Information-oriented computation with baby-sit
Erkan Tın, Varol Akman · CogPrints (University of Southampton) · 1996
Information-Oriented Computation with BABY-SIT / 2This yields a rich set of data types.Abstract situations can be viewed as models of real situations.They are set-theoretic entities that capture only some of the features of real situations, but are amenable to computation.We de ne abstract situations as structures consisting of a set of parametric infons.Information can be partitioned into situations by de ning a hierarchy between situations.A situation can be larger, having other situations as its subparts.For example, an utterance situation for a sentence consists of the utterance situations for each word forming the sentence.The part-of relation of situation theory can be used to build hierarchies among situations and the notion of nested information can be accommodated.Being in a situation, one can derive information about other situations connected to it in some way.For example, from an utterance situation it is possible to obtain information about the situation it describes.Accessing information both via a hierarchy of situations and explicit relationships among them requires a computational mechanism.This mechanism will put information about situation types related in some way into the comfortable reach of the agent and can be made possible by a proper implementation of the supports relation, j=, of situation theory.Constraints enable one situation to provide information about another and serve as links.When viewed as a backward-chaining rule, a constraint can provide a channel for information ow between types of situations, from the antecedent to the consequent.This means that such a constraint behaves as a `de nition' for its consequent part.Another way of viewing a constraint is as a forward-chaining rule.This enables an agent to alter its environment.