Default reasoning and interpolation are two important forms of commonsense rule-based reasoning. The former allows us to draw conclusions from incompletely specified states, by making assumptions on normality, whereas the latter allows us to draw conclusions from states that are not explicitly covered by any of the available rules. Although both approaches have received considerable attention in the literature, it is at present not well understood how they can be combined to draw reasonable conclusions from incompletely specified states and incomplete rule bases. In this paper, we introduce an inference system for interpolating default rules, based on a geometric semantics in which normality is related to spatial density and interpolation is related to geometric betweenness. We view default rules and information on the betweenness of natural categories as particular types of constraints on qualitative representations of Gärdenfors conceptual spaces. We propose an axiomatization, extending the well-known System P, and show its soundness and completeness w.r.t. the proposed semantics. Subsequently, we explore how our extension of preferential reasoning can be further refined by adapting two classical approaches for handling the irrelevance problem in default reasoning: rational closure and conditional entailment.

The Stable Marriage Problem (SMP) is a well-known matching problem first introduced and solved by Gale and Shapley (1962). Several variants and extensions to this problem have since been investigated to cover a wider set of applications. Each time a new variant is considered, however, a new algorithm needs to be developed and implemented. As an alternative, in this paper we propose an encoding of the SMP using Answer Set Programming (ASP). Our encoding can easily be extended and adapted to the needs of specific applications. As an illustration we show how stable matchings can be found when individuals may designate unacceptable partners and ties between preferences are allowed. Subsequently, we show how our ASP based encoding naturally allows us to select specific stable matchings which are optimal according to a given criterion. Each time, we can rely on generic and efficient off-the-shelf answer set solvers to find (optimal) stable matchings.

Inconsistencies between different information sources may arise because of statements that are inaccurate, albeit not completely false. In such scenarios, the most natural way to restore consistency is often to interpret assertions in a more flexible way, i.e. to enlarge (or relax) their meaning. As this process inherently requires extra-logical information about the meaning of atoms, extensions of classical merging operators are needed. In this paper, we introduce syntactic merging operators, based on possibilistic logic, which employ background knowledge about the similarity of atomic propositions to appropriately relax propositional statements.