Defeasible Reasoning about Electric Consumptions

Conflicting rules and rules with exceptions are very common in natural language specification of behaviour of devices in real-world context. This is common exactly because those specifications are processed by humans, and humans apply common sense, and strategic reasoning about those rules. In this paper we deal with the challenge of providing, step by step, a model of energy saving rule specification and processing methods that are to be used to reduce the consumptions of a system of devices, and appear conflictual and typical (not universal). We argue that a very good nonmonotonical approach to such a problem can lie upon defeasible logic. We provide a formalism, that, starting with rules specified at an abstract level, but compatibly with natural aspects of this specification, including temporal constraints, and power absorption ones, generates the extension of a basic defeasible logic, that correspond to turned on or off devices.