CLAUSE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (CMS)

This paper provides an extension to the study of the clause management system (CMS) proposed by Reiter and de Kleer. The CMS is adapted specifically for aiding a reasoning system in explanations generation. The reasoning system transmits propositional formulae representing its knowledge to the CMS and in return, it requests the CMS for minimal and consistent explanations of a query with respect to the CMS knowledge base. The CMS knowledge base is represented by a set of prime implicates. The classification of implicates as minimal, prime, trivial, and minimal trivial is carefully examined. Similarly, the notion of a support for a clause including minimal, prime, trivial, and minimal trivial is also elaborated. The methods to compute these supports from implicates and a preference ordering scheme expressible by logical specificity for the set of supports for a given clause are also presented. The generalization of the notion of a minimal support for a conjunction of clauses is also shown. Finally, two logic‐based diagnostic reasoning paradigms aided by the CMS are shown to exemplify the functionality of the CMS.