The research results described are concerned with: - developing a domain modeling method and tools to provide the design and implementation of decision-making support systems for computer integrated manufacturing; - building a decision-making support system based on know-how and its software environment. The research is funded by NEDO, Japan.

The paper presents two equivalent definitions of answer sets for logic programs with aggregates. These definitions build on the notion of unfolding of aggregates, and they are aimed at creating methodologies to translate logic programs with aggregates to normal logic programs or positive programs, whose answer set semantics can be used to defined the semantics of the original programs. The first definition provides an alternative view of the semantics for logic programming with aggregates described by Pelov et al. The second definition is similar to the traditional answer set definition for normal logic programs, in that, given a logic program with aggregates and an interpretation, the unfolding process produces a positive program. The paper shows how this definition can be extended to consider aggregates in the head of the rules. The proposed views of logic programming with aggregates are simple and coincide with the ultimate stable model semantics, and with other semantic characterizations for large classes of program (e.g., programs with monotone aggregates and programs that are aggregate-stratified). Moreover, it can be directly employed to support an implementation using available answer set solvers. The paper describes a system, called ASP^A, that is capable of computing answer sets of programs with arbitrary (e.g., recursively defined) aggregates.

We extend the 0-approximation of sensing actions and incomplete information in [Son and Baral 2000] to action theories with static causal laws and prove its soundness with respect to the possible world semantics. We also show that the conditional planning problem with respect to this approximation is NP-complete. We then present an answer set programming based conditional planner, called ASCP, that is capable of generating both conformant plans and conditional plans in the presence of sensing actions, incomplete information about the initial state, and static causal laws. We prove the correctness of our implementation and argue that our planner is sound and complete with respect to the proposed approximation. Finally, we present experimental results comparing ASCP to other planners.

Through the Internet and the World-Wide Web, a vast number of information sources has become available, which offer information on various subjects by different providers, often in heterogeneous formats. This calls for tools and methods for building an advanced information-processing infrastructure. One issue in this area is the selection of suitable information sources in query answering. In this paper, we present a knowledge-based approach to this problem, in the setting where one among a set of information sources (prototypically, data repositories) should be selected for evaluating a user query. We use extended logic programs (ELPs) to represent rich descriptions of the information sources, an underlying domain theory, and user queries in a formal query language (here, XML-QL, but other languages can be handled as well). Moreover, we use ELPs for declarative query analysis and generation of a query description. Central to our approach are declarative source-selection programs, for which we define syntax and semantics. Due to the structured nature of the considered data items, the semantics of such programs must carefully respect implicit context information in source-selection rules, and furthermore combine it with possible user preferences. A prototype implementation of our approach has been realized exploiting the DLV KR system and its plp front-end for prioritized ELPs. We describe a representative example involving specific movie databases, and report about experimental results.

The unification algorithm is at the heart of the logic program ming paradigm [3]. Starting with the classic algorithm of Robinson [5], the unification algor ithm was developed to become more and more efficient [4]. Even nowadays the unification theory is sti ll under development and is receiving continuous scrutiny from the scientific community [2]. The present paper presents yet another efficient unification a lgorithm centered on a data structure called Unification Table, which borrows some ideas from the data structures used by the Warren's Abstract Machine [1]. The next paragraph presents in detail the proposed unificati on algorithm, giving the C-style pseudo code. An example of application of the algorithm take n from [1] is also presented.

Awareness has been shown to be a useful addition to standard epistemic logic for many applications. However, standard propositional logics for knowledge and awareness cannot express the fact that an agent knows that there are facts of which he is unaware without there being an explicit fact that the agent knows he is unaware of. We propose a logic for reasoning about knowledge of unawareness, by extending Fagin and Halpern's \emph{Logic of General Awareness}. The logic allows quantification over variables, so that there is a formula in the language that can express the fact that ``an agent explicitly knows that there exists a fact of which he is unaware''. Moreover, that formula can be true without the agent explicitly knowing that he is unaware of any particular formula. We provide a sound and complete axiomatization of the logic, using standard axioms from the literature to capture the quantification operator. Finally, we show that the validity problem for the logic is recursively enumerable, but not decidable.

This technical note describes a monotone and continuous fixpoint operator to compute the answer sets of programs with aggregates. The fixpoint operator relies on the notion of aggregate solution. Under certain conditions, this operator behaves identically to the three-valued immediate consequence operator $Φ^{aggr}_P$ for aggregate programs, independently proposed Pelov et al. This operator allows us to closely tie the computational complexity of the answer set checking and answer sets existence problems to the cost of checking a solution of the aggregates in the program. Finally, we relate the semantics described by the operator to other proposals for logic programming with aggregates. To appear in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP).

This workshop brings together practioners and researchers who are involved in the everyday aspects of logical systems based on higher-order logic. We hope to create a friendly and highly interactive setting for discussions around the following four topics. Implementation and development of proof assistants based on any notion of impredicativity, automated theorem proving tools for higher-order logic reasoning systems, logical framework technology for the representation of proofs in higher-order logic, formal digital libraries for storing, maintaining and querying databases of proofs. We envision attendees that are interested in fostering the development and visibility of reasoning systems for higher-order logics. We are particularly interested in a discusssion on the development of a higher-order version of the TPTP and in comparisons of the practical strengths of automated higher-order reasoning systems. Additionally, the workshop includes system demonstrations. ESHOL is the successor of the ESCAR and ESFOR workshops held at CADE 2005 and IJCAR 2004.

Combining a set of existing constraint solvers into an integ rated system of cooperating solvers is a useful and economic principle to solve hybrid constraint problems. In this paper we show that this approach can also be used to integrate differ ent language paradigms into a unified framework. Furthermore, we study the syntacti c, semantic and operational impacts of this idea for the amalgamation of declarative and constraint programming. To appear in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP).

Extraction of association rules is widely used as a data mining method. However, one of the limit of this approach comes from the large number of extracted rules and the difficulty for a human expert to deal with the totality of these rules. We propose to solve this problem by structuring the set of rules into hierarchy. The expert can then therefore explore the rules, access from one rule to another one more general when we raise up in the hierarchy, and in other hand, or a more specific rules. Rules are structured at two levels. The global level aims at building a hierarchy from the set of rules extracted. Thus we define a first type of rule-subsomption relying on Galois lattices. The second level consists in a local and more detailed analysis of each rule. It generate for a given rule a set of generalization rules structured into a local hierarchy. This leads to the definition of a second type of subsomption. This subsomption comes from inductive logic programming and integrates a terminological model.