lin padgham
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A Framework for Part-of Hierarchies in Terminological Logics
1994
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Abstract
There is a growing recognition that part-whole hierarchies are a very general form of representation, widely used by humans in commonsense reasoning. This paper develops a terminological logic, and related inference mechanisms for representing and reasoning about composite concepts and individuals. A basic terminological logic language is extended with constructs for describing composite concepts in terms of their parts and the relationships between them. A part-of hierarchy is de ned, based on the relationship of compositional inclusion. This part-of hierarchy is analogous to, but di erent from, the \is-a" hierarchy. Compositional inferencing is de ned as a process which infers the existence of a whole, based on the existence of the required parts, where the parts are in the necessary relationship to each other. Three stable states are de ned with respect to compositional inferencing -compositional extensions, credulous compositional extensions and skeptical compositional conclusions. This framework signi cantly enhances and is complementary to, knowledge representation and reasoning based on is-a hierarchies.
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