Database Preferences Queries - A Possibilistic Logic Approach with Symbolic Priorities

Allel Hadjali (1) , Souhila Kaci (2) , Henri Prade (3)

1 IRISA - Institut de Recherche en Informatique et Systèmes Aléatoires
2 CRIL - Centre de Recherche en Informatique de Lens
3 IRIT-ADRIA - Argumentation, Décision, Raisonnement, Incertitude et Apprentissage

The paper presents a new approach to database preferences queries, where preferences are represented in a possibilistic logic manner, using symbolic weights. The symbolic weights may be processed without assessing their precise value, which leaves the freedom for the user to not specify any priority among the preferences. The user may also enforce a (partial) ordering between them, if necessary. The approach can be related to the processing of fuzzy queries whose components are conditionally weighted in terms of importance. Here, importance levels are symbolically processed, and refinements of both Pareto ordering and minimum ordering are used. The representational power of the proposed setting is stressed, while the approach is compared with database Best operator-like methods and with the CP-net approach developed in artificial intelligence. The paper also provides a structured and rather broad overview of the different lines of research in the literature dealing with the handling of preferences in database queries.

Mots clés: preferences queries; possibilistic logic

Domaines: Intelligence artificielle [cs.AI]

Allel Hadjali, Souhila Kaci, Henri Prade. Database Preferences Queries - A Possibilistic Logic Approach with Symbolic Priorities. 5th International Symposium Foundations of Information and Knowledge Systems (FoIKS 2008), Feb 2008, Pisa, Italy. pp.291-310, ⟨10.1007/978-3-540-77684-0_20⟩. ⟨hal-00800744⟩