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SPINdle
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SPINdle (version 2.2.2)                                       
Copyright (C) 2009-2012 NICTA Ltd.

This software and its documentation is distributed under the terms of the
FSF Lesser GNU Public License (see LICESNE for details).
                  
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; This is free software, and 
you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; for details type:                                 
                  java -jar spindle-<version>.jar --license       

This release of SPINdle requires JDK 1.6 (or above).


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Description
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This software, written in Java, implements reasoner to compute the consequence
of theories in defeasible logic.  The implementation covers both basic 
defeasible logic and modal defeasible logic.  In version 1.x.x, the inference 
process for basic defeasible logic is implemented based on the algorithm 
proposed by Maher[1] and the reasoner for modal defeasible logics implements the 
algorithms of Governatori & Rotolo[2]; while in version 2.x.x, the 
implementations (for both SDL and MDL) are based on the new reasoning algorithm 
as described in Lam & Governatori [3].

The different of approaches used in version 1.x.x and 2.x.x is due to the fact
that, in Maher's approach, the support of literals under superiority relations 
cannot be blocked after the superiority removal transformation. That is, in 
situations where an inferior rule was defeated by a superior rule, the support
of the inferior rule still exist which subsequently affecting the conclusions
being derived.

However, in version 2.x.x, this problem is resolved since the new approach that 
we devised did not require the removal of superiority relations, and can 
preserve all the representational properties of the defeasible theories.
 

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Using SPINdle
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To use SPINdle, type:
  java -jar spindle-<version>.jar [--options] [file1 | dir1] [file2 | dir2] ...

where options include:
    --version                       show software version
    --license                       show software license

    --console 						run in console mode
    
    --log.level                     log level (ALL,INFO,FINE,FINEST,etc)
    --app.showProgress              is show reasoning progress
    --app.showProgress.timeInterval show progress time interval
    --app.saveResult                is save conclusions
    --app.result.folder             folder for storing conclusions
    
    --reasoner.version              reasoner version to be used
    --reasoner.logInference         log rule status while reasoning
    --reasoner.ambiguityPropagation ambiguity propagation support
    --reasoner.wellFoundedSemantics well-founded semantics support
                                    

	
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Building from source
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The SPINdle build system is based on Jakarta Ant, and is rely on a build file 
written in XML as building instructions.  For more information please refer
to "http://ant.apache.org".

If everything is right, you can type:
        ant dist
to compile the source code and archive it as an executable jar file.        
      
        
2. Build targets
The build system is not responsible for compiling SPINdle into a jar file,
but also responsible for creating JavaDoc documentations and other tasks,
such as:
compile - compiles the source code (ONLY).
dist    - compile the source code and archive it as an executable jar file.
run     - run the reasoner.
javadoc - generates the API documentation in ./docs/api.
clean   - restore the distribution to its original and clean state.

For example, to build the samples, type:
                                ant compile
                                
To generate the API documentation, type:
                                ant javadoc

To learn the details of what each target does, please read the build.xml
file.


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Contact
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Author: H.-P. Lam ([email protected])


Support
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Any problem with this release can be report to the author directly.  If you
are sending email to the author make sure to add the [SPINdle] prefix to
the subject.

Thank you for using SPINdle


Latest Documentation
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The SPINdle userguide can be downloaded using the following URL:
          http://spindle.data61.csiro.au/spindle/documentation.html


Reference
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[1] Michael J. Maher, Propositional Defeasible Logic has Linear Complexity. 
    Theory and Practice of Logic Programming, 1(6), 691-711 (2001)

[2] Guido Governatori and Antonino Rotolo, BIO logical agents: Norms,  
    beliefs, intentions in defeasible logic, Journal of Autonomous Agents and 
    Multi-Agent Systems 17(1), pp. 36-69 (2008)

[3] H.-P. Lam and Guido Governatori, What are the Necessity Rules in Defeasible 
    Reasoning?, Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Logic 
    Programming and Nonmonotonic Reasoning (LPNMR-11), pp. 187-192, (2011)