Symbolic and Quantitative Approaches to Uncertainty

Book excerpt: A variety of formalisms have been developed to address such aspects of handling imperfect knowledge as uncertainty, vagueness, imprecision, incompleteness, and partial inconsistency. Some of the most familiar approaches in this research field are nonmonotonic logics, modal logics, probability theory (Bayesian and non-Bayesian), belief function theory, and fuzzy sets and possibility theory. ESPRIT Basic Research Action 3085, entitled Defeasible Reasoning and Uncertainty Management Systems (DRUMS), aims to contribute to the elucidation of similarities and differences between these formalisms. It consists of 11 active European research groups. The European Conference on Symbolic and Quantitative Approaches to Uncertainty (ESQAU) provides a forum for these groups to meet and discuss their scientific results. This volume contains 42 contributions accepted for the ESQAU meeting held in October 1991 in Marseille, together with 12 articles presenting the activities of the DRUMS groups and two invited presentations.