Skip to main content

The Event Calculus Explained

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Artificial Intelligence Today

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 1600))

Abstract

This article presents the event calculus, a logic-based formalism for representing actions and their effects. A circumscriptive solution to the frame problem is deployed which reduces to monotonic predicate completion. Using a number of benchmark examples from the literature, the formalism is shown to apply to a variety of domains, including those featuring actions with indirect effects, actions with non-deterministic effects, concurrent actions, and continuous change.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. A.B. Baker, Nonmonotonic Reasoning in the Framework of the Situation Calculus, Artificial Intelligence, vol. 49 (1991), pp. 5–23.

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  2. J.M. Crawford and D.W. Etherington, Formalizing Reasoning about Change: A Qualitative Reasoning Approach, Proceedings AAAI 92, pp. 577–583.

    Google Scholar 

  3. P. Doherty, Reasoning about Action and Change Using Occlusion, Proceedings ECAI 94, pp. 401–405.

    Google Scholar 

  4. M. Gelfond, V. Lifschitz and A. Rabinov, What Are the Limitations of the Situation Calculus? in Essays in Honor of Woody Bledsoe, ed R. Boyer, Kluwer Academic (1991), pp. 167–179.

    Google Scholar 

  5. A.R. Haas, The Case for Domain-Specific Frame Axioms, Proceedings of the 1987 Workshop on the Frame Problem, pp. 343–348.

    Google Scholar 

  6. S. Hanks and D. McDermott, Nonmonotonic Logic and Temporal Projection, Artificial Intelligence, vol. 33 (1987), pp. 379–412.

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. G.N. Kartha and V. Lifschitz, Actions with Indirect Effects (Preliminary Report), Proceedings 1994 Knowledge Representation Conference (KR 94), pp. 341–350.

    Google Scholar 

  8. G.N. Kartha and V. Lifschitz, A Simple Formalization of Actions Using Circumscription, Proceedings IJCAI 95, pp. 1970–1975.

    Google Scholar 

  9. R.A. Kowalski, Database Updates in the Event Calculus, Journal of Logic Programming, vol. 12 (1992), pp. 121–146.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  10. R.A. Kowalski and M.J. Sergot, A Logic-Based Calculus of Events, New Generation Computing, vol. 4 (1986), pp. 67–95.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. V. Lifschitz, Circumscription, in The Handbook of Logic in Artificial Intelligence and Logic Programming, Volume 3: Nonmonotonic Reasoning and Uncertain Reasoning, ed. D.M. Gabbay, C.J. Hogger and J.A. Robinson, Oxford University Press (1994), pp. 297–352.

    Google Scholar 

  12. F. Lin and Y. Shoham, Concurrent Actions in the Situation Calculus, Proceedings AAAI 92, pp. 590–595.

    Google Scholar 

  13. J. McCarthy, Circumscription — A Form of Non-Monotonic Reasoning, Artificial Intelligence, vol. 13 (1980), pp. 27–39.

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  14. J. McCarthy, Mathematical Logic in Artificial Intelligence, Daedalus, Winter 1988, pp. 297–311.

    Google Scholar 

  15. J. McCarthy and P.J. Hayes, Some Philosophical Problems from the Standpoint of Artificial Intelligence, in Machine Intelligence 4, ed. D. Michie and B. Meltzer, Edinburgh University Press (1969), pp. 463–502.

    Google Scholar 

  16. R.S. Miller and M.P. Shanahan, Reasoning about Discontinuities in the Event Calculus, Proceedings 1996 Knowledge Representation Conference (KR 96), pp. 63–74.

    Google Scholar 

  17. R. Reiter, A Logic for Default Reasoning, Artificial Intelligence, vol. 13 (1980), pp. 81–132.

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  18. R. Reiter, The Frame Problem in the Situation Calculus: A Simple Solution (Sometimes) and a Completeness Result for Goal Regression, in Artificial Intelligence and Mathematical Theory of Computation: Papers in Honor of John McCarthy, ed. V. Lifschitz, Academic Press (1991), pp. 359–380.

    Google Scholar 

  19. E. Sandewall, Features and Fluents, Technical Report LiTH-IDAR-91-29 (first review version), Department of Computer and Information Science, Linköping University, Sweden, 1991.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  20. E. Sandewall, Features and Fluents: The Representation of Knowledge about Dynamical Systems, Volume 1, Oxford University Press (1994).

    Google Scholar 

  21. L.K. Schubert, Monotonic Solution of the Frame Problem in the Situation Calculus, in Knowledge Representation and Defeasible Reasoning, ed. H. Kyburg, R. Loui and G. Carlson, Kluwer (1990), pp. 23–67.

    Google Scholar 

  22. M.P. Shanahan, Representing Continuous Change in the Event Calculus, Proceedings ECAI 90, pp. 598–603.

    Google Scholar 

  23. M.P. Shanahan, Robotics and the Common Sense Informatic Situation, Proceedings ECAI 96, pp. 684–688.

    Google Scholar 

  24. M.P. Shanahan, Solving the Frame Problem: A Mathematical Investigation of the Common Sense Law of Inertia, MIT Press, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  25. M.P. Shanahan, Event Calculus Planning Revisited, Proceedings 4th European Conference on Planning (ECP 97), Springer Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence no. 1348 (1997), pp. 390–402.

    Google Scholar 

  26. M.P. Shanahan, Reinventing Shakey, Working Notes of the 1998 AAAI Fall Symposium on Cognitive Robotics, pp. 125–135.

    Google Scholar 

  27. M.P. Shanahan, The Ramification Problem in the Event Calculus, Proceedings IJCAI 99, to appear.

    Google Scholar 

  28. M. Thielscher, Ramification and Causality, Artificial Intelligence, vol. 89 (1997), pp. 317–364.

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1999 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Shanahan, M. (1999). The Event Calculus Explained. In: Wooldridge, M.J., Veloso, M. (eds) Artificial Intelligence Today. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 1600. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48317-9_17

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48317-9_17

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-66428-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48317-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics