Extending the Mathematics in Qualitative Process Theory

Book One

Volume

Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 6

Engineering Problem Solving

We present a semi-quantitative extension to the qualitative value and relationship representations in Qualitative Process (QP) theory. Examination of a detailed example reveals a number of limitations in the current ability of QP theory to analyze physical situations. The source of those limitations is traced in part to the qualitative mathematics used in QP theory. An extension to this mathematics is then presented and shown capable of eliminating many of these limitations, at the price of requiring additional system specific information about the system being modelled.