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International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Modeling and Using Context

CONTEXT 1999: Modeling and Using Context pp 159–172Cite as

A Context-Based Logic for Distributed Knowledge Representation and Reasoning

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 1688))

Abstract

This paper is concerned with providing a logic, called Distributed First Order Logic (DFOL), for the formalization of distributed knowledge representation and reasoning systems. In such systems knowledge is contained in a set of heterogeneous subsystems. Each subsystem represents, using a possibly different language, partial knowledge about a subset of the whole domain, it is able to reason about such a knowledge, and it is able to exchange knowledge with other subsystems via query answering. Our approach is to represent each subsystem as a context, each context having its own language, a set of basic facts describing what is “explicitly known” by the subsystem, and a set of inference rules representing the reasoning capabilities of the subsystem. Knowledge exchange is represented by two different relations on contexts: the former on the languages (query mapping) and the latter on the domains (answer mapping) of different contexts. DFOL is based on a semantics for contextual reasoning, called Local Models Semantics, which allows to model contexts having different languages, basic knowledge, and reasoning capabilities, as well as relations between contexts. An axiomatization of DFOL is also presented.

Visiting Research Fellow from University of Trento, Italy, supported by the Italian National Research Council (CNR)

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computation and Mathematics, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, M1 5GD, UK

    Chiara Ghidini

  2. ITC-IRST, 38050, Povo, Trento, Italy

    Luciano Serafini

Authors
  1. Chiara Ghidini
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  2. Luciano Serafini
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Trento, DISA, 5, via Inama, I-38050, Trento, Italy

    Paolo Bouquet  & Massimo Benerecetti  & 

  2. IRST-ITC, Pante di Povo, I-38050, Trento, Italy

    Luciano Serafini

  3. University Paris VI, LIP6 4, Place Jussieu, F-75252, Paris Cedex 05, France

    Patrick Brézillon

  4. University of Trento, 26, via Verdi, I-38050, Trento, Italy

    Francesca Castellani

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© 1999 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Ghidini, C., Serafini, L. (1999). A Context-Based Logic for Distributed Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. In: Bouquet, P., Benerecetti, M., Serafini, L., Brézillon, P., Castellani, F. (eds) Modeling and Using Context. CONTEXT 1999. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 1688. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48315-2_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48315-2_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-66432-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48315-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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