Consistent query answering using relational databases through argumentation

Abstract

This paper introduces a framework that integrates a reasoner based on defeasible argumentation with a large information repository backed by one or several relational databases. In our scenario, we assume that the databases involved are updated by external independent applications, possibly introducing inconsistencies in a particular database, or leading to inconsistency among the subset of databases that refer to the same data. Argumentation reasoning will contribute with the possibility of obtaining consistent answers from the information repository with the properties described. We present the Database Integration for Defeasible Logic Programming (DBI-DeLP) framework, which enables commonsense reasoning based on Defeasible Logic Programming (DeLP) by extending the system capabilities to handle large amounts of data and providing consistent answers for queries posed to it. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.