Date: Sat, 15 Nov 1997 08:32:59 +1000 (EST)
Message-Id: <199711142232.IAA17477@citadel.cit.gu.edu.au>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
To: smyth@sifnos.ics.uci.edu
From: Grigoris Antoniou <G.Antoniou@cit.gu.edu.au>
Subject: AAAI-98 tutorial proposal


-------------------------------------------------------
   AAAI-98 Tutorial Proposal
 
   PRAGMATICS OF DEFAULT REASONING AND THEORY CHANGE
 
   G. Antoniou, A. Nayak, A.K. Ghose
-------------------------------------------------------


MOTIVATIONS AND BRIEF DESCRIPTION

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the design of
robust information systems is contingent on principled methods for
handling incomplete and changing information. There has thus been a
resurgence of interest in the areas of nonmonotonic reasoning and theory
change (or belief revision), focussing less on their potential to
generate purely theoretical insights, and more on their ability to provide
a starting point for the design of the next generation of tools for
developing and managing complex information systems. 

This tutorial will present the formal principles underlying default
reasoning, an approach to nonmonotonic reasoning which has, arguably, 
the greatest potential for practical application, and belief revision. 
Using this formal background, the tutorial will examine applications 
of this technology in a variety of domains.

Two sets of recent developments make this tutorial particularly timely. 
Firstly, a number of recent studies have shown that a unified view of belief
revision and default reasoning is possible, and a tutorial introduction
to these areas from the standpoint of this unified view would be
specially relevant. Secondly, recent studies have demonstrated the
practical utility of default reasoning and belief revision techniques.
This tutorial aims to make the material relevant to practitioners by
emphasizing such fielded applications. 
 
 
DETAILED OUTLINE

1. General introduction
 
2. Default Reasoning
	
    2.1 The notion of a default
    2.2 Default extensions
    2.3 An operational interpretation
    2.4 Priorities in default reasoning
    2.5 Logic programming based approaches
    2.6 Practical demonstration of an implemented system
 
3. Belief Dynamics
	
    3.1 Formal basis of belief dynamics - the AGM theory
    3.2 Implementation strategies
    3.3 Advanced topics: iterated belief change, multiple belief
        change and abductive belief change
    3.4 A unified view of default reasoning and belief revision
	
4. Applications
	
    4.1 Diagnostic systems
    4.2 Scheduling
    4.3 Planning
    4.4 Information retrieval
    4.5 Software engineering: requirements engineering, 
        reuse oriented software maintenance

 
PREREQUISITE KNOWLEDGE AND TARGET AUDIENCE

No prior knowledge is needed other than a basic understanding of classical
logic. The tutorial is targetted at:

    1. Practitioners from industry, who need to cope with incomplete
       and changing information in a principled way. 
    2. Researchers from other areas, who wish to utilize default reasoning
       and belief revision.
    3. Postgraduate students.


FORMAT

This is designed to be a half-day tutorial. In the course of the tutorial
we intend to run an implemented default reasoning system.


THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TOPIC TO THE AI COMMUNITY

Humans are faced with incomplete and changing information in our everyday
life; similarly intelligent information systems must operate under
incomplete and changing information, and their performance depends heavily
on their ability to make reasonable assumptions and react adequately to
new information.

The topics covered in this tutorial involve the fundamental aspects of
hypothetical reasoning, abduction, semantics of logic programming etc.
Actual and potential application areas include those mentioned in the 
outline, plus decision support systems, operations research, marketing 
research, and natural language understanding.

One of the most ambitious aims of this tutorial is to make the techniques
of default reasoning and belief revision accessible to a broad audience by
providing operational methods and programs, and thereby to refute the
wide-spread misconception that they are difficult to understand and apply.


RESUME'S OF THE PRESENTERS

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 author of "Nonmonotonic Reasoning", The MIT Press 1997, and co-author of 
"Logic: A Foundation for Computer Science", Addison-Wesley 1991. He has 
published over 50 refereed technical papers at conferences (including 
IJCAI'83, AAAI-94, AAAI-97) and journals (including Annals of 
Mathematics & Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence Review, 
Journal of Automated Reasoning). Dr. Antoniou has given several tutorials 
at national and international events, for example at the Australian AI 
conferences in 1994 and 1995. He has given successful tutorials at AAAI-96 
(with M. Truszczynski) and IJCAI'97 (together with the other two team 
members). 

	Griffith University, CIT
	Nathan, QLD 4111, Australia
	Email: ga@cit.gu.edu.au
	Phone: +61 7 3875 5041
	Fax: +61 7 3875 5051


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. He has presented several talks on topics 
related to this tutorial at various universities in the Australasian region 
and elsewhere (Uppsala, Sydney, Queensland, Griffith, Auckland, Victoria 
University of Wellington). He has given a tutorial at IJCAI'97 together 
with the other two team members.

	School of Computer Science and Engineering
	University of New South Wales
	Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
	Phone: +61 2 9385 1441
	Fax: +61 2 9385 1813
	Email: abhaya@cse.unsw.edu.au


Aditya Ghose is Lecturer in Information Systems at the University
of Wollongong, Australia. His research interests include default 
reasoning, belief revision and constraint solving, and their 
applications to problems in software engineering, planning and 
induction. He holds a Ph.D. in Computing Science from the University 
of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. He has held research appointments with the
Knowledge Systems Group at the University of Sydney and with the 
School of Computing and Information Technology at Griffith University, 
Brisbane and has been been a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo.
Dr. Ghose has presented a tutorial at IJCAI'97 together with the other two 
team members.

         Decision Systems Lab
         Department of Business Systems
         University of Wollongong
         NSW 2522 Australia
         Fax: +61 2 4221 4474
         Email: aditya@uow.edu.au


==========================================================================
Grigoris Antoniou             School of Computing & Information Technology
Senior Lecturer                                        Griffith University
                                             Brisbane, QLD 4111, Australia
Tel: +61 7 3875 5041                               Email: ga@cit.gu.edu.au
Fax: +61 7 3875 5051                     WWW: http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~ga