Title: Amalgamating Knowledge Bases
Authors: V.S. Subrahmanian.
Abstract
Integrating knowledge from multiple sources is an important aspect of automated reasoning systems. When different knowledge bases are used to store knowledge provided by multiple sources, we are faced with the problem of integrating multiple knowledge bases: under these circumstances, we are also confronted with the prospect of inconsistency. In this paper, we present a uniform theoretical framework, based on annotated logics, for amalgamating multiple knowledge bases when these knowledge bases (possibly) contain inconsistencies, uncertainties, and non-monotonic modes of negation. We will show that annotated logics may be used, with some modifications, to mediate between different knowledge bases. The multiple knowledge bases are amalgamated by a transformation of the individual knowledge bases into new annotated logic programs, together with the addition of a new axiom scheme. We will characterize the declarative semantics of such amalgamated knowledge bases, and study how the semantics of the amalgam is related to the semantics of the individual knowledge bases being combined.
This paper appears in: ACM Transactions on Database Systems, 19, 2, pps 291--331, 1994. The postcript copy of the paper can be found here.