Working with Preferences: Less Is More

The author received her Habilitation à diriger des recherches for her work on this subject from the Centre de Recherche en Informatique de Lens, Université d'Artois; she has given seminars and tutorials on this topic at related conferences and workshops.

Compact Preference Representation Languages.- Advanced Nonmonotonic Logics of Preferences.- A Logical Reading of Conditional Preference Networks.- Positive and Negative Preferences.- Preference-Based Argumentation.- Rank-Ordering Outcomes Without Numerical Aggregation Function.- When It Is a Matter of Preferences in Database Queries.- Preference-Based Question Answering Systems.- Negotiation with Goals and Rejections.- Conclusion and Perspectives.- Bibliography.

From the reviews:

"In the area of artificial intelligence and cognition, several theories have been developed concerning preferences. The theories represent various ways to model or mathematically represent preferences, and various ways of reasoning using these representations of preferences. The area is currently undergoing considerable research. This book provides an overview of many of these theories and includes a chapter on the psychology of preferences. Subsequent chapters discuss reasoning in database queries, argumentation theory, temporal reasoning, and multiple criteria. ... The theories are illustrated with practical examples, and some of the relations are shown with diagrams. Professionals who need to develop solutions involving preferences will be able to utilize the theories. The book works as a survey book on preferences or as a useful textbook for a graduate-level course on preferences." Maulik A. Dave, ACM Computing Reviews, May 2012

"The book will interest readers who want to have a fairly comprehensive presentation of the various frameworks that deal with expressing preferences. Every chapter ends with a good bibliography, which facilitates access to the literature. ... Every definition and every algorithm is illustrated by a simple but well chosen example that usually captures well enough the notion or the algorithm ... ." (Éric Martin, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1239, 2012)