Title: Connecting Dynamic Epistemic and Temporal Epistemic Logics For Multi-Agent Systems

Abstract:

I will give a relation between a logic of knowledge and change, with a semantics on Kripke models, and a logic of knowledge and time, with a semantics on interpreted systems. In particular, given an epistemic state (pointed Kripke model with equivalence relations) and a formula in a dynamic epistemic logic (a logic describing the consequences of epistemic actions), we construct an interpreted system relative to that epistemic state and that formula that satisfies the translation of the formula into a temporal epistemic logic. The construction involves that the protocol that is implicit in the dynamic epistemic formula, i.e. the set of sequences of actions being executed to evaluate the formula, is made explicit. We first focus on the logic of knowledge and change that is known as public announcement logic, then generalize our results to a dynamic epistemic logic. The results presented are from a joint work with Dr. Hans van Ditmarsch, and Prof. Wiebe van der Hoek. In the end, I will share some latest thoughts on an extension of Multi-Agent Systems framework with a social network connecting agents.

Updated: Talk photo album

This is my correction suggestions to a college students in China, who is preparing an IELTS test. The topic is interesting. I thought the communication between us is a bit too closed. If I publish this in a blog, then all the people in the world have the potential to engage in a conversation, correcting more mistakes (includes mine) and giving better suggestions. In this sense, it is just a starter. I’ve removed the identification data.

Let’s embrace the power of openness and sharing.
–

Overall comments:

Dear XX:

I think your ability of handling single sentences has greatly improved. There are still typos and mistakes in grammar, but I believe you will be able to reduce them if you write it more often and more carefully. However, there is a fundamental thing that you should pay more attention to, i.e. your content. For example, you should read more in order to know what exactly make the unemployment rate so high, then you could avoid the problematic belief like the one in your last sentence. In my view, one main reason for the high unemployment rate in China is a sharp shrink of the need of products from oversea; if the economy does not need your talent, you will be out of jobs, no matter if you are interested in your major in your college or not. And one main reason for the high unemployment rate in USA is because of the credit shrink, as well as the transformation of jobs to the countries with cheaper labours such as China, India, etc. Also, the order of your contents organization could also be improved. It will always be good if you could give examples to explain your idea and support your argument.

Of course, this question is about the relation between unemployment and education. If I were you, I would consider these links: education improves overall knowledge and skills of work (e.g. knowing how to operate computers can do job faster than knowing how to use the abacus only.); when there is a job cut, the people with more knowledge and higher skills are less likely to lose their jobs; even they do lose their jobs, they are more likely to find another job, as they knowledge and skills make them more adaptable and competitive. You may wonder whether this is true in China, since a lot of graduates could not find their jobs, or desirable jobs. It is difficult to answer this doubt in a few sentences, but let me try. Because of the policies set by our government, the manufacturing factories, such as toy/clothes factories, electronics assembling factories are being favoured. They do not need a lot of graduates, since these jobs needs mainly low skill workers. Meanwhile, the universities expended their number of enrolment sharply in recent years and it makes the number of graduates also increased greatly. The Chinese economy does not need so many skillful workers. But things are different in USA. Their companies needs more talents for planning and designing products, and a low skill worker simply could not do such kind of things. Still, more skillful workers are more likely to find jobs, even if it is not their desirable jobs, whether in China or in USA.

You may argue that the IELTS only tests whether you can express your ideas in English fluently, but not the meaningfulness of your content. But I think you should not let a testing company limit your future. So do think harder. And I believe that you have the talent to improve yourself.

Keep thinking and Writing. And Good luck.

Ji

Hi,

In today’s class I announced a few things.

Course plan:
* Today: Distributed Objects (1)
* Friday Nov 27: Distributed Objects (2). Afternoon Lab: No New Assignments, but I will be there for your last Lab assignment.
* Monday Nov 30: Design Patterns/ Last Lab deadline.

– The following two lectures will not be included in the final exam. But I think they may fit your interests.

