ISSN:
1573-7470
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Computer Science
,
Mathematics
Notes:
Abstract This paper provides further contributions to the formal characterization of diagnosis introduced by Reiter and extended by de Kleer, Mackworth and Reiter. An objective of this line of research is to provide a succinct characterization of the potentially exponential space of diagnoses, be it consistency-based or abductive. We have seen that minimal diagnoses provide a parsimonious characterization of the space of consistency-based diagnoses when certain syntactic restrictions are applied to the system description. Otherwise, the space of consistency-based diagnoses must be characterized by the less succinct kernel diagnoses. In this paper we distinguish between minimalfault diagnoses and minimalexonerating diagnoses and show that minimal exonerating diagnoses characterize the space of consistency-based diagnoses under syntactic restrictions related to the use of fault theories. With respect to abduction, we provide a new characterization of the space of diagnoses, distinguishing abductive explanations from abductive diagnoses. The impact of various syntactic restrictions on the characterization of the space of abductive explanations and diagnoses is also examined. By characterizing abductive diagnosis within the same logical framework as consistency-based diagnosis, we are able to employ abduction as a preference criterion to distinguish a subset of consistency-based diagnoses which explain the observations in addition to being consistent with them. As with previous work, we exploit the notions of prime implicants/implicates to provide a link between our formal characterization of diagnostic reasoning and implementation.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01530740
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