Dung's Argumentation Framework: Unveiling the Expressive Power with Inconsistent Databases

TL;DR

This paper explores the expressive power of Dung's argumentation framework by establishing a polynomial-time translation between argumentation frameworks and inconsistent databases with integrity constraints, revealing new insights into their relationship.

Contribution

It introduces a novel translation method from argumentation frameworks to inconsistent databases, connecting semantics and repairs, and analyzing complexity transfer.

Findings

Established a polynomial-time translation between AFs and databases.

Connected database repairs with AF semantics like stable and semi-stable.

Provided insights into the complexity and expressive power of AFs in database contexts.

Abstract

The connection between inconsistent databases and Dung's abstract argumentation framework has recently drawn growing interest. Specifically, an inconsistent database, involving certain types of integrity constraints such as functional and inclusion dependencies, can be viewed as an argumentation framework in Dung's setting. Nevertheless, no prior work has explored the exact expressive power of Dung's theory of argumentation when compared to inconsistent databases and integrity constraints. In this paper, we close this gap by arguing that an argumentation framework can also be viewed as an inconsistent database. We first establish a connection between subset-repairs for databases and extensions for AFs, considering conflict-free, naive, admissible, and preferred semantics. Further, we define a new family of attribute-based repairs based on the principle of maximal content preservation. The effectiveness of these repairs is then highlighted by connecting them to stable, semi-stable, and stage semantics. Our main contributions include translating an argumentation framework into a database together with integrity constraints. Moreover, this translation can be achieved in polynomial time, which is essential in transferring complexity results between the two formalisms.