. This short paper relates the conditional object-based and possibility theorybased approaches for reasoning with conditional statements pervaded with exceptions, to other methods in nonmonotonic reasoning which have been independently proposed: namely, Lehmann's preferential and rational closure entailments which obey normative postulates, the infinitesimal probability approach, and the conditional (modal) logics-based approach. All these methods are shown to be equivalent with respect to their capabilities for reasoning with conditional knowledge although they are based on different modeling frameworks. It thus provides a unified understanding of nonmonotonic consequence relations. More particularly, conditional objects, a purely qualitative counterpart to conditional probabilities, offer a very simple semantics, based on a 3-valued calculus, for the preferential entailment, while in the purely ordinal setting of possibility theory both the preferential and the rational closure entai...

We present an approach to reasoning from statistical and subjective knowledge, which is based on a combination of probabilistic reasoning from conditional constraints with approaches to default reasoning from conditional knowledge bases. More precisely, we introduce the notions of -, lexicographic, and conditional entailment for conditional constraints, which are probabilistic generalizations of Pearl's entailment in system , Lehmann's lexicographic entailment, and Geffner's conditional entailment, respectively. We show that the new formalisms have nice properties. In particular, they show a similar behavior as referenceclass reasoning in a number of uncontroversial examples. The new formalisms, however, also avoid many drawbacks of reference-class reasoning. More precisely, they can handle complex scenarios and even purely probabilistic subjective knowledge as input. Moreover, conclusions are drawn in a global way from all the available knowledge as a whole. We then show that the new formalisms also have nice general nonmonotonic properties. In detail, the new notions of -, lexicographic, and conditional entailment have similar properties as their classical counterparts. In particular, they all satisfy the rationality postulates proposed by Kraus, Lehmann, and Magidor, and they have some general irrelevance and direct inference properties. Moreover, the new notions of - and lexicographic entailment satisfy the property of rational monotonicity. Furthermore, the new notions of -, lexicographic, and conditional entailment are proper generalizations of both their classical counterparts and the classical notion of logical entailment for conditional constraints. Finally, we provide algorithms for reasoning under the new formalisms, and we analyze its computational com...

Conditional knowledge bases have been proposed as belief bases that include defeasible rules (also called defaults) of the form " ! ", which informally read as "generally, if then ." Such rules may have exceptions, which can be handled in different ways. A number of entailment semantics for conditional knowledge bases have been proposed in the literature. However, while the semantic properties and interrelationships of these formalisms are quite well understood, about their computational properties only partial results are known so far. In this paper, we fill these gaps and first draw a precise picture of the complexity of default reasoning from conditional knowledge bases: Given a conditional knowledge base KB and a default ! , does KB entail ! ? We classify the complexity of this problem for a number of well-known approaches (including Goldszmidt et al.'s maximum entropy approach and Geffner's conditional entailment), where we consider the general propositional case as well as natural syntactic restrictions (in particular, to Horn and literal-Horn conditional knowledge bases). As we show, the more sophisticated semantics for conditional knowledge bases are plagued with intractability in all these fragments. We thus explore cases in which these semantics are tractable, and find that most of them enjoy this property on feedback-free Horn conditional knowledge bases, which constitute a new, meaningful class of conditional knowledge bases. Furthermore, we generalize previous tractability results from Horn to q-Horn conditional knowledge bases, which allow for a limited use of disjunction. Our results complement and extend previous results, and contribute in refining the tractability/intractability frontier of default reasoning from conditional know...

We present probabilistic logic programming under inheritance with overriding. This approach is based on new notions of entailment for reasoning with conditional constraints, which are obtained from the classical notion of logical entailment by adding inheritance with overriding. This is done by using recent approaches to probabilistic default reasoning with conditional constraints. We analyze the semantic properties of the new entailment relations. We also present algorithms for probabilistic logic programming under inheritance with overriding, and we analyze its complexity in the propositional case. 1

Recently, it has been shown that probabilistic entailment under coherence is weaker than model-theoretic probabilistic entailment. Moreover, probabilistic entailment under coherence is a generalization of default entailment in System P. In this paper, we continue this line of research by presenting probabilistic generalizations of more sophisticated notions of classical default entailment that lie between model-theoretic probabilistic entailment and probabilistic entailment under coherence. That is, the new formalisms properly generalize their counterparts in classical default reasoning, they are weaker than model-theoretic probabilistic entailment, and they are stronger than probabilistic entailment under coherence. The new formalisms are useful especially for handling probabilistic inconsistencies related to conditioning on zero events. They can also be applied for probabilistic belief revision. More generally, in the same spirit as a similar previous paper, this paper sheds light on exciting new formalisms for probabilistic reasoning beyond the well-known standard ones.

