EXPLAINING INCOMPATIBILITIES IN DATA DICTIONARY DESIGN THROUGH ABDUCTION

Logic programming with abductive reasoning is used during the realization of a data dictionary with a particular methodology. Some methodological steps are represented by means of a set of rules augmented with integrity constraints which capture the presence of incompatible concepts. Explanations for incompatibility can be inferred by exploiting abductive reasoning. To this end a new proposal for the computation of hypotheses in an abductive framework where the theory is a general logic program, is presented. It is based on a suitable manipulation of minimal three-valued models of the logic program. A method to compute three-valued minimal models of a general logic program is given