Accession Number:

ADA213262

Title:

Theory of Endorsements and Reasoning With Uncertainty, January 1984 - January 1986

Descriptive Note:

Final technical rept. Jan 1984-Jan 1986

Corporate Author:

MASSACHUSETTS UNIV AMHERST DEPT OF COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SCIENCE

Personal Author(s):

• Cohen, Paul R.
• David, Alvah
• Day, David
• Delisio, Jeff
• Greenberg, Mike

Report Date:

1987-11-01

Pagination or Media Count:

162.0

Abstract:

By emphasizing the sources of uncertainty and its consequences, an intelligent reasoning system shows the ability to plan a course of action appropriate to ones uncertainty, the ability to explain ones actions. and the ability to determine degree of belief in alternatives given evidence. Other than numerical inferences and reason maintenance, another approach to parallel certainty inference, the theory of endorsements, is presented. The fundamental assumption of the theory of endorsements is that subjective degrees of belief are composites of reasons to believe and disbelieve positive and negative endorsements. Two implementations of the theory of endorsements, SOLOMON and HMM, are briefly described. GRANT, a knowledge system that finds sources of funding for research proposals, was developed to explore the utility of semantic matching in uncertain domains. The basic mode of inference used in GRANT is plausible inference.

Descriptors:

• *COMPUTER PROGRAMMING
• *LOGIC
• *REASONING
• MATCHING
• SEMANTICS
• PLANNING
• ACQUISITION
• DECISION MAKING

Subject Categories:

• Computer Programming and Software

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE