Qualitative reasoning is a facet of artificial intelligence research which attempts to provide a systematic approach to deduction and reason about qualitative relationships rather than quantitative properties. The Region Connection Calculus RCC5 for example, concerns the most basic spatial relationships between objects: overlaps, contains, is contained within, disjoint from, and equality. There are many other models, modelling everything from time to direction. There are implementations for navigational systems, robotics, and even the Angry Birds computer game.
The basic relationships in such a model can be combined via composition and other basic constructions such as union, to form an algebraic structure: the operations all have natural meaning in the context of constraint problems, such as disjunction of constraints. These algebraic objects provides an appropriate abstract framework for computer manipulation and simplification of relationships. Higher level algebraic and model-theoretic concepts play a deeper role in the understanding of constraint problem complexity.
The algebra of relations itself has quite a rich and long history, including some interesting entanglements with mathematical foundations and logic as well as combinatorics. The talk will include a general overview of all of this, as well as a more focussed exploration of the way these algebraic concepts impact qualitative reasoning.
How to participate in this seminar:
1. Book your nearest ACE facility;
2. Notify Vera Roshchina at RMIT (maths.colloquia@rmit.edu.au) to notify you will be participating.
No access to an ACE facility? Contact Maaike Wienk to arrange a temporary Visimeet licence for remote access (limited number of licences available – first come first serve)