| Title: | A New Constraint-based Framework for Qualitative Reasoning |
| Date: |
March 27, 2006 (Monday)
|
| Time: |
10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
|
| Venue: |
Room 121, 1/F, Ho Sin-hang Engineering Building,
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T. |
| Speaker: |
Professor Krzysztof R. Apt
Senior Researcher Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science Professor at The University of Amsterdam The Netherlands |
We introduce a constraint-based framework for studying various aspects of qualitative reasoning concerned with contingencies such as time, space, shape, size, abstracted into a finite set of qualitative relations. In this framework, in contrast to the customary approach, the qualitative relations are modelled as variables. We show how this approach allows us to treat in a natural way aspect integration, planning and qualitative simulation. The appropriate inter-state constraints are formulated using linear temporal logic.
We implemented this approach in the constraint programming system Eclipse by drawing on the ideas from bounded model checking. To illustrate the simplicity of this approach we discuss various examples of planning and qualitative simulation, including a qualitative version of the piano movers problem and a simulation of juggling. In each of them the solutions were successfully found by our implementation. The resulting system allows us to test and modify the problem specifications in a straightforward way.
(Joint work with S. Brand)
BIOGRAPHY:
Krzysztof R. Apt got a PhD in mathematical logic from the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, in 1974.
He is a senior researcher at CWI, Amsterdam and Professor at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In the past he also worked at the Universities and Research Centre in Poland, France, U.S., Belgium and Singapore.
Apt published three books and fifty journal articles, mostly dealing with his research on program verification and semantics, logic programming and constraint programming. His current research is concerned with game theory and multi-agent systems.
He is the founder and first editor-in-chief of the ACM Transactions in Computational Logic. Apt is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Computing Research Repository (CoRR). He strongly believes that free access to scientific publishing is both feasible and strongly desirable for the further advancement of science.
Enquiries: Miss Temmy So at tel 2609 8444
For more information, please refer to http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/seminar