Search

Explanations are a technique for reasoning about constraint propagation, which have been applied in many learning, backjumping and user-interaction algorithms for constraint programming. To date explanations for constraints have usually been recorded ˵eagerly″ when constraint propagation happens, which leads to inefficient use of time and space, because many will never be used. In this paper we show that it is possible and highly effective to calculate explanations retrospectively when they are needed. To this end, we implement ˵lazy″ explanations in a state of the art learning framework. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the technique: we achieve reduction in the number of explanations calculated up to a factor of 200 and reductions in overall solve time up to a factor of 5. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common approach to the process of reaching agreements is the publication of templates that guide parties to create agreement offers that are then sent for approval to the template publisher. In such scenario, a common issue the template publisher must address is to check whether the agreement offer received is compliant or not with the template. Furthermore, in the latter case, an automated explanation of the reasons of such non-compliance is very appealing. Unfortunately, although there are proposals that deal with checking the compliance, the problem of providing an automated explanation to the non-compliance has not yet been studied in this context. In this paper, we take a subset of the WS-Agreement recommendation as a starting point and we provide a rigorous definition of the explanation for the non-compliance between templates and agreement offers. Furthermore, we propose the use of constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) solvers to implement it and provide a proof-of-concept implementation. The advantage of using CSPs is that it allows expressive service level objectives inside SLAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main goals in prevention of cutaneous melanoma is early diagnosis and surgical excision. Dermatologists work in order to define the different skin lesion types based on dermatoscopic features to improve early detection. We propose a method called SOMEX with the aim of helping experts to improve the characterization of dermatoscopic melanoma types. SOMEX combines clustering and generalization to perform knowledge discovery. First, SOMEX uses Self-Organizing Maps to identify groups of similar melanoma. Second, SOMEX builds general descriptions of clusters applying the anti-unification concept. These descriptions can be interpreted as explanations of groups of melanomas. Experiments prove that explanations are very useful for experts to reconsider the characterization of melanoma classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction The great French philosopher-historian of science Emile Meyerson (1859–1933) began his 1929 Encyclopedia Britannica article ‘Explanation’ with the following words: What is meant by explaining a phenomenon? There is no need to insist on the importance of this question. It is obvious that the entire structure of science will necessarily depend upon the reply given. (Meyerson 1929: 984) Meyerson's conclusion would be difficult to overstate: the structure of any given science — indeed, of science itself — is developed around the ideal of explanation peculiar to it. Explanations in physics differ formally and materially from those in biology; and both differ from explanations provided by geologists and sociologists; even more generally, explanations in science differ widely from those given in, say, law or religion. Meyerson on the two modes of explanation From the publication of the 1908 first edition (of three) of his monumental Identité et Realité (Identity and Reality) until his death in 1933, Emile Meyerson was not only France's dominant philosopher of science, he was one of the most important philosophers of science throughout the Western world. In the opening chapter of Identity and Reality, Meyerson speaks of two sharply opposed modes of explanation: the ‘mode of law’, and the ‘mode of cause’. Each mode has ancient philosophical roots. Law-explanations may with some justice be traced to Heraclitus's dictum that everything changes except the law of change itself. Cause–explanations, according to Meyerson, trace back through atomic theory all the way to Parmenides's notion of the unchanging self-identity of being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]