ESmodels: An Epistemic Specification Solver

TL;DR

ESmodels is a platform for experimenting with epistemic specifications, focusing on semantics, language, reasoning algorithms, and applications like planning and constraint satisfaction.

Contribution

It introduces a new epistemic specification language with a single modal operator and transformation rules, along with algorithms and optimization techniques.

Findings

The language can represent complex modal operators through transformations.

ESmodels demonstrates applications in conformant planning.

Optimization approaches improve reasoning efficiency.

Abstract

(To appear in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP)) ESmodels is designed and implemented as an experiment platform to investigate the semantics, language, related reasoning algorithms, and possible applications of epistemic specifications.We first give the epistemic specification language of ESmodels and its semantics. The language employs only one modal operator K but we prove that it is able to represent luxuriant modal operators by presenting transformation rules. Then, we describe basic algorithms and optimization approaches used in ESmodels. After that, we discuss possible applications of ESmodels in conformant planning and constraint satisfaction. Finally, we conclude with perspectives.