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Main Authors: Doherty, Patrick, Szalas, Andrzej
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.07233
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author Doherty, Patrick
Szalas, Andrzej
author_facet Doherty, Patrick
Szalas, Andrzej
contents Forgetting is an important concept in knowledge representation and automated reasoning with widespread applications across a number of disciplines. A standard forgetting operator, characterized in [Lin and Reiter'94] in terms of model-theoretic semantics and primarily focusing on the propositional case, opened up a new research subarea. In this paper, a new operator called weak forgetting, dual to standard forgetting, is introduced and both together are shown to offer a new more uniform perspective on forgetting operators in general. Both the weak and standard forgetting operators are characterized in terms of entailment and inference, rather than a model theoretic semantics. This naturally leads to a useful algorithmic perspective based on quantifier elimination and the use of Ackermman's Lemma and its fixpoint generalization. The strong formal relationship between standard forgetting and strongest necessary conditions and weak forgetting and weakest sufficient conditions is also characterized quite naturally through the entailment-based, inferential perspective used. The framework used to characterize the dual forgetting operators is also generalized to the first-order case and includes useful algorithms for computing first-order forgetting operators in special cases. Practical examples are also included to show the importance of both weak and standard forgetting in modeling and representation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2305_07233
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Dual Forgetting Operators in the Context of Weakest Sufficient and Strongest Necessary Conditions
Doherty, Patrick
Szalas, Andrzej
Artificial Intelligence
Logic in Computer Science
Forgetting is an important concept in knowledge representation and automated reasoning with widespread applications across a number of disciplines. A standard forgetting operator, characterized in [Lin and Reiter'94] in terms of model-theoretic semantics and primarily focusing on the propositional case, opened up a new research subarea. In this paper, a new operator called weak forgetting, dual to standard forgetting, is introduced and both together are shown to offer a new more uniform perspective on forgetting operators in general. Both the weak and standard forgetting operators are characterized in terms of entailment and inference, rather than a model theoretic semantics. This naturally leads to a useful algorithmic perspective based on quantifier elimination and the use of Ackermman's Lemma and its fixpoint generalization. The strong formal relationship between standard forgetting and strongest necessary conditions and weak forgetting and weakest sufficient conditions is also characterized quite naturally through the entailment-based, inferential perspective used. The framework used to characterize the dual forgetting operators is also generalized to the first-order case and includes useful algorithms for computing first-order forgetting operators in special cases. Practical examples are also included to show the importance of both weak and standard forgetting in modeling and representation.
title Dual Forgetting Operators in the Context of Weakest Sufficient and Strongest Necessary Conditions
topic Artificial Intelligence
Logic in Computer Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.07233