The DAML-S Process Model is designed to support the application of AI planning techniques to the automated composition of Web services. SHOP2 is an Hierarchical Task Network (HTN) planner well-suited for working with the Process Model. We have proven the correspondence between the semantics of SHOP2 and the situation calculus semantics of the Process Model. We have also implemented a system whi...

The situation calculus is a logical language for representing changes. It was first introduced by McCarthy in 1963,1 and described in further details by McCarthy and Hayes [29] in 1969. The basic concepts in the situation calculus are situations, actions and fluents. Briefly, actions are what make the dynamic world change from one situation to another when performed by agents. Fluents are situa...

Personalization is becoming increasingly important in agent programming, particularly as it relates to the Web. We propose to develop underspecified, task-specific agent programs, and to automatically personalize them to the preferences of individual users. To this end, we propose a framework for agent programming that integrates rich, nonMarkovian, qualitative user preferences expressed in a l...

We apply circumscription to formalizing reasoning about the effects of actions in the framework of the situation calculus. The axiomatic description of causal connections between actions and changes allows us to solve the qualification problem and the frame problem using only simple forms of circumscription. The method is applied to the Hanks—McDermott shooting problem and to a blocks world in ...

Ginsberg and Smith [6, 71 propose a new method for reasoning about action, which they term a possible worlds approach (P WA). The PWA is au elegant, simple, and potentially very powerful domain-independent technique that has proven fruitful in other areas of AI [13, 51. In the domain of reasoning about action, Ginsberg and Smith offer the PWA as a solution to the frame problem (What facts about...

In social interactions, it is common for one party to possess more or better knowledge about a specific transaction than others. In this situation, parties who are more knowledgeable might perform opportunistic behavior to others, which is against others’ interest thus leading to relationship deterioration. In this study, we propose a formal model of opportunism based on situation calculus. Spe...

We propose a representation scheme for the declarative formalization of heuristics for action selection based on the situation calculus and circumscription. The formalism is applied to represent a number of heuristics for moving blocks in order to solve planning problems in the blocks world. An advice taking scenario is presented to illustrate how the action selection strategy of a program can ...

We formalize the notion of a Cartesian situation in the situation calculus, a property that imposes strong structural conditions on the configuration of a set of possible worlds. Focusing on action theories that use the standard Scherl and Levesque account of knowledge and action, we show how Cartesian situations give rise to a set of decomposition properties for simplifying epistemic formulae ...