The NM'98 conference reception desk will be located in front of the rooms from 8.45am to 9.15am and during the coffee breaks of the first day.
Participation in the workshops will be by invitation only. Those wishing to attend without submitting a paper (e.g. students) should send a statement of interest with a short description of research interests and recent work to one of the co-chairs.
Gerd Brewka (Co-chair) Universitaet Leipzig Institut fuer Informatik Augustusplatz 10/11 04109 Leipzig, Germany brewka@informatik.uni-leipzig.de phone: +49 341 97 32235 fax: +49 341 97 32299 | Ilkka Niemelä (Co-chair) Helsinki University of Technology Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering Digital Systems Laboratory P.O.Box 1100, FIN-02015 HUT, Finland Ilkka.Niemela@hut.fi phone: +358-9-451 3290 fax: +358-9-465 077 |
Recent work on extending logic programming to multi-agent systems can be viewed as revealing a number of fundamental deficiencies in the simple model of logic programing. In the simple model, logic programs can be regarded as the "rational", goal-reduction component of a single agent. To be more comprehensive, even in the single agent case, logic programs need to be extended, to be reactive to changes that arise in the environment. They also need to be extended to the multi-agent case. Both extensions can be made gracefully and are needed for other purposes.
In this talk, I will describe an architecture for multi-agent systems
that achieves reactivity, by employing integrity constraints in
addition to logic programs. It achieves the ability for agents to
interact concurrently with other agents and with their environment, by
treating all interactions as interactions between an agent and a global
environment. In this respect, concurrency is achieved in the manner of
blackboard architectures and Linda-like systems rather than in the
manner of message passing architectures, as incorporated, for example
in concurrent logic programming.
Pragmatism, Inquiry and Inductively Extended Expansion
Abstract:
The Belief - Doubt Model of inquiry proposed by Charles Peirce and
supported by William James and John Dewey insists that justification is
not needed for current beliefs but only for changing beliefs (whether by
expansion or contraction). Hence, the classical pragmatists are the
pioneers in studying justifying belief change rather than justifying
current beliefs as Cartesian foundationalists and coherentists alike are
concerned to do. Pragmatists also believe that justification of change
of belief requires showing that such changes best promote the goals of
inquiry. For Peirce, at least, the goals of specific inquiries are
cognitive goals not reducible to practical, moral, economic, political,
aesthetic aims. I suggest that such goals always ought to be concerned
with obtaining new valuable information and avoiding error.
Isaac Levi,
Columbia University
In this discussion, I illustrate this point of view by rehearsing the account of inductive expansion I have been proposing since the 1960's and explore the relations between inductive expansion and the view of ampliative, nonmonotonic reasoning based on the theory of expectations discussed by Gärdenfors and Makinson.
Nonmonotonic Reasoning in the Service of Elaboration Tolerance
Abstract:
My first paper on circumscription mentioned eliminating the
possibility of there being a bridge in the missionaries and cannibals
problem by circumscription. The problem doesn't mention a bridge, so
the puzzle solver is to infer than none exists. The nonmonotonic
formalisms have been tested by verifying that they indeed eliminate
unwanted possibilities.
However, there is a converse problem. An elaboration tolerant
formalism would admit adding a statement about there being a bridge.
The formalisms also need to be tested that they have reasonable
consequences when new facts are added. Thus if a bridge is mentioned,
the solver should be able to verify a plan that uses the bridge while
still being able to infer the non-existence of a helicopter.
The lecture will discuss what conditions elaboration tolerance puts on
nonmonotonic reasoning formalisms and on axiomatizations of particular
domains.
John McCarthy, Stanford University
Learning to Make Nonmonotonic Inferences
Abstract:
While the central role of learning in cognition is acknowledged by
many, most lines of research nevertheless study reasoning phenomena
separately from learning phenomena. In addition to computational
difficulties, this leads to methodological problems that arise from
the need to take a uniform view of how to treat incomplete
information.
Dan Roth, University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
We will describe an approach that views reasoning and, in particular, handling incomplete information and the nonmonotonic phenomena as an inductive phenomena. One of the main premises that underlie this work is that missing information in the interaction with the environment may be as informative for future interactions as observed information.
The computational and methodological advantages of the ``Learning to
Reason'' approach will be discussed and illustrated using a few
``classical'' nonmonotonic examples and some large-scale examples of
real-world inferences in the natural language domain.
From Features and Fluents to Thinking when Flying -
Abstract:
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV's) offer an interesting challenge
for intelligent robotic systems, and in particular for
reasoning about actions and change. The UAV itself needs to
deliberate on its maneuvering, knowledge acquisition, and
communication actions. Depending on the type of application of
the UAV, it may also have to deliberate on the actions of
fellow UAV's, vehicles or other devices that it observes on the
ground, and communication partners.
Reasoning about Actions in an Intelligent UAV
Erik Sandewall, Linköping University
In this talk I will discuss how our approach to reasoning about actions and change has been (1) utilized and (2) influenced by our participation in the WITAS project, which is an ongoing, large research effort for the development of information technologies for autonomous and intelligent UAV's.