To: seminaire@pauillac.inria.fr From: Bruno.Barras@inria.fr Subject: SEM - INRIA : LogiCal - 22/03/02 - Paris - FR Vous pouvez maintenant vous abonner à nos annonces de séminaires http://pauillac.inria.fr/seminaires/subscribe.html S E M I N A I R E . ___ / _ _ / _ / / / \ / \ / / __| / |___ |_/ |_/ / |__ |_/ |_ ___ . / / ___ __ /_ _ / _/ /| /| _ __ __ _ _ / / / /_ / __| / / |/ | / \ /_ / / \ | / __| |___ / / __/ |_ |_/ |_ / | |_/__/ |_ |_/ |/ |_/ I N R I A - Rocquencourt Salle de conference du Bat 11 Vendredi 22 mars, 10h30 -------------------- Areski Nait Abdallah -------------------- INRIA Rocquencourt ================================ The logic of partial information ================================ In everyday life, as well as in scientific reasoning practice, reasoning with partial information is the rule rather than the exception. As Carl Jung wrote, ``Every experience contains an indefinite number of unknown factors, not to speak of the fact that every concrete object is always unknown in certain respects, because we cannot know the ultimate nature of matter itself.'' We present the foundations of reasoning with partial information, and a theory of commonsense resoning based on monotonic logic and partial structures. This theory was specifically designed for the needs of practising computer scientists and provides easily implementable algorithms. Using the logic of partial information, we illustrate the deep links existing between commonsense reasoning and the disciplines of theoretical computer science and classical logic. Applications of the logic of partial information range from computing presuppositions in natural language processing, to logical problems in theoretical physics, such as issues related to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. A fragment of this logic has been implemented, resulting in an extension of PROLOG allowing for tentative and hypothetical information to be handled by logic programs.