A Heterogeneous Inheritance System Based on Probabilities

Abstract

A heterogeneous inheritance system is presented. Heterogeneous systems, in contrast to the homogeneous systems which have been the focus of recent research, make an explicit differentiation between strict IS-A links which do not allow exceptions and defeasible IS-A links which do. Some problems which arise in homogeneous systems, due to their lack of this distinction, are discussed. The inheritance system possesses a natural formal semantics which is based on a statistical interpretation of probabilities. The semantics gives meaning to all the pieces of the system and resolves certain ambiguities present in inheritance systems. The system is not limited to acyclic inheritance nets, and can be further generalized through its foundation in a more general formal logic.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1988
Accession Number
ADA250599

Entities

People

  • Fahiem Bacchus

Organizations

  • University of Rochester

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Ambiguity
  • Animals
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Classification
  • Computer Science
  • Consistency
  • Elephants
  • Handbooks
  • Instructions
  • Literature
  • Models
  • Probability
  • Probability Distributions
  • Reasoning
  • Semantic Models
  • Set Theory

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Calculus or Mathematical Analysis
  • Computational Linguistics
  • Parallel and Distributed Computing.