The hybrid phenomena theory
Erling A. Woods · International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence · 1991
The Hybrid Phenomena Theory (HPT) is a framework for formalizing how dynamic state space models of physical systems are built from first principles. The HPT descends from the Qualitative Process Theory (QPT), [Forbus, 1984], from which it inherits basic concepts like views, phenomena and influences. However, the HPT redefines some of these concepts in a more strict manner in order to represent knowledge of physics with the accuracy needed to develop full parametric models. Specifically, influences may specify quantified non-linear functions of several variables. A mechanism denoted subsumption is introduced to ensure consistency in the emerging models when different simplifying assumptions are made. The HPT has been implemented in CLOS.