Semi-negative abductive logic programs with implicative integrity constraints: Semantics and properties

We propose a novel semantics for semi-negative abductive logic programs (i.e. where the only negative literals are abducibles) with implicative integrity constraints (i.e. in the form of implications). This semantics combines answer set programming (with the implicative integrity constraints) and argumentation (for relevant explanations with the logic program, supported by abducibles). We argue that this semantics is better suited than the standard semantics to deal with applications of abductive logic programming and prove some properties of this semantics. We motivate our approach in an agent-based access control policy scenario. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.