Encoding Argumentation Semantics by Boolean Algebra

In this paper, a Boolean algebra approach is proposed to encode various acceptability semantics for abstract argumentation frameworks, where each semantics can be equivalently encoded into several Boolean constraint models based on Boolean matrices and a family of Boolean operations between them. Then, we show that these models can be easily translated into logic programs, and can be solved by a constraint solver over Boolean variables. In addition, we propose some querying strategies to accelerate the calculation of the grounded, stable and complete extensions. Finally, we describe an experimental study on the performance of our encodings according to different semantics and querying strategies.