Resolving conflicts in action descriptions

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We study resolving conflicts between an action description and a set of conditions (possibly obtained from observations), in the context of action languages. In this formal framework, the meaning of an action description can be represented by a transition diagram—a directed graph whose nodes correspond to states and whose edges correspond to transitions describing action occurrences. This allows us to characterize conflicts by means of states and transitions of the given action description that violate some given conditions. We introduce a basic method to resolve such conflicts by modifying the action description, and discuss how the user can be supported in obtaining more preferred solutions. For that, we identify helpful questions the user may ask (e.g., which specific parts of the action description cause a conflict with some given condition), and we provide answers to them using properties of action descriptions and transition diagrams. Finally, we discuss the computational complexity of these questions in terms of related decision problems.