Temporal Causal Abduction

Abstract

The paper is devoted to presentation of the idea of Temporal Causal Networks (TCN). Temporal Causal Networks constitute a tool for representing and dealing with causal dependencies propagation over time. A temporal causal network is a causal network incorporating explicit representation of time during which its symptoms/nodes are valid, not valid, or unknown. The atemporal causal structure is basically an AND/OR/NOT causal graph, i.e. a causal graph incorporating basic logical connectives for the representation of different types of causal dependencies. The presented approach uses a specific time constraints propagation algorithm to determine possible system behavior in time. The main application includes simulation, monitoring and elements of diagnostic reasoning for dynamic systems with explicit time representation.