Partial singleton closure under weak composition, or partial singleton (weak) path-consistency for short, is essential for approximating satisfiability of qualitative constraints networks. Briefly put, partial singleton path-consistency ensures that each base relation of each of the constraints of a qualitative constraint network can define a singleton relation in the corresponding partial closure of that network under weak composition, or in its corresponding partially (weak) path-consistent subnetwork for short. In particular, partial singleton path-consistency has been shown to play a crucial role in tackling the minimal labeling problem of a qualitative constraint network, which is the problem of finding the strongest implied constraints of that network. In this paper, we propose a stronger local consistency that couples partial singleton path-consistency with the idea of collectively deleting certain unfeasible base relations by exploiting singleton checks. We then propose an efficient algorithm for enforcing this consistency that, given a qualitative constraint network, performs fewer constraint checks than the respective algorithm for enforcing partial singleton path-consistency in that network. We formally prove certain properties of our new local consistency, and motivate its usefulness through demonstrative examples and a preliminary experimental evaluation with qualitative constraint networks of Interval Algebra.
@InProceedings{sioutis_et_al:LIPIcs.TIME.2017.19, author = {Sioutis, Michael and Paparrizou, Anastasia and Condotta, Jean-Fran\c{c}ois}, title = {{Collective Singleton-Based Consistency for Qualitative Constraint Networks}}, booktitle = {24th International Symposium on Temporal Representation and Reasoning (TIME 2017)}, pages = {19:1--19:17}, series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)}, ISBN = {978-3-95977-052-1}, ISSN = {1868-8969}, year = {2017}, volume = {90}, editor = {Schewe, Sven and Schneider, Thomas and Wijsen, Jef}, publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik}, address = {Dagstuhl, Germany}, URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.TIME.2017.19}, URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-79237}, doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.TIME.2017.19}, annote = {Keywords: Qualitative constraint network, qualitative spatial and temporal reasoning, partial singleton path-consistency, local consistency, minimal labeling pr} }
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