We consider a language for reasoning about probability which allows us to make statements such as “the probability of E, is less than f ” and “the probability of E, is at least twice the probability of E,, ” where E, and EZ are arbitrary events. We consider the case where all events are measurable (i.e., represent measurable sets) and the more general case, which is also of interest in practice, where they may not be measurable. The measurable case is essentially a formalization of (the proposi-tional fragment of) Nilsson’s probabilistic logic. As we show elsewhere, the general (nonmeasurable) case corresponds precisely to replacing probability measures by Dempster-Shafer belief functions. In both cases, we provide a complete axiomatiza-tion and show that the problem of deciding satistiability is NP-complete, no worse than that of propositional logic. As a tool for proving our complete axiomatiza-tions, we give a complete axiomatization for reasoning about Boolean combina-tions of linear inequalities, which is of independent interest. This proof and others make crucial use of results from the theory of linear programming. We then extend the language to allow reasoning about conditional probability and show that the resulting logic is decidable and completely axiomatizable, by making use of the theory of real closed fields. ( 1990 Academic Press. Inc 1.

We study the problem of probabilistic deduction with conditional constraints over basic events. We show that globally complete probabilistic deduction with conditional constraints over basic events is NP-hard. We then concentrate on the special case of probabilistic deduction in conditional constraint trees. We elaborate very efficient techniques for globally complete probabilistic deduction. In detail, for conditional constraint trees with point probabilities, we present a local approach to globally complete probabilistic deduction, which runs in linear time in the size of the conditional constraint trees. For conditional constraint trees with interval probabilities, we show that globally complete probabilistic deduction can be done in a global approach by solving nonlinear programs. We show how these nonlinear programs can be transformed into equivalent linear programs, which are solvable in polynomial time in the size of the conditional constraint trees. 1. Introduction Dealing wit...

. We present a new approach to probabilistic logic programs with a possible worlds semantics. Classical program clauses are extended by a subinterval of [0; 1] that describes the range for the conditional probability of the head of a clause given its body. We show that deduction in the defined probabilistic logic programs is computationally more complex than deduction in classical logic programs. More precisely, restricted deduction problems that are Pcomplete for classical logic programs are already NP-hard for probabilistic logic programs. We then elaborate a linear programming approach to probabilistic deduction that is efficient in interesting special cases. In the best case, the generated linear programs have a number of variables that is linear in the number of ground instances of purely probabilistic clauses in a probabilistic logic program. 1 INTRODUCTION There is already a quite extensive literature on probabilistic propositional logics and their various dialects. The most fa...

We consider decidability and expressiveness issues for two first-order logics of probability. In one, the probability is on possible worlds, while in the other, it is on the domain. It turns out that in both cases it takes very little to make reasoning about probability highly undecidable. We show that when the probability is on the domain, if the language contains only unary predicates then the validity problem is decidable. However, if the language contains even one binary predicate, the validity problem is \Pi 2 1 complete, as hard as elementary analysis with free predicate and function symbols. With equality in the language, even with no other symbol, the validity problem is at least as hard as that for elementary analysis, \Pi 1 1 hard. Thus, the logic cannot be axiomatized in either case. When we put the probability on the set of possible worlds, the validity problem is \Pi 2 1 complete with as little as one unary predicate in the language, even without equality. With equalit...

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...

: We introduce a new probabilistic approach to dealing with uncertainty, based on the observation that probability theory does not require that every event be assigned a probability. For a nonmeasurable event (one to which we do not assign a probability), we can talk about only the inner measure and outer measure of the event. In addition to removing the requirement that every event be assigned a probability, our approach circumvents other criticisms of probability-based approaches to uncertainty. For example, the measure of belief in an event turns out to be represented by an interval (defined by the inner and outer measure), rather than by a single number. Further, this approach allows us to assign a belief (inner measure) to an event E without committing to a belief about its negation :E (since the inner measure of an event plus the inner measure of its negation is not necessarily one). Interestingly enough, inner measures induced by probability measures turn out to correspond in a ...

We study probabilistic logic under the viewpoint of the coherence principle of de Finetti. In detail, we explore the relationship between coherence-based and classical modeltheoretic probabilistic logic. Interestingly, we show that the notions of g-coherence and of g-coherent entailment can be expressed by combining notions in model-theoretic probabilistic logic with concepts from default reasoning. Using these results, we analyze the computational complexity of probabilistic reasoning under coherence. Moreover, we present new algorithms for deciding g-coherence and for computing tight g-coherent intervals, which reduce these tasks to standard reasoning tasks in model-theoretic probabilistic logic. Thus, efficient techniques for model-theoretic probabilistic reasoning can immediately be applied for probabilistic reasoning under coherence, for example, column generation techniques. We then describe two other interesting techniques for efficient model-theoretic probabilistic reasoning in the conjunctive case.

We present a new, efficient linear programming approach to probabilistic deduction from probabilistic knowledge-bases over conjunctive events. We show that this approach enables us to solve the classical problem of probabilistic deduction along a chain of basic events in polynomial time in the length of the chain. We then elaborate how taxonomic knowledge can be exploited in our new approach for an increased efficiency. We also present important new results for the classical linear programming approach to probabilistic deduction under taxonomic knowledge. 1 Introduction There are many approaches to non-Bayesian probabilistic deduction in the literature. They can be classified in global techniques based on linear programming and in local methods founded on the iterative application of inference rules. Non-Bayesian probabilistic deduction by solving linear programs is discussed e.g. in [23], [13], [24], [17], [14], [2], [15], and [22]. It can be performed within rich probabilistic lang...

We consider a panel of experts asked to assign probabilities to events, both logically simple and complex. The events evaluated by different experts are based on overlapping sets of variables but may otherwise be distinct. The union of all the judgments will likely be probabilistic incoherent. We address the problem of revising the probability estimates of the panel so as to produce a coherent set that best represents the group's expertise.

We present locally complete inference rules for probabilistic deduction from taxonomic and probabilistic knowledge-bases over conjunctive events. Crucially, in contrast to similar inference rules in the literature, our inference rules are locally complete for conjunctive events and under additional taxonomic knowledge. We discover that our inference rules are extremely complex and that it is at first glance not clear at all where the deduced tightest bounds come from. Moreover, analyzing the global completeness of our inference rules, we find examples of globally very incomplete probabilistic deductions. More generally, we even show that all systems of inference rules for taxonomic and probabilistic knowledge-bases over conjunctive events are globally incomplete. We conclude that probabilistic deduction by the iterative application of inference rules on interval restrictions for conditional probabilities, even though considered very promising in the literature so far, seems very limite...