Mechanical systems, of the kinds which are of interest for qualitative reasoning, are characterized by a set of real-valued parameters, each of which is a piecewise continuous function of real-valued time. A temporal logic is introduced which allows the description of parameters, both in their continuous intervals and around their breakpoints, and which also allows the description of actions be...

Modelling the beliefs of an agent who lacks logical omniscience has been a major concern recently. While most of the work has concentrated on propositional logics of belief, this paper primarily addresses issues raised by adding quantifiers to such logics. In particular, we are focusing on quantifying in and the distinction between "knowing what" and "knowing that". After arguing why a model of...

In this paper we introduce and formalise dynamic goal hierarchies. We begin with a formal definition of goals, according to which they are rational desires. In particular, we require that an agent’s goals are coherent; that is, that the agent believes that each goal is jointly realisable with all of the goals which the agent considers to be more important. Thus an agent’s goals form a hierarchy...

This memo presents current research in our laboratory. We address the following research topics: 1. Semantics-based assessment of nonmonotonic entailment methods for actions and change. 2. Implementation techniques for nonmonotonic entailment methods. 3. Algorithmic methods for planning and temporal reasoning. 4. Hybrid modelling of physical systems. 5. Design methodology for intelligent autono...