Conditional knowledge bases have been proposed as belief bases that include defeasible rules (also called defaults) of the form " ! ", which informally read as "generally, if then ." Such rules may have exceptions, which can be handled in different ways. A number of entailment semantics for conditional knowledge bases have been proposed in the literature. However, while the semantic properties and interrelationships of these formalisms are quite well understood, about their algorithmic properties only partial results are known so far. In this paper, we fill these gaps and draw a precise picture of the complexity of default reasoning from conditional knowledge bases: Given a conditional knowledge base KB and a default ! , does KB entail ! ? We classify the complexity of this problem for a number of well-known approaches (including Goldszmidt et al.'s maximum entropy approach and Geffner's conditional entailment). We consider the general propositional case as we...

This paper is on the combination of two powerful approaches to uncertain reasoning: logic programming in a probabilistic setting, on the one hand, and the information-theoretical principle of maximum entropy, on the other hand. More precisely, we present two approaches to probabilistic logic programming under maximum entropy. The first one is based on the usual notion of entailment under maximum entropy, and is defined for the very general case of probabilistic logic programs over Boolean events. The second one is based on a new notion of entailment under maximum entropy, where the principle of maximum entropy is coupled with the closed world assumption (CWA) from classical logic programming. It is only defined for the more restricted case of probabilistic logic programs over conjunctive events. We then analyze the nonmonotonic behavior of both approaches along benchmark examples and along general properties for default reasoning from conditional knowledge bases. It turns out that both approaches have very nice nonmonotonic features. In particular, they realize some inheritance of probabilistic knowledge along subclass relationships, without suffering from the problem of inheritance blocking and from the drowning problem. They both also satisfy the property of rational monotonicity and several irrelevance properties. We finally present algorithms for both approaches, which are based on generalizations of techniques from probabilistic

Abstract. In the last 15 years, several default reasoning systems have been proposed to deal with rules having exceptions. Each of these systems has been shown to be either cautious (where some intuitive conclusions do not follow from the default base), or adventurous (some debatable conclusions are inferred). However, the cautiousness and the adventurous aspect of these systems are often due to the incomplete way of describing our knowledge, and that plausible conclusions depend on the meaning (semantics) assigned to propositional symbols. This paper mainly contains two parts. The first part discusses, with simple default bases (where the used symbols have no a priori meaning), which assumptions are assumed when a given conclusion is considered as intuitive. The second part investigates a local approach to deal with default rules of the form "generally, if ct then I~ " having possibly some exceptions. The idea is that when a conflict appears (due to observing exceptional situations), we first localize the sets of pieces of information which are responsible for conflicts. Next, using a new definition of specificity, we attach priorities to default rules inside each conflict. Lastly, three proposals are made to solve conflicts and restore the consistency of the knowledge base. A comparative study with some existing systems is given. I.

The thesis presents a computational model for reasoning with partial information which uses default rules or information about what normally happens. The idea is to provide a means of filling the gaps in an incomplete world view with the most plausible assumptions while allowing for the retraction of conclusions should they subsequently turn out to be incorrect. The model can be used both to reason from a given knowledge base of default rules, and to aid in the construction of such knowledge bases by allowing their designer to compare the consequences of his design with his own default assumptions. The conclusions supported by the proposed model are justified by the use of a probabilistic semantics for default rules in conjunction with the application of a rational means of inference from incomplete knowledge---the principle of maximum entropy (ME). The thesis develops both the theory and algorithms for the ME approach and argues that it should be considered as a general theory of default reasoning. The argument supporting the thesis has two main threads. Firstly, the ME approach is tested on the benchmark examples required of nonmonotonic behaviour, and it is found to handle them appropriately. Moreover, these patterns of commonsense reasoning emerge as consequences of the chosen semantics rather than being design features. It is argued that this makes the ME approach more objective, and its conclusions more justifiable, than other default systems. Secondly, the ME approach is compared with two existing systems: the lexicographic approach (LEX) and system Z + . It is shown that the former can be equated with ME under suitable conditions making it strictly less expressive, while the latter is too crude to perform the subtle resolution of default conflict which the ME...

Abstract. We present a powerful quasi-probabilistic default formalism for graded defaults based on a well-motivated canonical ranking construction procedure, System JLZ. It implements the minimal construction paradigm and verifies the major inference principles and inheritance desiderata, including rational monotony for propositions and structured cumulativity for default conditionals. With help from a structured ranking semantics for defaults, it also avoids some drawbacks of semi-qualitative entropy maximization and other competing accounts. 1