* Wednesday Dec 2: Reasoning about Multi-Agent Systems (It is about the research I did in my PhD. I think it might be more interesting than the course itself. There is also a relation to the course from the perspective of agents. ) / Last lecture assignment deadline (I will release the assignment today).
* Friday Dec 5: A Review Of This Course (I will review the important stuff we’ve discussed in the past. It might be helpful for you to prepare the final exam. And besides, there will be one last interesting thing I want  to show to you.) /Last Chance to ask me questions in person, as I will travel to Liverpool afterwords.

* Exam Time: 9am-11:30am December 10, 2009
* Location: NH125

Please do come to the next Wednesday’s class. The head of the department will come to let you do an evaluation (filling some forms) on this course, while I will not present in the class. The time slot is:

• 9:15-9:30 am on Wednesday, December 2ed.

After that, we will start an interesting talk on my research.

When I arrived in the classroom on time, there were few students, possibly due to the rain. But I was glad that most of you showed up eventually. There seems to be a separation between Canadian students and the Chinese Students.  So from the next class on, we use a mixture of seats policy:
The ones come after the fourth person should sit in the different side of the aisle from he or she did in the previous class. You are encouraged to know each other better, especially between Canadian girls and Chinese boys. (I omitted the other important option because there is no Chinese girls in the class. The Canadian boys could complain to the head or the admission manager of the dept.)

Yours,

Ji

• Lecture 17: Multiple Inheritance 2009/10/28
• Lecture 18: Polymorphism and Software Reuse2009/10/30
  
• Lecture 19: Polymorphism – Overloading 2009/11/02
• Lecture 20: Polymorphism – Overriding 2009/11/04 
• Lecture 21: Polymorphism – The Polymorphic Variable2009/11/06
• Lecture 22: Polymorphism – Generics 2009/11/09
• Lecture 23: Container Classes 2009/11/13

• Lecture 13: Case Study: The Solitaire Game 2009/10/14
• Lecture 14: Subclasses and Subtypes 2009/10/16
• Lecture 15: Static and Dynamic Behavior 2009/10/19
  • Mid-term exam 2009/10/23
• Lecture 16: Implications of Substitution 2009/10/26

I like this idea: Open and Free Access to high quality scientific work (papers, slides, videos etc). This is a good try. I think to make it even better, we should introduce Web2.0 elements to make it more interactive.

—Forwarded message—-

from MYV to Moshe Vardi
date Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 8:29 PM
subject [UAI] FIVE YEARS OF LOGICAL METHODS IN COMPUTER SCIENCE
mailing list uai.ENGR.ORST.EDU Filter messages from this mailing list

Dear Colleague:

We would like to bring the community up to date on the journal

Logical Methods in Computer Science
www.lmcs-online.org

We started this fully refereed, open access, free electronic journal in January 2005, intending to create a high-level platform for publications in all theoretical and practical areas in computer science involving logical methods, taken in a broad sense. We are now on Issue 3 of Volume 5 (there are four issues a year). So far, we have received more than 350 submissions of which we have published 162. In addition to individual submissions, our journal publishes special issues, e.g., of selected papers of high-level international conferences such as LICS, IJCAR, CAV, CSL, and RTA.

We are continuing actively to develop the journal. For example, we accept survey articles, and are developing `live’ surveys, which can be continually updated as knowledge progresses. In another direction, we are considering allowing authors to provide additional material of an expository nature, such as slides and videos, to enable them to interest a wider spectrum of readers in their contribution.

The journal is an overlay of CoRR, the computer science repository of arXiv. There are no fees for authors nor for readers. Every paper is refereed by two or more referees, and high standards are applied. The editorial board consists of about sixty top specialists in all areas of logic in computer science.

The journal is covered by Mathematical Reviews, the ISI Web of Knowledge, and the DBLP Database.

We welcome your comments and suggestions, and we seek your contributions! For more information please consult our web pages:

www.lmcs-online.org

Yours,

Editor-in-Chief: Dana S. Scott
Managing Editors: Benjamin C. Pierce
Gordon D. Plotkin
Moshe Y. Vardi
Executive Editors: Jiri Adamek
Stefan Milius