first present the formal principles underlying default reasoning, an approach to nonmonotonic reasoning which has been widely applied, and the logic of theory change. Using this formal background, the tutorial will examine applications of these techniques in a variety of domains, including diagnostic systems, intelligent scheduling systems, information retrieval and software engineering (requirements engineering, software maintenance). The tutorial will involve simple hands-on demonstrations using implemented systems for default reasoning and theory change.
Two sets of recent developments make this tutorial particularly
timely. First, a number of recent studies have shown that a unified view
of theory change and default reasoning leading to efficient
implementations is possible. Second, an increasing number of useful
applications of these technologies are being reported in the literature
that build on these formal results. A clear understanding of the what,
why and how of these issues is thus crucial for both researchers and
practitioners interested in intelligent real-world information systems.
No prior knowledge is needed other than a basic understanding of
classical logic.
Prerequisite Knowledge
Grigoris Antoniou
is Senior Lecturer in Computing at Griffith University. His research
interests include the logical foundations of computer science and
artificial intelligence, and in particular nonmonotonic reasoning. He is
co-author of "Logic: A Foundation for Computer Science", Addison-Wesley
1991, and author of a forthcoming book on Nonmonotonic Reasoning (MIT
Press, 1997). He has published over 50 refereed papers at conferences
and journals (including IJCAI, AAAI, Annals of Mathematics & Artificial
Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence Review, Journal of Automated
Reasoning).
About the Lecturers
Abhaya Nayak is a Senior Research Fellow at the Knowledge Systems Group, University of New South Wales. His research interests include belief dynamics, commonsense reasoning and counterfactual reasoning. He has published over a dozen papers in reputed journals (e.g. Journal of Philosophical Logic, Erkenntnis, Synthese) and conference proceedings. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester, U.S.A. and has held short-term teaching appointments at the University of Rochester and the State University of New York.
Aditya Ghose is Lecturer in Business Information Systems at the University of Wollongong, Australia. His research interests include default reasoning, theory change and constraint solving, and their applications in software engineering, planning and induction. He holds a Ph.D. in Computing Science from the University of Alberta, Canada. He has held research appointments with the Knowledge Systems Group at the University of Sydney and with the School of Computing at Griffith University, Brisbane and has been been a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo.