A hybrid model for sharing information between fuzzy, uncertain and default reasoning models in multi-agent systems

  • Authors:

  • Xudong Luo;Chengqi Zhang;Nicholas R. Jennings

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Electronics and Computer Science, The University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK;Faculty of Information Technology, University of Technology, Sydney, Broadway NSW 2007, Australia;Department of Electronics and Computer Science, The University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK

  • Venue:
  • International Journal of Uncertainty, Fuzziness and Knowledge-Based Systems
  • Year:
  • 2002

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Abstract

This paper develops a hybrid model which provides a unified framework for the following four kinds of reasoning: 1) Zadeh's fuzzy approximate reasoning; 2) truth-qualification uncertain reasoning with respect to fuzzy propositions; 3) fuzzy default reasoning (proposed, in this paper, as an extension of Reiter's default reasoning); and 4) truth-qualification uncertain default reasoning associated with fuzzy statements (developed in this paper to enrich fuzzy default reasoning with uncertain information). Our hybrid model has the following characteristics: 1) basic uncertainty is estimated in terms of words or phrases in natural language and basic propositions are fuzzy; 2) uncertainty, linguistically expressed, can be handled in default reasoning; and 3) the four kinds of reasoning models mentioned above and their combination models will be the special cases of our hybrid model. Moreover, our model allows the reasoning to be performed in the case in which the information is fuzzy, uncertain and partial. More importantly, the problems of sharing the information among heterogeneous fuzzy, uncertain and default reasoning models can be solved efficiently by using our model. Given this, our framework can be used as a basis for information sharing and exchange in knowledge-based multi-agent systems for practical applications such as automated group negotiations. Actually, to build such a foundation is the motivation of this paper.