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Author: Michael Thielscher
Article title: A Theory of Dynamic Diagnosis
Publ. type: Article
Volume: 2
Article No: 11
Language: English
Abstract [en]: Diagnosis is, in general, more than a mere passive reasoning task. It often requires to actively produce observations by performing a test series on a faulty system. We present a theory of diagnosis which captures this dynamic aspect by appealing to Action Theory. The reactions of a system under healthy condition are modeled as indirect effects, so-called ramifications, of actions performed by the diagnostician. Under abnormal circumstances - i.e., if certain aspects or components of the system are faulty-one or more of these ramifications fail to materialize. Ramifications admitting exceptions is shown to giving rise to a hitherto unnoticed challenge - a challenge much like the one raised by the famous Yale Shooting counter-example in the context of the Frame Problem. Meeting this challenge is inevitable when searching for "good" diagnoses. As a solution, we adapt from a recent causality-based solution to the Qualification Problem the key principle of initial minimization. In this way, when suggesting a diagnosis our theory of dynamic diagnosis exploits causal information, in addition to possibly available, qualitative knowledge of the a priori likelihood of components to fail.

Some of the results in this paper have been preliminarily reported in (Thielscher, 1997a).
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Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press
Year: 1997
Available: 1997-10-07, Revised 1998-03-02
No. of pages: 26, Revised 28
Series: Linköping Electronic Articles in Computer and Information Science
ISSN: 1401-9841
REFERENCE TO THIS PAGE:
Thielscher, Michael (1997). A Theory of Dynamic Diagnosis in Linköping Electronic Articles in Computer and Information Science, Vol. 2. http://www.ep.liu.se/ea/cis/1997/011/. ( )